comment: >
  
  "Heyyy totally unpopular opinion here. i am eruopean)))) did yu know that europe good and america bad? and that we have free healthcare and and and and!!!"
context: I have a feeling that this 10th place is a result of American statistics being inflated by high average income.
  In case of Education, America ranks 19/41 in regards to student skills, 28/39 in social inequality and 30/39 in gender inequality. Overall Education score is pretty bad. 
  In Health, it ranked 29/41 in life expectancy, which is pretty bad, and its overall rank in Health is inflated by the really high self reported health. Second highest in the world, which is questionable when you remember both the life expectancy and obesity statistics. 
  And America straight up scores badly in Work and Life Balance and Safety Categories, being close to the bottom in both of these. It's 36/41 in homicide rates and 29/41 in both working hours and leisure time
  Many categories are either average or bad, with the exception of Income, Jobs and Housing, which are all related to wealth. In these America scores near the top. 
  So once again it seems that Americans are wealthy, yet in most non-money related categories America is scoring badly when compared to other rich nations. >
  
  Yes, American statistics are "inflated" by having high median income and standard of living. >
  
  My point being: if America scores number 1 in income and number 3 in wealth, but also scores 29/41 in life expectancy, 29/41 in hours worked and leisure time, 19/41 in student skills, 36/41 in homicide rate, and scores near the bottom on inequality in almost every category(34/35 in Civic Engagement, 28/39 in Education, 31/32 in Income)
  Then doesn’t it point to the fact that America has a pretty low quality of life for an average person, but it’s overall score is inflated by the very high income and wealth? 
  Which would support my original point: That America is richer than other rich countries, yet Americans have lower quality of life than people in other rich countries. >
  
  Is quality of life only measured in those criteria? What about general happiness, social cohesion etc? Do you want people here to share other metrics or do you only want to go by your limited list as in your post? >
  
  Happiness is a very hard to measure concept, there is no objective metric to measure how someone feels, as feeling are subjective. 
  We can look at suicide rates, where America scores worse than all other rich nations with 14.5 suicides per 100k people. Compared to 12.2 in Japan, 10.3 in Canada or 6.9 in the UK. Although it is also not a perfect metric. But it does appear that Americans are more likely to commit suicide, which doesn’t paint a great picture of happiness in the country. >
  
  Even in this ranking the US is close to the top, with countries ahead of it infamously having high sucide rates due to serious social issues and terrible working conditions. (Japan/South Korea)
  All other countries on this list, other than Belgium, are much poorer than America. 
  The GDP per capita of Hungary is $18.7k, for Slovenia it's $29k. For Belgium it's $51.7k and for America it's $69.2k
  So depending on the source, America is either the worst of rich countries, or one of the worst. So it's not a big upgrade. >
  
  So close to the top, but not at the top, per your comment. Also, let’s qualify what you consider the rich countries you’re using here. What’s the GDP cutoff? >
  
  Close to the top still means that it does worse than most other similar countries. 
  I would say countries with GDP per capita of $40k-$50k and over are the best comparison. Below that there are countries with less than half of America's GDP per capita. And when one person is twice as rich as another person, it's hard to exactly call them "similarly wealthy" >
  
  Ok. Taking your midpoint of $45k, that’s about 20 or so countries representing about 2 percent of the global population. So arguing that the average standard of living for someone in the US is at the bottom of the top 2 percent globally isn’t all that strong of a point. >
  
  This is not what I'm arguing. I'm arguing that the quality of life in America is worse than in other similarly rich countries.
  Yes, Americans live better than Brazilians, or Mexicans, or Nigerians, or Indians, but these countries are way way poorer than America.
  America should be compared to countries that are similarly rich, like Canada, Australia, the UK, or Germany. All of these have similar median income and GDP per capita (In fact, they are still poorer in these regards than America), and outperform America in pretty much all quality of life aspects. >
  
  Ok, so what? The US population is still in the top few percent of standard of living in the world. The fact that there’s a few hundred million people living better doesn’t mean that the US has a poor quality of life. >
  
  You should read that source a bit better regarding hours worked:
  
  The data are intended for comparisons of trends over time; they are unsuitable for comparisons of the level of average annual hours of work for a given year because of differences in their sources and method of calculation. >
  
  I live in Canada and our quality of life is declining rapidly, what you said might have been true 10 years ago but it is not true today, our healthcare is failing, housing the most expensive in the world our wages have been stagnant for decades, there's help wanted signs everywhere because people literally can't afford to live in the area on the wages being offered and instead of letting the market sort it out our country is importing more people to drive down the wages which will also increasing housing prices. 
  Despite our infrastructure and government services failing our taxes are increasing and to make matters worse the government is reducing fertilizer farmers can use so we'll be starving in a year. 
  The boomers owning property that's perpetually rising in value is masking the stats so  it looks like everything is fine, but everything is only fine if you bought a house decades ago the mortgage on that is cheaper than rent for a bedroom is today it's also why employers are struggling to replace retiring employees boomers had cheaper bills to pay and ever appreciating assets but that boon is turning into a deficit for the next generation who can't even afford rent on the wages being offered so they can't replace staff, they also haven't been training anyone because they can just demand schooling and experience and get it from foreigners who likely just lied on their resume. >
  
  You are not alone mate, same is happening in the UK for example. But also happening in the US. Even if it's declining in Canada, it's still better than the US because you started off better. >
  
  No it's not our housing is higher, our wages are lower and our taxes are higher and our healthcare is worse because we simply can't get access to it. I'd rather be bankrupt and alive then die in a waiting room.
  Maybe it's better for the boomers but like I said before their boon has become future generations deficit anyone under 40 is way better off in the US than Canada. >
  
  You can do this kind of post with basically any country. All you did was point out areas the US is not the best in, in comparison to other countries. Not even the same set of countries in each comparison.
  Also, with a country as large and populated as the US, it isn't really a good comparison when comparing the entire US to a single European nation. Many states are the size of a European nation and have similar populations. Comparing the US vs EU as a whole would be more accurate, as this would encompass the similarly large land area, population densities, and cultural shifts from region to region.
  Also, have you ever lived outside the US? Every place has good and bad things about it. Really changes your perspective to be honest. >
  
  
  Cultural shift from region to region. 
  
