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It's a complex issue. When so many "skilled workers" move to your neighborhood that your rent doubles and that you can't afford to do grocery shopping in your n

It's a complex issue. When so many "skilled workers" move to your neighborhood that your rent doubles and that you can't afford to do grocery shopping in your neighborhood, it makes sense to be angry. The US top 1% are number 1, the US bottom 10% have it worse than most or even almost all people from western Europe.

piker 2y ago
Do you have a metric to support that theory? It’s good for the European story for that to be true, but hard to quantify.
- FrenchDevRemote 2y ago
  I don't have the exact metrics, but free healthcare, free education, and enough benefits to not be homeless and hungry seems like more than what poor Americans get.
  - lotsoweiners 2y ago
    Poor Americans have essentially free healthcare. It is called Medicaid. https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/eligibility/index.html https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/eligibility/index.html Over 82,000,000 people are enrolled in Medicaid. https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/program-information/medicaid-and-chip-enrollment-data/report-highlights/index.html https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/program-information/medica... America has lots of programs that assist poor and/or disabled people: SNAP, Unemployment, VA, SSI, SSDI, TANF, Section 8, Childcare Assistance etc. Some people don’t want to bother to apply/jump through hoops to get them but they exist.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> the US bottom 10% have it worse than most or even almost all people from western Europe America’s bottom 10% are absolutely comparable to Europe’s bottom 10% when one considers actual access to services and material standards of living. (I’m assuming you mean EU’s, not Europe’s, because as terrible as being homeless in America may be, it sure beats being bombed.)
- FrenchDevRemote 2y ago
  I said western Europe, not Europe, +/- all of western Europe is EU expect the UK and Switzerland. It's not comparable, the benefits you get in western Europe are 10x better than what you get anywhere in the USA.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > said western Europe, not Europe My bad. > benefits you get in western Europe are 10x better than what you get anywhere in the USA Benefits you’re entitled to. France, for instance, has put a lot of services behind an internet portal. Add to that the stigma of utilising them in many villages and you get low utilisation rates. I would imagine the poor in Europe are a bit better off. (If we limit ourselves to the coastal states, the answer may be surprising.)
thiagoperes 2y ago
The downstream issues are not related to immigration, otherwise house prices would have fallen in Lisbon. Look at examples such as Singapore, Dubai and many others that adopted an entrepreneurial attitude and figured out the infrastructure to support that growth. When will they blame when the immigrants don’t come but the problems remain?
- JetSpiegel 2y ago
  Yes, Dubai figured their infrastructure so well, their airport was closed for days when it rained. Singapure is a dictatorship fuled by Chinese money, should a NATO country be supported by them? Will the US invade if we sold them the abandoned American base in the Azores?
satvikpendem 2y ago
Supply. The answer is and has always been to build more housing. NIMBYs around the world are the primary force stopping that from happening, that is why there are housing crises everywhere in the world. Contrast that with somewhere like Singapore where government housing is pretty good and plentiful in supply, they do not have such issues.
- AmVess 2y ago
  NIMBY's and clueless, greedy politicians. Here, the county owns some land that it is going to put 100 houses on. They are going to put houses that cost 3x more than the locals can afford. Why? More money from property tax, and to hell with the average person. The knock on effect is that regular houses will become more expensive, and in 10 years, only the top 10% of earners will be able to live here.
- dathinab 2y ago
  > Supply. The answer is and has always been to build more housing. IMHO not really The supply of affordable housing in the place where it's needed often can not be increased due to physical limitations and building luxury flats being more profitable. And the "demand" is often not driven by people living there, but investment stuff. I.e. if we purely look at "supply of housing" (ignoring price) and "demand of housing" (to live in) there isn't a problem at all in most cases. Through I agree with NIMBY making it worse, especially given that it's often not even their backyard. But the neighborhood of properties/land bought as investments and them blocking things for investment reasons. Through the main reason is IMHO still housing being used roughly "like stocks".
  - rangestransform 2y ago
    Luxury flats absorb demand that would otherwise outcompete locals for the existing housing Unless you make all existing housing so shitty that local professionals would turn their nose up at it, in which case you have bigger problems Not building luxury housing at all would only be a solution with domestic mobility restrictions like China
endisneigh 2y ago
Why would you compare bottom US to only Western Europe? Also, do you have a source on your claim? I’m skeptical that the US bottom 10% have it worse than “most or even almost all people from Western Europe”
asukumar 2y ago
You are correct that most of Western Europe is ahead at the first decile, but you are incorrect to imply that it’s at the top 1% that the advantage goes away. In fact, the US meets the richest EU countries at the 50th percentile (meaning the median person is equally better off) and at the 90th percentile, you are much much better off in the US - it’s not comparable. The fact is, for everyone middle class (not by a local definition of middle class - literally middle) or above, the US will have you significantly better off. https://www.ft.com/content/ef265420-45e8-497b-b308-c951baa68945 https://www.ft.com/content/ef265420-45e8-497b-b308-c951baa68...
- dathinab 2y ago
  Through the argument here is more about living standards then how "well of" someone is from a materialistic POV. Like one thing I realized is that it seems that you need to earn way more in the US to have a similar level of living quality/standard compared to the EU. As far as I can tell I probably would need to earn ~50% more to have the same quality of live level in the US compared to where I live now. Through it probably depends a lot on where you are in the US/EU.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  Isn't the USA middle class shrinking though? We're quickly bifurcating into a "really better off" group and a "really worse off" group, with little in the middle.
- FredPret 2y ago
  Your linked article looks at PPP income. Here are two that compare wealth, showing the US 50th percentilers doing significantly better than European ones. US median wealth according to this is $162k: https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/economic_brief/2023/eb_23-39#:~:text=At%20the%20bottom%2C%20the%2010th,percent%20had%20at%20least%20%2411%2C640%2C000 https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/economic_b.... And it's hard to get this data for Europe but looking at the "Median" column for this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_distribution_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_distribution_in_Europe it looks like the US middle class would slot into fourth place, just below Denmark which is at 165k, and far ahead of say, Germany, which is at 65k.
dathinab 2y ago
more relevant is if your country can capitalize on the workers like if a lot of skilled workers move over but - they (mostly/majorly) don't settle, just stay for a few years - they don't create companies in your country - they don't work for companies in your country - the companies they work with might directly compete with your local companies and now with having local representatives can do so better Then if the tax breaks are worth it is solely a question of taxes they pay + money they spent vs. implicit cost of disruption they cause. Which might not be always worth it. On the other hand the US doesn't focus on attracting digital nomads, they focus on their biggest/best companies attracting intelligence for themself. Which has a high chance of profiting the US especially given that they also tend to attract young talent which then build their business network in the US making it quite likely that they if they found a company they do so in the US.
moltar 2y ago
I highly doubt it’s foreigners to be honest. I live in a plain Portuguese neighborhood of Porto. There are virtually no foreigners. At least I never see any when walking around or going to a grocery store. I maybe see one a day out of 100s of Portuguese people. Yet my local Portuguese landlord keeps jacking my rent every year by a huge margin way exceeding the government norms. Who forces them to do that? They don’t even live in the city. They live outside in the Douro valley. It’s just pure greed. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy. They see average values went up and they adjust accordingly. And why did the values all of a sudden go up on my neighbourhood with no foreigners?
- kranke155 2y ago
  The average rental in Porto has been exploding upwards due to the influx of airbnbnization and foreign income flooding the real estate market. What you are describing is a second order effect.

