[Beltalowda]

> I don’t understand how people can live on 45k a year let alone 30k a year

At these kind of wages you get quite a bit of government assistance: medicaid, social housing, food stamps, all sorts of tax credits, etc.

The US does have a social welfare state. Whether it's "good enough" is something I'll leave up to the reader, and it certainly does seem a confusing hodgepodge of different federal and state programs, but it does exist.

It's the same in much of Europe really; if you earn minimum wage you simply cannot survive without the social welfare programs.