  I often hear US people say that. It really doesn't make sense. The US is not unique in it's diversity within it's territory. Pick almost any large European countries and it will be similar to the us. Random exemple, I think there is as much difference between Marseille-Strasbourg-tahiti as there would be between newYork-huston-hawai >
  
  There are differences, maybe not in architecture, language, or pop culture, but there are major cultural differences between those three examples. How people act and speak to each other and ways of thinking are quite different.
  Maybe not as different as your European example, but very much different. If you have lived in these places for long periods of time, you would see it easily.
  People in the US view much of Europe as the same, but Europeans really see the differences. The same applies in the opposite direction. >
  
  That's my point, there is as much differences within those 3 places in  france in my example as there is in the 3 US places. The US is not unique in the level of diversity it has within it's borders.  
  But I agree with your other points though, if you look at territory and population, you could almost compare the entire US to the entire Europe. Not exactly, but it's a fair comparison >
  
  True, but Texas alone can satisfy the same argument. It's as big as France and there are major cultural differences between Dallas, Austin, and El Paso. Most people from Texas know these differences, just as someone from France knows the differences between Marseilles and Strasbourg. People not from these places view it as all kind of the same.
  Northern California and Southern California are very different. East and West Oregon are very different. So comparing a land mass the size of a single state isn't accurate.
  I'm not saying the US is unique, quite the opposite. I'm saying each state is about the same as a European nation (barring very low population states) and the US as a whole about the same as the EU. >
  
  The poorest Americans are still richer and consume more material resources than the average person - not the average poor person - in Europe
  America's Poor Still Live Better Than Most Of The Rest Of Humanity
  The Poor in the US Are Richer than the Middle Class in Much of Europe >
  
  My point is exactly that despite being rich Americans have worse quality of life than people in other rich countries. I am not saying that Americans are poor. My point is that despite this material wealth America scores poorly in all quality of life statistics
  All these sources just say that Americans can buy more stuff than people in other countries, but what about other aspects of life?
  What good is being able to buy a bigger car or more iPhones when you will live a shorter life, work more, be less healthy, have worse healthcare, be more likely to be murdered and be more likely to commit suicide than in other rich countries? >
  
  We live shorter lives and have more obesity due to lifestyle choices lol. >
  
  But our society makes many of those positive lifestyle choices more difficult to accomplish. Poor standards in food (for political reasons/profit), lack of pedestrian minded infrastructure, required hours put in at work to survive, plus a lack of affordable health care, results in worse health than would have occurred under other circumstances.  It's easy to blame the people, but the country is not supporting and caring about the health of their citizens in the ways that other wealthy countries do. >
  
  You can buy whatever quality of food you’d like at the store.
  We don’t have pedestrian minded infrastructure because we haven’t been living in the same place for thousands of years. 
  Every country on earth, you have to work to survive.
  In healthcare you can only have 2 of the 3:affordability,quality,timely. We have the most advanced healthcare in the world. Don’t believe me? Why do we make 80% of medical patents each year? Also, why do we have the highest 5 year cancer survivor rate. 
  If we (Americans) weren’t so fat and lazy, we would live much longer than our current average >
  
  
  You can buy whatever quality of food you’d like at the store
  
  Unless you're poor in which case affording a meal McDonald's is cheaper than real groceries. Or the issue of food deserts in many parts of America which is further exacerbated for poor people by the lack of pedestrian/public transit options.
  This sentence shows your privilege so much... >
  
  
  Unless you're poor in which case affording a meal McDonald's is cheaper than real groceries
  
  I just got 10 pounds of ground beef for less than my last McDonald's order - which was just for myself
  It comes out to like 15 dollars a person normally and then 30 a person if you are looking for ~7000 calorie maintenance (construction worker here) >
  
  You spent $30 on one meal and you’re using that as an argument? >
  
  Go look at a McDonald's menu and look at the actual prices >
  
  Spending $30 on one meal is literally insane when their meals are less then $10 each. 
  Obese fuck buying 3 meals. >
  
  There are a lot of nuances to your stats that your aren’t fully considering:
  Life expectancy: Two factors that reduce life expectancy in the US are drug overdoses, and the fact that the US is more ambitious in treating very premature births, which are risky and a relatively high percentage don’t survive more than a few days, which has an impact on overall life expectancy stats that many other countries don’t experience. You could argue that quality of life is much better in the US if you are experiencing a risky pregnancy because in the US more extreme measures will be taken to help your baby survive, even if the odds are low.
  Americas homicide rate is skewed heavily by a handful of small regions in our large cities. If you exclude those regions, then the homicide rate is significantly lower. If you don’t live in one of those places, which is the vast majority of Americans, then homicide rate doesn’t really apply from a quality of life standpoint.
  Obesity rates are meaningless for measuring quality of life. North Koreans don’t have a high quality of life because obesity is unheard of there (unless you are the dictator)?
  America’s health care system is certainly screwed up in terms of paying for it, but in terms of quality of care, people still come from all over the world to be treated here. And even poor people can’t be turned away from receiving life saving care.
  If you are comparing quality of life of the most disadvantaged Americans and the most disadvantaged people in the wealthiest European countries, there may be an argument that the European has it better.
  But the average American has at least as good a quality of life using your metrics as the average person in other rich countries. 
  Now what about factors that you didn’t consider? Americans have protections from the bill of rights that others don’t. You might appreciate them if you ever get accused of a crime. America is a huge country with an amazingly diverse economy, so the average American has many more options as to where and how they want to live, and what they want to do than people in European countries. We also have relatively fewer barriers to starting a business and being self employed (in most places). The US also has a lot of ethnic and cultural diversity compared to any of the countries you listed. If quality of life includes belonging to a culture that isn’t the majority, the options are far more open in the US than in any other country.
  In America, you can start a business and - if you choose to - work your butt off and, with a little smarts and a little luck, you can become quite well off. You may think of quality of life as how much time off the government forces you to have. Others don’t see this as a quality of life feature. They want the freedom to be able to work hard and reap the reward in 20 years. Is quality of life much less freedom and being taken care of by the government, or more freedom to take risks, fail, learn from your failures, and grow? >
  
  
  Americas homicide rate is skewed heavily by a handful of small regions in our large cities. If you exclude those regions, then the homicide rate is significantly lower. 
  
  "If you exclude the regions with high homicide rates, the homicide rates are lower". Yeah..
  83% of the population live in urban areas. (source)
  This is not a skewed statistic. This is the statistic. >
  
  "The life expectancy is skewed by those who are ill". 
  It’s not skewed. It’s just how those statistics are. And it’s the same everywhere. But excluding the crime hotspots from a crime statistic is just very misleading and makes it completely useless as a basis for comparison.
  You might as well argue the same for income. That’s also "skewed" by certain areas in large population centres. Should that be excluded from the national average as well? >
  
  The OP states that the quality of life is “significantly lower” in the US than in other wealthy nations. One of the five rationales OP uses is that Americans “have a significantly higher chance of being murdered.” This is factually incorrect. You cannot use the overall homicide rate of an entire country to determine any individual’s risk of being murdered. The fact is, any individual American’s risk of being murdered is highly dependent on where they live. And the vast majority of Americans have a low risk. >
  
  Do you think a varying crime rate based on the region of the country or even area within a city is something unique to the US? >
  
  No, I’m saying using homicide rate like this isn’t any indication of overall quality of life.
  A better indication would be, pick a random person in the US, and a random person in, say, Germany, then compare their risks of being killed. The vast majority of people in the US have a relatively low risk of homicide. A random person in the US still has a higher likelihood than a random person in most European countries, but it’s not the significantly higher chance as indicated in the OP.
  But again I’ll say this is a myopic view of quality of life. Singapore has a minuscule homicide rate, but being LGBT or black there is not nearly as accepting as in most places in the US and Europe. >
  
  Nothing you are saying has anything to do with the comment I made, which was about supposedly skewed statistics.
  Just because you don’t think it’s relevant doesn’t mean the statistic is skewed. >
  
  This is a funny hit piece almost as if OP gets all his data from reddit and cherry picked it.
  the life expectancy differs a lot state by state so you have NY and Cali around 80 and other states in the lower 70s so the measure of life varies a lot in the US.
  
