The US has the 5th highest median income in the world, so I don't think mass exodus is likely. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income
This is a common trope but only kinda-sorta true.
It's definitely true that there is no sign of mass exodus. Net immigration number remain positive (3% ish) but they are well below historic highs, and currently declining YoY. See e.g. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/net-...
It's interesting I think that per capita Canada (e.g. another "new world" immigration target) has fairly consistently been much higher, and is currently near 2x. The approx 10x population size dwarfs this in total numbers though (https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CAN/canada/net-migrati...)
It seems that until you get a green card, the state barely tolerates your presence.
So nothing to do with the fundamentals, for me anyway.
I've actually heard good things about the AU system too - apparently Canada considers AU&NZ their biggest competition in attracting immigrants.
That seems to be pretty variable; I've met people on both sides of that border that decided against the other one for "societal issues" of various types.
It's not all about income, and it's really as simple as that. IIRC marginal tax rates in some parts of US are higher than some parts of Canada. So, as usual, it depends.
On average I don't think you are wrong, btw - but it's hardly cut and dried.
Probably obvious, but : and it's really not as simple as that.
And good luck even getting to that point. If you have a family, you'll have to live without them for upwards of 10 years while you work alone in the US waiting for your number to come up in the lottery.
It's got to be a mix of both, no?
> that my original claim isn't just "kinda sorta true" but rather, "strictly true".
I don't think we are really disagreeing. My point was that the common trope about US being the only place everyone wants to go has never really been true, but that especially by net amounts, it has been and remains a popular immigration target, albeit not as much as it has in the past.
Not as far as I can tell. The rate of immigration is the lesser of “how many people are willing to migrates the host country” and “how many migrants the host country will accept” and I would be shocked if the latter number was not many multiples of the former number.
> My point was that the common trope about US being the only place everyone wants to go has never really been true
I’ve heard some outlandish things under the rubric of American exceptionalism, but I’ve never once heard anyone—not even my most nationalistic acquaintances nor Fox News/etc—say that the US was the only place anyone wants to go. Who are the people who believe/espouse this?
It depends a bit if you have absolute quotas, or thresholds/scoring.
> some outlandish things under the rubric of American exceptionalism,
I was unclear, apologies. The idea isn't that nobody goes anywhere else, obviously. The idea, which I have heard many times in the US, is that once someone has decided to immigrate, all else being equal they would obviously choose the US. Clearly most times all else isn't equal; but it also doesn't seem to be true...
Fair enough, but even still I’ve never heard that even among “Fuck yeah, ‘merica” types.