[Bvalmont1]

In Europe we have cheap, accessible education, that alone will amount to more social mobility than anything happening in the US.

I know what you mean, it's harder to get "rich" in Europe, but in terms of going from lower class to middle or upper middle class I think that's easier to achieve in Europe compared to the US.

[emteycz]

It's not harder, it's absolutely impossible for a huge portion of the EU population (the eastern half, basically). In the USA the economy enables even the poorest people to start selling at scale and for much bigger margins, and to get investment capital easily and way more of it. In the USA even the poorest people can own property in big cities, that's absolutely not the case in eastern EU, poor people are locked to small towns and villages here.

[toyg]

I think there is a terminology disconnect here. Typically people mean “Western Europe” when discussing wealth indicators. Eastern Europe is a specific case that suffered from a few “lost” decades, it accounts for less than a fourth of the EU population, and as much as it’s catching up fairly quickly, it still lags behind quite significantly and is not representative of “European” wealth indicators.

[throwaway0a5e]

They mean northwest Europe. Nobody on HN is tripping over themselves to compare the US to Italy, Greece or even Spain.

At that point why compare to the US though? If the comparisons exclude former communist Europe and poor Mediterranean Europe from then why not exclude rust belt American and Appalachia from comparisons?

[inglor_cz]

As a Czech traveling around Spain, Andalucia felt poorer to me than CZ, and way more hopeless. The local unemployment rate was just terrible even before Covid. A lot of people rented out their only spare, tiny room on AirBNB because they had to.

[toyg]

> Nobody on HN is tripping over themselves to compare the US to Italy, Greece or even Spain

I disagree. Italy is typically included everywhere - it's a G7/G8 country, with a GDP bigger than Canada or Australia, and trumps Spain on pretty much any indicator (let alone Greece). It has its problems but it's not a poor or bankrupt country by any means.

> At that point why compare to the US though? If the comparisons exclude former communist Europe and poor Mediterranean Europe

In terms of population, the EU as a whole is 30% larger than the US. It's somewhat inevitable that there will be some pruning when trying to compare apples to apples. It's just a fact that Eastern Europe is not representative of the larger Union any more than, say, Mississipi, Oklahoma or Alaska are fundamentally representative of the whole US.

[emteycz]

We're talking about half of the EU population, not some pruning. And still, people from Mississippi or Oklahoma at least have the US market around them.

[TheOtherHobbes]

This is demonstrably false. Freedom of movement combined with education combined with a semi-standard language (English, no matter how ragged) means that anyone with an in-demand blue collar skill - plumbing, building work, etc - can move to a different country and set up as a small trader.

This has happened many times and continues to happen. I know a number of people who have done exactly this, and a few of them now own multiple properties. They also send money back to their families in their home countries.

Good luck trying to do the same in the US. If the rents in white collar areas don't kill you, the healthcare costs will.

[ChuckNorris89]

You're seriously mistaken. Good luck being a plumber in most EU countries with only commanding the English language. That may work in tech but on a construction site or any blue collar job the customer or your boss will address you in the local language not English or your native tongue and if you don't speak it then you're a huge liability for the business.

Also, all bureaucratic issues with the banks and local authorities for setting up a business if you're self employed are also not done in English but in the local language.

Try getting a blue collar job in Germany, and I don't mean a barista in a hip touristic district where all clients are foreigners. You're expected to pick up the local language yesterday.

The US having English as the default language everywhere means much less friction for everyone including foreigners be them employees or entrepreneurs.

[TheOtherHobbes]

And yet - the people I know who did everything I said are still there, doing what they did.

There's certainly less language friction in the US.

But there is far, far more economic and class friction.

And most people can pick up the basics of a language.

[jusssi]

In construction there's actually plenty of foreign subcontractors. They just bring a whole team, so it's enough if one of them knows the language well enough to understand what they'll need to do.

Edit: In general, I won't disagree with you that language is a real barrier for employment in EU.

[throwaway0a5e]

This comment is completely ignorant of the professional licensing requirements that serve as the hoop you must jump through before making "real money" in pretty much every blue collar field.

What you said is true about tech but a plumber or electrician that crosses borders will start at square 1. They will have to fulfill the licensing requirements in their new jurisdiction. These requirements almost always include requirements that add up to where one must work under person holding level V license before taking test W and then work X years before obtaining license Y which lets them be responsible for work type Z and there will be a corresponding requirement that all job Zs be performed by a party with license Y.

Professional licensing requirements like this are why you have experienced oral surgeons from Taiwan slapping braces on teenagers in California and expert boiler welders from Vietnam building hand railings in London.

[ben_w]

> English, no matter how ragged

Not as true as you might think. I’m from the UK originally, live in Berlin now, and while I can do a lot with English, there are doors closed to me by not being C1/C2-level German.

(I have of course been doing online language courses for ages, but as the locals say: Deutsche Sprache, schwere Sprache.)

[TheOtherHobbes]

Of course there are, because C1/C2 is equivalent to professional fluency. You're going to need that if you're working in (say) law or management.

But that's - what - the top 5% of jobs?

[ben_w]

The case I had in mind was “lead software dev”. Quite a lot of local job ads — even in software — very definitely require better German than I have.

[MaysonL]

> In the USA even the poorest people can own property in big cities.

Why do think, then, that there are so many homeless people in the US? They aren’t all mentally ill or drug addicts.

[jokethrowaway]

If you're homeless it's hard to get a bank account, it's hard to get a job, it's hard to get someone to trust you.

If you're not mentally ill or a drug addict, good luck getting someone to think otherwise and give you a job.

I remember this story of this homeless man with an amazing voice. Some radio host gave him a job, it looked like a success story and after a few months he lost everything again due to his addiction

[emteycz]

I am not saying there aren't significant issues in the US. It's still hard to get yourself out of the pit and I think that the US certainly would benefit from stronger social safety measures, as well as healthcare reform.

But your chance of success is basically none in half of the EU. Even homeless people in the US have a much better chance, because they have access to the US market.