  Additionally, America has infamously bad healthcare system. 
  
  Complain about the billing all you want but it's not bad per say in terms of actual care. >
  
  If you can't afford it, it is. Other countries have free, at the point of use, systems. No one left behind.
  There is no way that leaving anyone in financial jepordy, over health, can be justified in a society that wants to call itself advanced or civilised. Except, of course, if that shit is all you've ever known and you think it sane.
  From the outside, it's beyond fucked up. >
  
  Life quality is significantly lower is the OP argument. 91% of Americans are covered. Does this warrant the words significantly lower? I know US healthcare is very flawed. It sucks for those in that area of salary that make more than Medicaid but less than a decent life. I’m only arguing OPs CMV. Life quality is not significantly worse. Maybe slightly worse but not significantly unless you read Reddit propaganda 24/7. It’s usually American young adults that have never left the country or edgy European redditors that need to feel superior. I know the NHS is having a strike and your healthcare systems are being pretty rationed at the moment. I don’t think Reddit talks about that. >
  
  Police summary executions.
  Health care.
  Mass shootings.
  Corrupt, non representative "democracy". (No one really does this well, but PR helps)
  Piss poor train infrastructure.
  Piss poor pavements and human friendly walking spaces in most places.
  Fucked up traffic system. Roundabouts have existed for ages.
  Guns. Did I mention them enough?
  I know all of this is normal, and it's great. And I get that. It's just all fucking weird when you're on the outside. >
  
  Way to take all the most extreme default subreddit examples and generalize that to significant lower quality of life. The vast majority of Americans 10x more than your population are living similar lives to you in the UK. Mass shootings are still on the same level of winning the lottery. You had 3 prime ministers in just 90 or so days. Your privatized train systems are incredibly confusing and cause chaotic strikes. Your NHS is on strike. Does this sound significantly better? >
  
  50% of Americans earn $150k+ and live a very comfortable life, it's evidence free market capitalism works or millions wouldn't be trying to sneak in or emigrate here >
  
  This is a fallacy called “Texas Sharpshooter.” You’ve defined QOL as a series of statistics that you’ve empirically shown to support your argument, emphasized how they’re linked, but you’ve ignored other things that may promote a higher quality of life—or a different definition of it—and this leads to a pretty bullet-proof (forgive the pun), though fundamentally flawed argument.
  You’ve made an “if this, then this” statement without a lot of wiggle room. Often when people don’t include “if this then only this,” they fail to see how “only” is built into their argument; in this case, it’s definitely there. I’m not even saying you’re wrong, I’m just saying, given your argument, there’s not really anyone can say to overcome the argument you’ve made.
  By way of a quick example, I could argue that spending power—or “Purchasing Power”—is the top factor in QOL. 40 of the top 50 cities, worldwide, in Purchasing Power are in the US.. I can also argue the more cities has in the top 50 of this list, the more quality of life the country has. Therefore, US has the highest QOL in the world >
  
  The US has the best healthcare in the world. You’ll be stuck with a big fat bill afterwards, however. >
  
  today i learned china is a poor country. >
  
  China's GDP per capita is $12.5k, it's comparable to Bulgaria. America's is at $69.2k. China is big, and they have huge cities full of rich people, but the average Chinese citizen is poor. >
  
  I think it depends how people are using the term "poor country/nation". To some that term refers to the overall funds the government of that nation has at its disposal, to others it may mean the average living conditions, in your case you mean GDP. That's why I think there's some confusion. >
  
  Lifespan is a bad proxy for quality of life.
  Healthcare itself is second to none.  Health insurance/Healthcare access, however, is utterly terrible.
  Murders are largely isolated to certain areas of certain cities.  99.9999% of the land, there is no threat of murder.
  With that said, there are definitely things in the US that arr not good.  But not the things above >
  
  
  Murders are largely isolated to certain areas of certain cities. 99.9999% of the land, there is no threat of murder.
  
  Isn't this true for all countries though? >
  
  You’re talking about differences among hundreds of millions of people with data points that have extremely small levels of difference, so really I mean the differences are already going to be very small 
  I would argue that the American middle and working class standard of living is pretty much the same as the European middle and working class standard of living 
  The difference that skews the statistics is, to put it bluntly, black Americans, and native Americans but there are way more black Americans, quality of life being on average worse. Really the black working class’ standard of living is way worse. They have worse health outcomes, they have far higher crime rates in their communities (and I’m not doing the 13/50 racist bit here and blaming it on them, it’s just a fact), they have lower levels of educational attainment, all of it. Same for native Americans, on average. The lows are lower in america, and traditionally American society been racially stratified. 
  And these communities exist in Europe as well. They’re just much more likely to be immigrants, so they don’t count on data for citizens, or they’re smaller Romani communities. 
  This stuff about europe being a paradise compared to America is a myth. They’re way more similar than they are different. >
  
  I’ve traveled extensively to Europe and live in US. Things I admire about Europe include an orderliness and focus on appearances. America has a much higher level of personal freedom and ability to achieve. Healthcare in US is second to none but access more difficult. I think stress in US is higher as we work very hard. US is incredibly wealthy. 
  I think OP is wrong that quality of life is worse in US. I agree with people pointing out size and diversity of US population. For example, Scandinavia has 5-6 million per country. Most are like minded. US is approaching 400 mil. Our open southern boarder is flooding country with drugs and EU isn’t facing anything like our drug crisis which is driving most our social ills like homelessness. Just my opinion after doing a lot of traveling and observing. Crazy with almost no unemployment in US we still have homelessness. Seems like a choice in some situations. Rather be on drugs and out of shelters. >
  
  i think this is the american conservative explanation but i think its just as inaccurate as the myth that america is a hellhole compared to europe  
  in reality i still think there isn't much of a difference.  there isn't more personal freedom or ability to achieve in america.  there isn't more "orderliness" in europe; there might be better looking slums, but the slums are still slums.  all countries in europe, especially scandinavia, have many, many immigrants and refugees that have moved into those countries recently, and immigrants in europe tend to be more isolated, poor and segregated than immigrants in america, essentially like poor urban black american neighborhoods in the major US cities.  i don't think you can blame drugs or being "like minded" on solely immigration or drug smuggling, because immigration to the US is a much different thing and drugs are a problem everywhere in the world.  germany alone has a higher total number of homeless people per night than america; its a country that's 1/6 the size of america.    
  i think that american liberals (and really european liberals) like to think that europe is a developed model for america and that everything is better there.  in the same way, american conservatives (and european ones too) like to think that america is really a land of opportunity and its freedom is a model for europe.  both are inaccurate.  they're both really two versions of the same model, with slight differences that are exaggerated by either side. >
  
  Very interesting response. Thanks. >
  
  If that was the case, the net flow of immigration  would be away from the US, not towards it. Why would people leave the countries you listed as having a better quality of life, to live in the US? >
  
  Majority of immigrants to the US come from poorer countries, primarily Mexico and other South American countries, as well as South East Asia. 
  Compared to them, America still is a big improvement. But that’s because these countries are so poor.
  Migration from other rich countries to America is very small. >
  
  
  Migration from other rich countries to America is very small.
  
