[JumpCrisscross]

> How has living in the same country as a crop of successful tech startups made the lives of an average American noticeably better?

Average American is materially wealthier than the average European, with more influence over the latter than the latter has over the former. Go above the bottom 20% or so, and you have vastly higher living standards in most of America compared with most of Europe.

This is obscured by our terrible treatment of the bottom 10%, as well as by the burdens we put on our middle class. But the American middle class is wealthier and, I’d argue, more powerful than most European countries’, the exceptions being in the West and the North of the continent.

[toomuchtodo]

60 percent of Americans can’t afford a basic quality of life. I disagree with the way this is argued. Materially wealthier how? Home equity? Household net worth? Absolutely of no value based on the currently observed outcomes.

If you ignore the wealth metrics, Europeans live objectively better lives than a majority of Americans.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/may/24/robert...

[JumpCrisscross]

> 60 percent of Americans can’t afford a basic quality of life

Define that “basic quality of life” and map it to the EU. We define our baselines much higher in America than they do in Europe because of course we do, we’re richer per capita.

Quality of life for the bottom I think 50% of Americans is worse than in Europe, almost entirely due to food quality and healthcare. But for most Americans, it’s materially better for most values worth measuring. (For the richest Americans it’s way better, but that isn’t how I believe one measures a society.)

Keep in mind that I’m counting the whole EU. If we restrict ourselves to its richest members, sure, QOL is higher in Switzerland and Norway than in Mississippi.

[toomuchtodo]

Unburdened by housing costs, affordable and accessible healthcare, transportation, child care, groceries, etc.

It is possible to live comfortably in most of Europe for €1000-€1500/month. This is almost impossible for most of the US, more so as upcoming Medicaid cuts occur.

https://www.kff.org/quick-take/about-17-million-more-people-...

[LoFtr1]

Let's take Germany as a case study for someone making roughly 3000/month NET salary. Health-insurance premiums are generally higher in Germany than in the United States. U.S. Social Security benefits tend to be more generous, backed by roughly USD 2.7 trillion in trust-fund assets, while Germany’s state pension scheme runs a deficit that consumes about 25 percent of federal tax revenue.

The United States provides universal coverage through Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA); none of these programs expose citizens to unlimited liability. Under the ACA, annual out-of-pocket costs are capped at about USD 9,200 even when bills exceed USD 1 million. Even in Germany, there is a co-insurance payment; liability is at 1300/year, I think. Given that US coverage is cheaper, this can go either way. It is widely accepted that it is much easier to see a specialist in the US and get appointments than in Germany, so there is a good argument to be made that US health care is better.

Living on EUR 1,500 per month in Germany is feasible only in remote rural areas, and even a net income of EUR 3,000 in provincial cities leaves little discretionary spending. Higher average earnings in the United States, together with easier property acquisition, generally offer superior opportunities for wealth building. Claims to the contrary overlook relevant data on median incomes, benefits, and costs and are pure cope about the declining standard of living in Western and Central Europe for the middle class.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Unburdened by housing costs, affordable and accessible healthcare, transportation, child care, groceries, etc.

Few European social welfare systems unburden their populations of all of these. Those that do are comparable to America’s wealthiest states.

> It is possible to live comfortably in most of Europe for €1000-€1500/month. This is almost impossible for most of the US

It’s also a lot easier to earn more than that wage in America [1][2]. (And you can absolutely live an okay life in NYC if you got your subsidies right on a job that pays ~$20k/y.)

[1] https://kagi.com/images?q=average+monthly+wage+eu+member+map...

[2] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-median-income-by-sta...

[LoFtr1]

I also want to follow up on your claims of transportation, again using Germany as a case study. Just Google what is happening with Deutsche Bahn. It is a disaster. I know because I do not have a car and am forced ot use it multiple times a week. It is completely unreliable, and if you have an important appointment or flight, then you're best option is to find another means of transportation, preferably driving if you have a car. Relying on German public transit (specifically Deutsche Bahn) will ruin your life; you will be late for everything or just not arrive. What I am saying is not an exaggeration. So yeah, I would rather have my tax money back and own a car. And the German cope is to say that DB is a private company, which is technically true; it's a private company 100% owned by the government. It's an abomination.

[IAmBroom]

How is that worse than having neither a car nor a practical public transit system, which is the reality for poor Americans?

[JBlue42]

At least you have something that can be improved.

[giingyui]

> It is possible to live comfortably in most of Europe for €1000-€1500/month

Nice. Where can I get that salary in Spain?

[toomuchtodo]

> Europe

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-euro-indicators/w...

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/d...

[mike_hearn]

Neither Switzerland nor Norway are members of the EU, which says a lot about the EU as a whole.

[moomin]

Minor point of fact: neither Switzerland nor Norway are EU members.

[IAmBroom]

Counterpoints:

Even upper-middle-class women are more likely to die giving birth in the US than in (almost any part of) Europe.

Middle-class families can be financially ruined by chronic or terminal illnesses within the family.

Below-average income families in the US have heavy financial hurdles trying to get their kids into college.

Religious homeschooling is currently preparing a generation of undereducated American children.

GDP isn't quality of life.

[anthk]

In your fantasy world, maybe. The truth is that even the loaded people die earlier and live up worse than the average Southern/Western European.

[JumpCrisscross]

> even the loaded people die earlier and live up worse than the average Southern/Western European

You repeated this misinformation in another thread.

[toomuchtodo]

Even the richest Americans face shorter lifespans than their European counterparts, study finds - https://www.brown.edu/news/2025-04-02/wealth-mortality-gap - April 2nd, 2025

Association between Wealth and Mortality in the United States and Europe - https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa2408259 | https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMsa2408259

[JumpCrisscross]

See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44554214

The study is fascinating on its own without needing to be lied about.

[tzs]

How much of that is attributable to tech startups with global reach founded in the US in the last 30 years?