> And I think that under those terms many Americans would have a lot of alternatives to level up to. The standard of living of even the bottom quintile of Amer

> And I think that under those terms many Americans would have a lot of alternatives to level up to. The standard of living of even the bottom quintile of Americans is surprisingly high, even compared to other rich nations. This is often misused by conservatives to reject initiatives to improve economic equality, but that doesn't make it any less factual. Combined with the difficulty of moving internationally, let alone the difficulty of establishing oneself as a migrant once you get there, and the fact that those with the greatest reason to move will be the ones with the least means in terms of assets and marketable skills, I don't think the current situation is at all surprising. To the extent Americans are surprised by the standard of living elsewhere, I suspect that says more about American prejudice than anything of economic substance. Americans can be shocked because we're a very insular nation--knowledge about other countries is filtered through our culture wars, where the reality of living conditions elsewhere are variously exaggerated or diminished according to the motivations of our political and cultural factions. (The same is true to varying extents in other nations, but being so large, wealthy, and culturally hegemonic globally, America is one of the few countries that can be remain so insular and ignorant almost passively. Other large countries, like China or Russia, seem to have similar levels of ignorance, except they must rely much more heavily on deliberate censorship to prevent reality from intruding.)