  There are 166k American expats in the UK, yet 670k UK expats in the US. The same trend holds for Canada, Germany, Japan, and every other developed country you care to check.
  Living standards in the US are extremely high. Hence why the US has no issue attracting migrants from developed nations, while those nations struggle to get Americans to go the other way. There is no other explanation. People move to make their lived better, not worse. >
  
  Net migration per 1,000 inhabitants:
  Canada: 7.1
  Germany 4.8
  UK: 4
  USA: 3.2
  Japan: 0.8
  Per citizen, we draw fewer migrants than do 3/4 of the countries you listed; though it is interesting to see the expat balance you shared. >
  
  Usually, I'm all for per capita normalization, but I'm not sure it counts with migration because the US population is huge. It would take an insane amount of immigrants to register simular per capita. 
  Take Canada for example. The US has 10x the population. In order for the US to match that 7.1 number they would need almost 3 million people moving in each year. That's three Delawares! That's ~7% of Canada!
  IMO, a better stat would be the percentage of migrants living in each country. According to this there are about 272m migrants in the world and 50m live in the US. I.e., 18% of all migrants are picking one country out of 195. That's beyond disproportionate. >
  
  That high % of all migrants who live in the US seems like a strong signal... buuuut... I don't think we can ignore per capita:
  If you add up and compare total and migrant populations of similar countries (France, UK, Germany, Italy, Canada, and Australia), using the data from the global migration link you shared, we end up with \~342 million total population with \~57 million migrants; nearly identical to the US.
  (my cherry-picked set of countries ignores 3 of the top 6 countries by migrant pop % - Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the UAE - which, if included, would've put the US behind in total migrants and total migrants over total population)
  ​
  From another angle, there is a lot of opportunity in the US, but we've also got some land-based neighbors and near neighbors that have huge outflows of migrants (Mexico and the Norther Triangle countries - Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala).
  To that end, it is no surprise that we have such a large migrant population, and it seems to say more about the relative desirability of our own and our nearby feeder nations than it does about our nation in comparison to say Canada.
  Sticking with Canada, they share zero borders with feeder countries, yet still have more migrants per year per capita than we have in the US. Combining their higher per capita migration rates with their lack of a feeder country on their border seems to me to suggest that they are a more desirable destination. I'd have to dive deeper on proximity thoughts for the UK and France etc to use this same idea, but right off the bat, migration to the UK and Australia requires a boat and or plane (instead of just walking), and countries like France and Germany are surrounded mostly by other receiver nations (though Eastern Europe is pretty close, and the Middle East ain't far off either).
  Yea, the US is pretty sweet, but it doesn't have the same per-capita draw as is seen in many other countries to which migration is more difficult. >
  
  I disagree that you can combine any 6 countries to make a fair comparison to one. My point was the US draws a larger percentage of migrants than any other country. It was not the US draws more migrants than a set of 6 countries put together. 
  Sorry, I hate to beat a point, but your comparison is so intensely wrong and I can't find words to explain it without sounding condensending. Moving the goalposts from comparing the US to other countries individually to comparing the US to a handpicked team of six separate countries across 3 continents is invalid. I'll leave it at that.
  Secondly, back to the usefulness of per-capita. There is a limited number of migrants, but destination space isn't a limiting factor. Neither the US or Canada is turning down migrants because they already have too many people.
  So, if the number of people in a country is not limiting the number who are going to the country, why should we use per capita? 
  Again, if we are dumping balls into buckets, why should we consider how many balls were in the buckets before our experiment? If we set rats loose in a maze with multiple destinations and load one path with more promises of food (like cheese sent or somthing) why should we consider the rats already at the destinations when counting the distribution of our experiment?
  There are 272m (or 342m) migrants in the world and one country (not a cherry-picked team) is pulling 50m of them. But that country just happens to be so big that it doesn't register as much per-capita. 
  Or again, of the people migrating the biggest chunk are choosing the US. >
  
  No insight is gained into destination desirability by looking at a tiny country and noting only that it has fewer migrants than does some huge country.
  Physically tiny countries can't hold 50 million total people, let alone 50 million migrants atop their existing populations.
  Further, a country with 30 million natives can't absorb 50 million migrants; the required job growth rate would exceed anything seen in history.
  In the end, carrying capacity impacts the % of total migrants that could end up in any one country; hence the value of the per-capita migrant metric when trying to compare destination desirability.
  No goal post has been shifted by a simple application of the per-capita perspective. It simply allows a comparison of the metric you find compelling. Think of it this way, just as many migrants are happy to live alongside 330 million US citizens as are happy to live alongside 330 million citizens from some bundle of countries.
  Grabbing a different bundle of countries would show us that migrants would rather live among 330 million US citizens than among 330 million citizens of South American nations.
  The ability to compare destination desirability is not lost by bundling; all bundling does is help us work with equivalent population sizes (which are leading factors in how many people can migrate to a place or set of places).
  ​
  
  Neither the US or Canada is turning down migrants because they already have too many people.
  
  As a point of fact, the US (like nearly every other intake country) very much caps its legal immigration rates, and has since it was founded; while also fighting against illegal immigration.
  For quite some time, US immigration was limited based on country of origin relative to existing US population from that same country. There have been limits on skilled and unskilled workers, and limits on individual migrants and on migrant families. In the end, countries limit immigration to keep their economies from getting watered down.
  In 1910, the US migrant population represented about 15% of the total, that dropped to about 5% in 1970, and has steadily risen back to nearly 15%; all thanks to immigration policies that limited the options of the world's migrants.
  ​
  I believe there are at least five major, sometimes multi-part factors that make a country desirable to migrants.
  Proximity. The vast majority of our (at least recent) immigrants can walk here, and happen to come from countries that are significant senders. We don't get a lot from Canada, but we get tons from Mexico etc. Two otherwise identical countries (one in the middle of the ocean, and one right next to an impoverished nation) are going to have very different migrant rates even though every other indicator might be the same.
  English speaking countries have an edge because more people speak English than speak any other language; this makes successful migration relatively easy.
  Our overall population size, economy, and per-capita GDP are high; so there is plenty of flex in our economic system. Places that have large populations but low per-capita incomes are less desirable, but can still draw more migrants than can tiny nations.
  Our land is large, sparsely populated, fertile and mostly temperate. Not only are there lots of places to go, there are lots of nice places to go (unlike the upper parts of places like Finland or Russia etc). This reduces pressures from overcrowding, and provides lots of opportunities to make money off untapped land.
  ​
  Are there any factors you think matter more than those I've listed?
  Would you suggest an order of importance that is different from:
  
