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Comment by lgkk | Hacker News Reader

Are there even rich people in Europe? It seems like Europeans are mostly poor with a small super wealthy elite.

Unlike the US where most people are middle class, a sizable number are rich (millionaire plus), and most of the wealthy come from either already well off families or self made.

Everyone craps on US (I mean we are the best at everything lol good and bad) but that’s what happens when you’re the best and at the top of the hierarchy. People say shit about you. It’s not like I care much about that because my life as an immigrant to the USA is phenomenal to say the least.

But I always wonder why Europeans just seem so… stagnant? Like they’ve basically plateaued. Idk.

I’m from a former “colony” so it’s not any concern to me. But I always see these kinds of posts and wonder.

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Yes and no.

Western Europe's economic, tax, regulatory, and social welfare systems are a positive and negative, depending on who you ask.

Compared to the US, only a small segment of the population is either very poor or very rich. Everyone is basically lower- to upper-middle class.

But there's a price to that large safety net. The above policies create a disincentive to innovate and build wealth - the reason behind the stagnant you mentioned.

America: the sky is the limit. Western Europe: lower-middle class is the ground floor.

This is what I felt too.

In the US and Asia, people seem to be trying to claw their way to the top. Not everyone succeeds obviously, but some do, and I'd say many others at the very least improve their lot in life.

In Europe, it feels like most people are just content and satisfied with their current lot in life, and even those that are not, aren't really motivated to significantly change their position in society.

Can't speak to Asia, but the big difference between US and EU is that US has a lot more variance in quality of life. Its quite a bit easier to monetize skills, but its also quite a bit easier to become poor because of lack of social safety nets.

In EU there is very little variance, so most people don't see the value in extra effort that they have to put in to get ahead. Middle class is undoubtably much better off in EU - you have a lot more social safety nets and assistance, and furthermore, because most of the people around you are generally in the same boat financially, the lack of materialism is actually quite good for peoples mental health and finances.

The only caveat is, EU can have this sort of setup in large part due to economic influence of US. A lot of wealth from US is exported to EU, which goes on to fund the social safety nets. You wouldn't think that 2007 housing crisis in US would go on to affect job markets in EU, but it very much did. Also, US pretty much subsidizes military capability development costs for all of EU.

I wonder if it’s a chicken or egg thing too. The same amount of effort it would take to substantially improve your financial situation in the US…does not feel like it would have the same impact in EU. If that’s the case, then I can see people just going “what’s the point?”

There are around 23 million US millionaires. I’m not even sure that single million is “rich” any more, particularly if that includes the value of all retirement accounts.

(Post the pension era, $1M safely provides only about $40K/yr in retirement income for a 30 year retirement.)

And there are 20 million millionaires in Europe, I am not sure where does the poor-Europeans statement comes from.

Europe is about double the population of US

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