Actually being poor in America is worse than being poor in most other OECD nations; most first world countries have unemployment benefits that don't have time limits (they may have performance limits, i.e. you need to apply for X amount of jobs per week, etc). A number of them have free health care (and even some 2nd world countries have this). A non trivial number have free university education, or a university education that is paid out of your taxes (after an earning threshold) and the outstanding balance forgiven after 25 year or so. The USA can at times be a brutal place to be poor; even still this can be better than a large number of 2nd world countries, and almost all 3rd world countries.
That is not indicative of social mobility, the tax liability on the poor and the middle class in the US is considerably lower than in Europe.
Wages are on the other hand considerably higher.
This holds true even for low income jobs, McDonalds pays nearly 10$ an hour in the US vs 4.35 GBP in the UK, or 6.50 EUR in Germany (there are comming minimum wage changes in Germany so it will increase to about 8 EUR in 2017) and US those workers are taxed at considerably lower rates.
The current minimum wage in the UK is £7.20, and what's more if you are on the minimum wage in the UK the government will frequently top that up with tax credits (money paid directly to the claimant either weekly or monthly) and possibly housing benefit (money paid to either the claimant or landlord, and in some cases help to pay your mortgage) as well, although these typically only apply to people who are earning less than an equivalent to a full time minimum wage job and/or have children.
Despite your claims about socialization of higher education - which is perfectly true - America actually graduates a lot more people out of college than European countries. A lot more.
There is a better 'safety net' in most European countries, but there is a lot more opportunity in America. It's 100% true that 'anyone can make it' - as long as 'making it' means having a job, owning a home, in a regular place like Cleveland or Pittsburg or whatever.
Europe has a much, much stronger class system than the US.
American companies have tons of workers and professionals who came from poor situations. Europe is not like that at all.
> Despite your claims about socialization of higher education - which is perfectly true - America actually graduates a lot more people out of college than European countries. A lot more.
A lot of what would be a college degree in the US is done though trade schools in Europe. I also think there are much stricter requirements on what the degree is in most countries, as in the won't fund a lot of arts degrees.