  Population size
  Proximity
  Per-Capita GDP
  Immigration Policy
  Quality of available land
  Population density
  
  ​
  With those in mind, however one might order them, any place that has more migrants per capita must offer a better economy, more land, be easier to get to, or perhaps provide some higher overall quality of life (perhaps based on crime rates and freedoms etc)... no? >
  
  
  first 4 paragraphs
  
  I tried hard to avoid this, but the US and Canada are not turning away people because they physically can't take more. Yes, Singapore can't take 300m migrants, but most countries aren't hitting their physical limits. Especially not the ones we keep bringing up.
  
  no goal post has been shifted
  
  Yes, it was. We were comparing country to country. If intake is related to people already present  why isn't India and China intaking so much more? We are comparing single countries. EDIT: don't answer this, it would just derail us further from the real question of "is per capita useful".
  
  immigration caps
  
  I think the most we can get out of these is that more people want into US and Canada than they want, but potentially not more than they could take. That is a nice metric showing that the US and Canada are popular, but entirely different from what we're talking about.
  If anything population caps indicate we shouldn't use per capita because countries artificially restrict their intake for reasons that may not be QoL related.
  Perhaps we should only judge if countries meet their self-set immigration goals or not. In which case, US and Canada are equal in their ability to easily satisfy themselves. 
  
  history of migration 
  
  That's pretty neat and could indicate that the US was either not a desirable location in the past or simply isolationist.
  
  5 factors list
  
  Great. I'm not disagreeing. However, we don't know how many migrants chose their destination for proximity alone. We would have to poll migrants around the world and ask where they would go if they were given a free plane ticket. But we don't have that.
  Because we don't have that, we either have to risk ignoring proximity or just give up. It still isn't a strong case for per capita over share of total immigrants. 
  
  With those in mind, however one might order them, any place that has more migrants per capita must offer a better economy, more land, be easier to get to, or perhaps provide some higher overall quality of life (perhaps based on crime rates and freedoms etc)... no?
  
  No. Practically, anyone can catch covid. It makes sense then to use per capita to show that the US is worse than the UK at fighting covid and not simply bigger than the UK. However, the vast majority of the worldwide population either cannot or does not want to migrate. There is a limited pool of migrants that can be considered separate from the wealthy countries we consider (as they do not contribute much to the pool itself, few people move from Canada to the US and vice-versa).
  In other words, we can consider all the wealthy countries as competing for a limited, external number of people, like how small town groceries stores compete to draw in the most from the limited number of local residents. The US takes the lion's share of the limited people.
  The other countries attracted fewer immigrants. Was it proximity or QoL? Arguing per capita doesn't answer that. Ultimately, the US was the most attractive singular country. While this also doesn't answer why, it does allow us to make that claim. To inflate smaller countries using per capita is misleading. Per capita tells us little without digging up information on how many immigrants would have gone to a different country if there were no caps or long distances in the way.
  You can't say much with per capita but at least you can say x was more attractive overall than y using percent of total. >
  
  It's a weird formulation, it implies that the US has a set amount of wealth and could work less hours and stay as wealthy, or that if only we did healthcare better the life expectancy would jump, etc. Like it would seem more accurate to say "for a country with as much violence and obesity as the US, the US has managed to become disproportionately wealthy." >
  
  You know how I know you’re young OP, because you actually believe a county like Afghanistan is reporting their data correctly. 
  Welcome to the jungle.
  Also quality over quantity; YOLO >
  
  Right above your post was another in my feed talking about how Canada's Healthcare system where doctors are telling people to kill themselves is trying to be portrayed as a good thing. >
  
  The United States is not similar to any other country in the world.  Different types of countries have different issues. And every system has issues, just on different scales. So basically I think your use of similarity is incorrect (richness alone does not cut it). >
  
  It’s also massively bigger than most countries. Canada (38m), Australia (26m), Germany (83m), UK (68m), etc. USA has 330M. >
  
  The Europe is better than the US arguments always seem very similar to the "China is better than Europe" arguments. 
  China has lower obesity, substance abuse, homelessness suicide and crime including homicide (if you believe official stats which is an issue for a lot of Europe too) rates than most of Europe.
  They also have a lot of the superficially good looking things like clean streets, public amenities, sufficient and mostly universal healthcare ect. And for a certain type of person they also believe China to be more politically and culturally stable and less prone to infighting.
  Chinese people often use this to claim their country is actually better than the west and it's a fairly similar argument that you have laid out (though it is true Chinese life expectancy is relatively low which is a large part of your argument).
  Despite this very few people with any real experience of both places actually believe Chinese people enjoy a higher quality of life than westerners and it's mostly down to material prosperity the importance of which you vastly underestimate. >
  
  You're picking stats that are at best only a partial contributor to our quality of life, and at worst are pretty irrelevant.
  
  Life expectancy in America is 77.28 years which places it at 54th place. 
  
  1) This is just another way of stating that the healthcare system is bad.
  2) It's a measure of quantity of life, rather than quality of life
  3) The variation in lifespan within the population is so massive that the difference between nations is negligible. You are the primary determinant of your lifespan.
  
  Now let’s look at the homicide rate 
  
  Homicides are vanishingly rare for the general population. Your vulnerability to homicide is far more dependent on factors you control (eg. where you live, how you behave socially) than which country you are in.
  
  On the topic of healthcare, the obesity rate in the America is 36.2% 
  
  Obesity is entirely a personal failing. Living in America doesn't make you any more prone to obesity than living in any developed nation. If anything, it is an indicator of a good quality of life, as America is developed enough to provide the excesses that contribute to obesity more than any other nation.
  
  And finally, Americans work much more than people in other wealthy countries. 
  
  This is by choice. You can negotiate the same privileges that you get in Europe. People don't do that because the extra disposable income is worth working for. European counterparts do not have the option of doing extra work for that extra income.
  
  If you want to get a good measure of quality of life, take something more comprehensive. HDI is a popular metric, and US is smack dab in the middle of the collection of developed western nations. >
  
  
  Living in America doesn't make you any more prone to obesity than living in any developed nation. If anything, it is an indicator of a good quality of life, as America is developed enough to provide the excesses that contribute to obesity more than any other nation.
  
