>It feels to me as if many Americans are one job away from total collapse, like their country is only ok for people with a good employment and an utter nightmar

>It feels to me as if many Americans are one job away from total collapse, like their country is only ok for people with a good employment and an utter nightmare for everyone else, with no safety net at all except your own savings. Yes, that is pretty much correct. Many many Americans, even ones considered well-off, live a threadbare existence. To Europeans it's unfathomable what can happen in the United States but it's just as bad as you think if not worse. There is literally no bottom in this society, there's no limits to the depths you can fall.