piker 2y ago

Do you have a metric to support that theory? It’s good for the European story for that to be true, but hard to quantify.

FrenchDevRemote 2y ago
I don't have the exact metrics, but free healthcare, free education, and enough benefits to not be homeless and hungry seems like more than what poor Americans get.
- lotsoweiners 2y ago
  Poor Americans have essentially free healthcare. It is called Medicaid. https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/eligibility/index.html https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/eligibility/index.html Over 82,000,000 people are enrolled in Medicaid. https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/program-information/medicaid-and-chip-enrollment-data/report-highlights/index.html https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/program-information/medica... America has lots of programs that assist poor and/or disabled people: SNAP, Unemployment, VA, SSI, SSDI, TANF, Section 8, Childcare Assistance etc. Some people don’t want to bother to apply/jump through hoops to get them but they exist.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> the US bottom 10% have it worse than most or even almost all people from western Europe America’s bottom 10% are absolutely comparable to Europe’s bottom 10% when one considers actual access to services and material standards of living. (I’m assuming you mean EU’s, not Europe’s, because as terrible as being homeless in America may be, it sure beats being bombed.)

FrenchDevRemote 2y ago
I said western Europe, not Europe, +/- all of western Europe is EU expect the UK and Switzerland. It's not comparable, the benefits you get in western Europe are 10x better than what you get anywhere in the USA.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > said western Europe, not Europe My bad. > benefits you get in western Europe are 10x better than what you get anywhere in the USA Benefits you’re entitled to. France, for instance, has put a lot of services behind an internet portal. Add to that the stigma of utilising them in many villages and you get low utilisation rates. I would imagine the poor in Europe are a bit better off. (If we limit ourselves to the coastal states, the answer may be surprising.)

thiagoperes 2y ago

The downstream issues are not related to immigration, otherwise house prices would have fallen in Lisbon. Look at examples such as Singapore, Dubai and many others that adopted an entrepreneurial attitude and figured out the infrastructure to support that growth. When will they blame when the immigrants don’t come but the problems remain?