  Yes, it does. That's literally how statistics works. >
  
  statistics show groups, not individuals.  You are not going to gain 30lbs by moving from Colorado to Mississippi.  However, people are generally more likely to be obese in Mississippi than in Colorado. >
  
  If all the food around me, especially the one I can afford, leads to obesity, I totally would. US food is one of the unhealthiest in the world, due to many factors. One of the biggest - corn syrup, which is being put in virtually everything. >
  
  I’ve traveled to a dozen different countries and I wouldn’t rather live anywhere else except the US. 
  The variety when it comes to essentially everything in life is simply unmatched. 
  How can I feel this way if the standard of living is “actUaLlY” lower? >
  
  That's interesting you say this because I been seeing a plethora of people saying moving to other countries is better than being in the USA >
  
  It’s certainly not a universal opinion!
  But the vast majority of people that are capable of emigrating do not. 
  More immigrants choose the US than any other country. Surely that indicates something positive? >
  
  A fair amount of your quality of life metrics are a consequence of the freedom we provide out people
  Life expectancy and obesity especially both of those are signs that your allowed to eat too much if you choose but if you want to be Increadibly in chape that’s possible too
  Also are homocide issues are extremely concentrated to inner cutie areas and are related to gang activity if your not involved in that it’s extremely safe, so again completely controllable obey choice >
  
  Obesity doesn't mean you eat a lot, but that you eat low quality food. One that is filled with, let's say, corn syrup, which coincidentally is happening in the US. 
  Extremely safe? Tell this to the hundreds of kids that are being shot in their schools. They should ease up on their gang activity I suppose /s >
  
  You can choose to not eat corn syrup ladden foods 
  And “hundreds of kids being shot up in schools” demonstrates you don’t actually understand the situation 
  While it’s obviously a tragedy a kid is more likely to die in a bud accident on the way then they are in a school shooting and school
  Shootings are extremely rare it just seems more common because america is huge and wuen they do happen the media covers them a lot, for example this yesr there were 200 “school shootings” yes but only one with an active shooter meaning there was someone shooting people in a school 
  The other ones are just individual shootings that happened at a school most of which were in high school in inner cities >
  
  You can choose to eat healthy food, if you are not being paid 8 dollars an hour. However a vast number of Americans are not that lucky.
  Also what bs are you talking about??? There were 50 school shootings with injuries or deaths. 139 people injured or killed, 31 students killed. For comparison with children who died in school bus crashes, 10. So what, 3 times less likely to die at school than on the bus, i.e. your example is complete bull. >
  
  Did you look at the last sentance
  How many of those were active shooters and how many of those were individual skirmishes that happened at a school?
  High schools are involved in gangs and still are considered students 
  Also even if we go with the number you gave at face value that’s not “100’s” >
  
  Not 100s... Yes, because there were school shootings only in 2022... *facepalm*  
  And erm... Does it matter if it was an active school shooter or not? Was a kid (and other ppl) shot in a school? Yes they were. >
  
  Again you don’t understand the situation nor do you seem to actually care beyond your talking point
  Active shooter is when someone shows up and shoots people indiscriminately
  Non active shooter which is all of them but 1 this year for example is when someone shoots a specific person or group of people most of the time due to something they were involved with together, now it’s still a tragedy but in this situation the fact that it happened at a school is irrelevant because they had a vendetta against a specific person and coulda done it any number of other places, and again this group is primarily categorized  by gang violence in inner cities
  Even reading the list you provided a lot of them are things that happened outside of the school in inner citi areas which proves my original point >
  
  Dude... Who the fuck cares if it was an active shooter or not?? Check how many kids die in schools in other countries. Even 1 active shooter is one too many!!! And I want to see you arguing how kids diying at school is a sign for high quality of life... >
  
  Im not saying it’s a sign of a high quality of life
  Im saying it’s not as widespread of an issue as people act like it is 
  Your still intentionally missing the point >
  
  No I am not. The point is that ANY school shootings is bad. The point is that if your kid could be shot in school, the quality of life in said country is shit. That's the point. You can act as much as u want it's not, or that it's rare, but that shit happens only in warzones or really poor countries, not in high quality of life counties. >
  
  You are right in many respects, but so are the people who are challenging you. The answer to this apparent paradox is that money matters in the US. If you have it, you have the best quality of life in the world. If you don’t…then yeah you’re mostly right. For many of these stats, if you break it down more rigorously by income, that will become more and more clear in the numbers >
  
  
  America has 6.5 homicides per 100k people.
  
  Reported homicides.
  
  Life expectancy in America is 77.28 years which places it at 54th place.
  
  Meh that's fine. I'm not really worried about living to 77 or 81. Same shit.
  
  On the topic of healthcare, the obesity rate in the America is 36.2%
  
  Rather be fat than hungry.
  
  Than people in other similarly wealthy countries.
  
  The EU owes a lot to the US. If they had to pay for their own defense they might change their tune. >
  
  
  Reported homicides.
  
  Do you have any evidence that all of Europe, East Asia and Canada severely underreport their homicides? Because if not, then the point still stands that America has MUCH more murders than them.
  
  Meh that's fine. I'm not really worried about living to 77 or 81. Same shit.
  
  Lower life expectancy doesn’t just mean that elderly people live shorter. It means that young people are more likely to die from preventable causes. People dying in their 50s and 60s, sometimes even younger. It affects the whole population. Americans are simply more likely to die than people in other rich countries.
  
  Rather be fat than hungry.
  
  Neither Japan nor South Korea have higher rates of population being unable to afford food than America. All the data that I could find they have either similar or lower hunger rates than America. Same for Europe. So they can feed their population without suffering from the obesity pandemic at the same scale as America. I would be interested if you have any source that shows that either EU or Japan/South Korea have issues with feeding their population. 
  
  The EU owes a lot to the US. If they had to pay for their own defense they might change their tune.
  
  It is entirely on the US how it spends its budget. If you think that America spends too much on the military, at the cost of its citizens, then it just reinforces my point. >
  
  So I have to ask about the immigration part of this. 
  Is it really fair to compare a culturally homogeneous Nation with a nation that has significant racial differences. Both Japan and South Korea don't have significant culture clashs within their borders. They also don't join Nations that have tremendous criminal enterprises that bring drugs and violence into their Nations. I would also say that this is a similar thing for Europe as well because I don't know of any major operation to bring drugs in like the cartels in Mexico. Correct me if I'm wrong.
  A significant portion of our violence comes from culture clash and drug violence. Knowing that is it not understandable that we would have more homicides than other countries that don't have to deal with that? >
  
  Yes. Every country has things about it that change propensity for different things. The criticism is over the country as a whole. The US could do any number of things to address any gang issues. It could hire death squads or give its poor a basic income or amnesty or anything in between. The progress on those issues leaves it in part where it is now. >
  
  But that's not what I'm asking. Yes we could do a number of things about getting violence but a lot of that violence is being driven by protecting turf for drugs. And that is being driven by the cartels in Mexico. It's more complicated than you're making it. I mean even if you root it out all of the gangs that's not going to stop the cartels from dropping more drugs and other communities and starting this all over again. >
  
  
  But that's not what I'm asking. Yes we could do a number of things about getting violence but a lot of that violence is being driven by protecting turf for drugs. And that is being driven by the cartels in Mexico. It's more complicated than you're making it. I mean even if you root it out all of the gangs that's not going to stop the cartels from dropping more drugs and other communities and starting this all over again.
  
