• abbotsbury@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    American is still one of the richest people in the world despite our kneecapping of the housing market and insufficient social safety nets.

    Okay, but what does that mean when the average American has a notably lower quality of life than competing poorer nations? Because that sounds like typical “starving kids in Africa have it worse, stop complaining” thought-terminating cliches that serve to end a discussion rather than find possible solutions.

      • abbotsbury@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        On my phone so I can’t do tons of research, but if you want the long short then just go here and check how many countries ranked higher than America that have lower GDP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report#2023_report

        Of course you can nitpick certain stats to no end, so I’ll primarily focus on the disparity of

        -Annual vacation days

        -Public healthcare

        -Public transportation, and

        -Public education

        that the average American has compared to other developed nations

        • SCB@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Happiness and QOL are not directly related, and happiness is much more of a cultural thing than a cost of living thing.

          I’m all for the bullets you list but that doesn’t make these concepts shared ideas.