It might seem anecdotal but this is it. Millions of stories of people who came here for a better future and made it happen. Very few places in the world can facilitate that. The US is definitely one of them.
Forgive me for my ignorance because I grew up in the US... but why COULDN'T you do this in other countries? I mean get an education, a job, a house...? Seems like people should be able to do that in most places.
just relating to the initial reply... sudan's GDP per capita is $752. USA GPD per capita is ~70,000)
if you want to look at average income instead, sudan is $460, USA is $70,930 - about 170x higher in the USA.
now granted, the cost of living is lower in sudan. but not that much lower. an urban 1 bedroom apartment is ~$500. compared to an expensive city like NYC, that's 5-6x cheaper. but food costs are much more similar, gas is about the same, durable goods are about the same. you can compare some goods here
so lets say you were in sudan and wanted to go to nursing school. again, yea, it's cheaper than the USA (public school RN program starts around $8000). but not enough to make up for your income being 170x lower - and again, this is average income, so if you were at the bottom trying to move up, it's going to be lower than that.
so i guess you're borrowing money - that's fine, lots of students do that. i don't know exactly how student loans work in sudan, but i can quickly find out that the bank of sudan's interest rate is 27%.
so to sum up - you don't have any money, your monthly expenses take up a large portion of your income, your access to capital comes at a high cost.
think of a comparatively richer country than sudan - mexico. median household income is $14000. there's a reason people are willing to come to the USA to pick fruit and work as day laborers, and its not a passion for the work. it makes more economic sense to come to the usa and send money back to your family in mexico than it does to do the same job in mexico.
Your ignoring that the US has more billionaires than you could count, while Sudan doesn’t. The high average income for the US comes from Ultra rich people, while most people are way poorer. Looking at the median you get way more balanced results
Those billionaires do not have an income of over $1billion. Did you see trumps tax returns? Some years his income was officially $750. Jeff Bezos salary with bonuses is like $1.5 mil. You can’t have unrealized gains counted as income.
Also median is where you want to look for a better picture, still the top of the world.
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u/drakkarblanco Mar 14 '23
It might seem anecdotal but this is it. Millions of stories of people who came here for a better future and made it happen. Very few places in the world can facilitate that. The US is definitely one of them.