  The US could do any number of things to combat it. Safe drug programs, UBI dropping the forced criminalization of what you call schedule 1-4 drugs in the US, not having done the things it did to intervene in latin america, intervening in latin America and doing anything it wanted to stop drug violence etc. >
  
  I agree with legalization though meth and a few of the others could be hard. I can see intervening in Mexico being a very difficult thing to do and very likely not popular. I think that's the main problem. There's not enough agreement on how to find a solution.
  Granted a lot of the damage communities are a difficult fix right now as well. >
  
  
  I agree with legalization though meth and a few of the others could be hard. I can see intervening in Mexico being a very difficult thing to do and very likely not popular. I think that's the main problem. There's not enough agreement on how to find a solution.
  
  And that falls on the US. 
  
  Granted a lot of the damage communities are a difficult fix right now as well.
  
  Again, that falls on the US. even if it somehow didn't that wouldn't change the OP's prompt. The US performs very poorly for its total level of wealth. >
  
  Similarly rich countries? Not really sure how you classify countries as similar to the US? Are you talking Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Australia maybe are peers? All decent sized settler colonial countries. >
  
  I would say the most comparable countries to the United States are Canada and Australia, as all three are big, rich countries, with multicultural and multiethnic migrant backgrounds, and similar culture and history.  
  Other than that. The UK, France and Germany are also economically similar to America, although they do not share as many other characteristics like culture, geography or history
  All score similarly in GDP per capita and median income, which means they are similarly rich. With America scoring the best in both categories, making them the richest.
  Mexico and Brazil share many characteristics with the US, but they aren't rich, which means they aren't a good comparison. >
  
  Big in the sense of what? Population wise they’re 1/10 the size of the US. >
  
  Area and economy. >
  
  Something like 90 percent of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border. There’s a lot of area with a whole lot of nothing. Ditto for Australia. Area doesn’t mean much here. >
  
  There are universal pillars of happiness. It is quantifiable not abstract. Healthcare, Job Pay/opportunities, cost of living, quality of food, low crime, work life balance. >
  
  Life expectancy is a poor metric for quality of life. It is very sensitive to demographics. The US also high rates of traffic fatalities because it is such a large country and people drive significantly more. 
  Americans work more because they earn more. Before European tax rates climbed they worked just as many hours.
  91% have insurance and those without insurance can still get healthcare. Health insurance is expensive but the care is very good. 
  The murder rate is higher but most of it is gang members in the drug trade. For most people the chance of getting murdered is very small instead of very very small.
  Median disposable income in the US is much higher than the rest of the world. Houses are bigger. People have more cars, more electronics, eat out more often. If you lose your job, unemployment in the US is low and there are lots of well paying jobs to take. Housing is much more affordable,
  In the US you get more money, a good job, lots of good food, affordable housing. On the other hand instead of a one in ten thousand chance of being murdered, you have a 5 in ten thousand chance of being murdered. >
  
  
  Median
  
  Is not average. >
  
  If you used mean instead of median, the difference in disposable income would be even greater in America's favor. >
  
  In your post, you have interchangeably used "quality of life" and "standard of living." 
  These are not the same things.
  
  Quality of life is a more subjective and intangible term than standard of living. As such, it can often be hard to quantify. The factors that affect the overall quality of life vary by people's lifestyles and their personal preferences.
  
  Many of the arguments you're seeing are alluding to this ambiguity without stating it explicitly. 
  For example, in the discussion of obesity, many have pointed out that this comes down to lifestyle choice. 
  Arguably, US Americans have a high(er) enough standard of living that allows them to make the choice of being obese. 
  You can say this results in a lower quality of life but that is your subjective valuation. 
  Others may find that they would rather be obese and live a few years less on average. To them, the tradeoff is enjoyable, and thus, they would find that a higher quality of life. 
  Ultimately, you are trying to use hard statistics to define a subjective judgment. That's fine as an attempt to justify your position. But at the end of day, because quality of life is a subjective value, almost any argument could be valid. 
  You're asking people to argue against your definition of quality of life. To the extent that you think it and have provided a justification, that could be an impossible task. 
  You're asking us to change your values, and it would be all too easy for you to simply say that we're not picking the right values according to you and you alone. Precisely because "quality of life" is nebulous and subjective, there is no objective way for this to be accomplished. >
  
  I don't really disagree with you, but I'll give it a go.
  I don't think it's quite fair (in this sense) to look at America as one nation. I'll use the life expectancy premise as an example.
  This is the life expectancy map by state in 2019, the year of your stats. Notice anything? Me too. The South is indeed, not rising again.
  Ready for homicide rates? This is the homicide rate map by state in 2019. Notice anything? Me too. The South likes killing each other.
  This trend continues.
  I think my point is - America isn't really America. It's still the Union and the Confederacy. 
  So I think your premise isn't appropriate. I think you could fairly say the life quality in the Union is on par with the rest of the world. But the South is a different story altogether. >
  
  So I think you're kind of limited in the scope you're looking at.
  First of all, I'm not sure life expectancy is equal to quality of life - especially when the difference is a few years in the late 70's/early 80's (and is likely smaller than the standard deviation).
  Also, most of the other statistics you've mentioned are narrow in the scope of whom they apply to. Yes, the US does have a higher homicide rate, but unless you're involved with gangs or drugs, the vast majority of Americans don't get murdered or even know anyone who will be or has been murdered. The obesity rate is higher, but most Americans aren't obese.
  Yes, the quality of life is poor if you're obese, uninsured, and murdered, but that doesn't apply to many Americans.
  ​
  On the other hand, Americans consume more, with greater disposable income and access to an extremely wide variety of goods and services. Even poorer Americans typically have dishwashers, washers/driers, air conditioning & heating, refrigerators/freezers, large flat screen TVs, quality cars, etc. >
  
  America is probably the most diverse country on Earth. You are trying to use a broad brush to generalize. Yes, the US has problems that I don't want to trivialize, but these problems affect a minority of people. We have outliers that bring the averages down.
  The average American has health insurance through their job and has great health care. Unless you live in gangland, violence isn't high. Where I live in suburban NJ, violent crime is non-existent. In a few areas in neighboring Philadelphia, it is through the roof. We are definitely fatter, but that's due to an abundance of cheap food. Hardly a sign of poor quality of living. The overwhelming majority of Americans have a similar quality of living as Europeans and averaging in the outliers gives an in accurate view. While all countries have outliers, I would argue the outliers in the US are just more extreme. Where there is violence, there's a lot of violence. When people are obese, they're 600lbs obese. >
  
  Stop booing him, he’s right. >
  
  I pretty much agree with you but want to point out one thing you might hear as an argument in this thread:
  What you are looking at here is the average of people in these categories. In the U.S., the disparity between the upper and lower ends is quite significant - the average might not depict the situation well for a lot of people.
  It is correct that the U.S. likely has some of the best healthcare in the world - it is the disparity in wealth that makes this healthcare unaffordable to a large part of the population. >
  