JetSpiegel 2y ago
Yes, Dubai figured their infrastructure so well, their airport was closed for days when it rained. Singapure is a dictatorship fuled by Chinese money, should a NATO country be supported by them? Will the US invade if we sold them the abandoned American base in the Azores?

satvikpendem 2y ago

Supply. The answer is and has always been to build more housing. NIMBYs around the world are the primary force stopping that from happening, that is why there are housing crises everywhere in the world. Contrast that with somewhere like Singapore where government housing is pretty good and plentiful in supply, they do not have such issues.

AmVess 2y ago
NIMBY's and clueless, greedy politicians. Here, the county owns some land that it is going to put 100 houses on. They are going to put houses that cost 3x more than the locals can afford. Why? More money from property tax, and to hell with the average person. The knock on effect is that regular houses will become more expensive, and in 10 years, only the top 10% of earners will be able to live here.
dathinab 2y ago
> Supply. The answer is and has always been to build more housing. IMHO not really The supply of affordable housing in the place where it's needed often can not be increased due to physical limitations and building luxury flats being more profitable. And the "demand" is often not driven by people living there, but investment stuff. I.e. if we purely look at "supply of housing" (ignoring price) and "demand of housing" (to live in) there isn't a problem at all in most cases. Through I agree with NIMBY making it worse, especially given that it's often not even their backyard. But the neighborhood of properties/land bought as investments and them blocking things for investment reasons. Through the main reason is IMHO still housing being used roughly "like stocks".
- rangestransform 2y ago
  Luxury flats absorb demand that would otherwise outcompete locals for the existing housing Unless you make all existing housing so shitty that local professionals would turn their nose up at it, in which case you have bigger problems Not building luxury housing at all would only be a solution with domestic mobility restrictions like China

endisneigh 2y ago

Why would you compare bottom US to only Western Europe? Also, do you have a source on your claim? I’m skeptical that the US bottom 10% have it worse than “most or even almost all people from Western Europe”

asukumar 2y ago

You are correct that most of Western Europe is ahead at the first decile, but you are incorrect to imply that it’s at the top 1% that the advantage goes away. In fact, the US meets the richest EU countries at the 50th percentile (meaning the median person is equally better off) and at the 90th percentile, you are much much better off in the US - it’s not comparable. The fact is, for everyone middle class (not by a local definition of middle class - literally middle) or above, the US will have you significantly better off. https://www.ft.com/content/ef265420-45e8-497b-b308-c951baa68945 https://www.ft.com/content/ef265420-45e8-497b-b308-c951baa68...

dathinab 2y ago
Through the argument here is more about living standards then how "well of" someone is from a materialistic POV. Like one thing I realized is that it seems that you need to earn way more in the US to have a similar level of living quality/standard compared to the EU. As far as I can tell I probably would need to earn ~50% more to have the same quality of live level in the US compared to where I live now. Through it probably depends a lot on where you are in the US/EU.
ryandrake 2y ago
Isn't the USA middle class shrinking though? We're quickly bifurcating into a "really better off" group and a "really worse off" group, with little in the middle.
FredPret 2y ago
Your linked article looks at PPP income. Here are two that compare wealth, showing the US 50th percentilers doing significantly better than European ones. US median wealth according to this is $162k: https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/economic_brief/2023/eb_23-39#:~:text=At%20the%20bottom%2C%20the%2010th,percent%20had%20at%20least%20%2411%2C640%2C000 https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/economic_b.... And it's hard to get this data for Europe but looking at the "Median" column for this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_distribution_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_distribution_in_Europe it looks like the US middle class would slot into fourth place, just below Denmark which is at 165k, and far ahead of say, Germany, which is at 65k.

dathinab 2y ago

more relevant is if your country can capitalize on the workers like if a lot of skilled workers move over but - they (mostly/majorly) don't settle, just stay for a few years - they don't create companies in your country - they don't work for companies in your country - the companies they work with might directly compete with your local companies and now with having local representatives can do so better Then if the tax breaks are worth it is solely a question of taxes they pay + money they spent vs. implicit cost of disruption they cause. Which might not be always worth it. On the other hand the US doesn't focus on attracting digital nomads, they focus on their biggest/best companies attracting intelligence for themself. Which has a high chance of profiting the US especially given that they also tend to attract young talent which then build their business network in the US making it quite likely that they if they found a company they do so in the US.

moltar 2y ago

I highly doubt it’s foreigners to be honest. I live in a plain Portuguese neighborhood of Porto. There are virtually no foreigners. At least I never see any when walking around or going to a grocery store. I maybe see one a day out of 100s of Portuguese people. Yet my local Portuguese landlord keeps jacking my rent every year by a huge margin way exceeding the government norms. Who forces them to do that? They don’t even live in the city. They live outside in the Douro valley. It’s just pure greed. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy. They see average values went up and they adjust accordingly. And why did the values all of a sudden go up on my neighbourhood with no foreigners?

kranke155 2y ago
The average rental in Porto has been exploding upwards due to the influx of airbnbnization and foreign income flooding the real estate market. What you are describing is a second order effect.