[Aeolun]

I think it’s more that we routinely see very poor and mentally ill people in the US get zero support?

It’s not a great stretch to go from there to assume they don’t have any social security at all.

If it’s available but many people cannot or do not know to make use of it, is it really social security? If they do make use of it and it’s still not enough, does that change things?

[adventured]

It's a nation of ~360-370 million people including undocumented.

Have you seen the horrific conditions the poorest people of Europe 'survive' in? The ghettos of Eastern Europe are every bit as bad as the worst areas of Baltimore or St Louis. The bad areas in and around Paris are hyper minority poverty with zero upward mobility and extreme unemployment problems (thus the annual large riots). People in rural Western Russia live in third world conditions on $20-$30 per month; they live like nothing has improved in a century. To say nothing of the Ukraine war, which is now part of their living condition (for Ukraine and Russia). You realize how poor Moldova or North Macedonia are? The level of education and outcomes among the bottom 20% of Europe is every bit as bad as the bottom 20% in the US.

It's exceptionally difficult to provide a median (or median+) first world outcome to so many, perhaps impossible.

[robocat]

Not sure how relevant it is to compare the poor in the USA to the poor in Europe.

The Poorest 20% of Americans Are Richer on Average Than Most European Nations: https://fee.org/articles/the-poorest-20-of-americans-are-ric... Although averages are a dangerous measure to use and I guess the article is wrong for other reasons (I think it is talking about consumption). The study and article are in response to the crazy OECD poverty measurements: "OECD measure assigns a higher poverty rate to the US (17.8 percent) than to Mexico (16.6 percent). Yet World Bank data show that 35 percent of Mexico’s population lives on less than $5.50 per day, compared to only 2 percent of people in the United States."

I'm in New Zealand, where we have some social support for the unfortunate. Disclaimer: I'm very ignorant of conditions for the poor in the US and Europe.

[Newlaptop]

> I think it’s more that we routinely see very poor and mentally ill people in the US get zero support?

The state of California alone has spent $24,000,000,000 on homelessness in the last 5 years. The government spends about $50,000 per homeless person. See: https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/california-homeles...

You can certainly argue that the support they're being given isn't working, but it's very far from zero support.

[defrost]

> The state of California alone has spent $24,000,000,000 on homelessness

should very probably read "paid $24 B over 5 years to third parties on programs claiming to 'fix' homelessness"

This would include urban architectures and installions that seek to deter homelessness making sidewalks unsuitable for tents, benches unusable for sleeping, removing access to water and public toilets, etc.

Such things would not count at all as "support" for the homeless.

Regardless it seems remarkably ineffective and one has to wonder, as with military spending, how much goes to end use and how much is $$$ profit! for the contracters.

What would $24 B of affordable public housing look like, employing the homeless as labour?