> The FTE citizens rarely visit the country where the other 80 percent of Americans live: the low-wage sector.<p>This assertion is completely unsupported, and as it turns out wrong: <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/05/through-an-american-lens-western-europes-middle-classes-appear-smaller" rel="nofollow">https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/05/through-an-...</a>.<p>> Overall, regardless of how middle class fortunes are analyzed, the material standard of living in the U.S. is estimated to be better than in most Western European countries examined.<p>The median disposable household income in the US is $60,000, versus $44,000 in France. That’s the median—it’s not skewed up by the very high incomes at the top. (Even that requires some adjustment. The median age in the US is 38, versus say 47 for Germany. The median German is at the top of their lifetime compensation curve, the median American is not there yet.)<p>At least in Maryland, California, etc., at that income level, a family qualifies for ACA subsidies that limit health insurance premiums to 8-10% of income, comparable to the health insurance payroll taxes in many european countries.<p>There is an attempt to popularize the idea that in the US it’s the top breaking away from everyone else, and that doesn’t happen in Europe. If you dig into the data, where the US diverges the most noticeably is actually the bottom 10-20%. And that’s a direct result of the middle 70%. The pay far lower taxes than in Europe, which funds a much less generous welfare state.