  I might would believe that the US had the best healthcare at some point, I'm wondering if that's true after spending a lot of time in chronic illness communities. If it's standard to see 7 or more doctors before you're diagnosed with a fairly common condition, or before it is even considered, is that the best healthcare the world has to offer? >
  
  When anyone worldwide is obscenely wealthy and can go anywhere they want for healthcare, they often come to the US. >
  
  I imagine it's because I live in a poor area of the US, but my experience with even emergency health issues has been so disappointing it's hard to imagine that isn't the standard. I've had X-rays misread, I've been misdiagnosed and dismissed so many times, I've had them schedule the wrong tests for health issues, all so many times. But then, I know the one hospital here is one of the worst rated in the state and in the US, so that would explain that. >
  
  I feel like this is one of those statistics that really has no meaning when you start breaking it down. Quality of life is totally different person to person and has so many factors involved, some of which are uncontrollable. 
  life expectancy has very little to do with “quality of life” when it’s 70 years plus. And 54th place is 77 years and 5th place is 83 years? That’s only 6 years difference from 54th place to 5th place. It’s really not that much of a difference. Also on a lot of these statistics you’re comparing countries with way different populations and cultures. 
  I feel like a huge chunk of americas homicides are gang violence and in very specific places within the US. It definitely doesn’t represent the majority of the country. 
  I’m not an expert on how other countries healthcare works but I’ve heard many people say they prefer americas healthcare over the free healthcare that they came from. But I can’t argue this point too much without knowing more. So idk. 
  Does obesity equal quality of life ? If someone wants to eat burgers and fries their whole life and not exercise then it’s nobody else’s business but them and their loved ones. Everyone has personal freedom to eat healthy or not eat healthy. How would anything america does as a whole influence this? 
  The statistic about more hours worked is super random and not factoring in athousand different factors around working more hours. But basically I’d want to know WHY people are working different amounts of hours in different countries. >
  
  Until we’re at the level that other Scandinavian and dutch countries are at, youre 100% correct. They’re what america tries to be, yet fails miserably at >
  
  
  Average American works 1791 hours a year. In Australia 1694, In Canada 1685, in the UK 1497, and in Germany 1349. The only rich country ahead of America is South Korea at 1915, and Korea is known for its unhealthy work environment.
  
  This is something that needs consideration however. Yes, South Koreans work many hours, but they also socialize a lot at work and I've noticed that of U.S.A. work culture as well.
  German work very few hours, but when they work they actually work and work hard. >
  
  Larger houses means they are harder to afford and maintenance is higher 
  OP extensively explained why wealth doesn't equate prosperity. And the fact that healthcare and education are out of pocket expenses makes less taxes an unworthy tradeoff. 
  Fuel is one of the lowest expenses for most people. 
  Just as the best and unaffordable healthcare is useless, the best and unaffordable education is worthless. >
  
  
  Larger houses means they are harder to afford and maintenance is higher
  
  Or average incomes are high enough to be able to afford homes like that?
  
  OP extensively explained why wealth doesn't equate prosperity. And the fact that healthcare and education are out of pocket expenses makes less taxes an unworthy tradeoff.
  
  Yes certainly Belarus is a great place to live they have very high level of income and wealth equality and free healthcare and education.
  
  Fuel is one of the lowest expenses for most people.
  
  Fuel and energy costs are significant especially now for Europeans if you have not noticed >
  
  You provide no evidence
  And the fact that Belarus can at least have some measure of publicly accessible healthcare while being a fraction of the prosperity says a lot about what you're trying to argue here. 
  That's Europe's dumb fault for not switching a nuclear or renewables and that same shit could happen to us if Mexico or Canada ever got uppity at us. >
  
  
  You provide no evidence
  
  Of what higher incomes in the US?
  
  And the fact that Belarus can at least have some measure of publicly accessible healthcare while being a fraction of the prosperity says a lot about what you're trying to argue here.
  
  That equality of poverty is not something that we should strive toward.
  
  That's Europe's dumb fault for not switching a nuclear or renewables and that same shit could happen to us if Mexico or Canada ever got uppity at us.
  
  Europe is taxing its citizens into oblivion to finance delusion of renewables without nuclear hell EP tried to push Russian gas as green tech label prior to the war. >
  
  A medium breakdown along purchasing power would show that a lot of European countries have a far larger middle class than us being my main point. 
  Loooooooooooooooool straw man says what
  And yet if you ask any European if they'd rather have less taxes to be more American and free market they'd all laugh at you and call you a freaking moron. >
  
  
  But to the extent that governments in Western Europe are more likely to provide services to households that may not be captured in household income, such as the National Health Service in the UK, it is possible that differences in the quality of life between the U.S. and Western Europe are narrower.
  
  Kind of a huge red flag that the study didn't include several major programs that have the largest outstanding effects on people's standard of living 🤔
  Your second paragraph is a fat lot of nothing and an antidote. I'm a highly skilled worker here in America and I can tell you we are also highly underpaid. And one of the reasons we are underpaid is because we still have to have healthcare paid out of pocket. 
  And now you're trying to round this discussion back to home with topics of immigration which before I completely knock this shit out of the park I will say is irrelevant. 
  If you look at several European countries you'll see they actually have a far higher rate of immigration in the United States both in terms of total number per capita and the total number of their citizens that are immigrants per capita. United States is certainly a contender in the statistic but the immigration rate to the United States slowed down significantly in the last 30 years because of our declining social and living standards. 
  And the topic of income inequality is nothing more than a red herring in this discussion and only proves that all America really needs to do to increase his living standards is robust social programs and income inequality can be sidestepped completely. Which only makes America more of a disgrace by the fact that it can't make that simple little side step. >
  
  Don’t discount the power of possessions. 
  We have bigger houses, so more personal space. 
  I walk as many places as I can. Yes, it keeps me fit, but I sacrifice a lot of time. Americans have generally declared with their spending habits that free time is more valuable to them than health/fitness.
  Americans have so much financial flexibility to choose what they want out of life. Most of us aren’t people who are shoe-horned into lifestyles we don’t want. Does freedom of choice count as a quality of life indicator? >
  
  I’m not going to try to change your view cause it’s correct… >
  
  To cite Stewie Griffin from Family Guy, "your poor planning does constitute an emergency for me". Basically all of these arguments are based on the assumption that people can't structure their own lives effectively, and the corrective action to solve these problems are to take away the individual's autonomy. 
  To solve obesity and shorter life expectancy for example, the primary way European states solve these problems are by heavily taxing things like sugar, alcohol, and tobacco. In the United States we don't regulate things this way, meaning these vices are far more accessible to people than they are in Europe, and as someone who likes a good whiskey or cigar I really appreciate that I'm not penalized for partaking in these activities. However, that lack of regulation means it's incumbent on you to make your own risk assessment and determine if the benefits are worth the risks. >
  
  Ehhhh, I still think it’s the greatest country on earth >
  
  I daydream of living in one of those countries where employers are required to give you a paid vacation every year and they don't expect you to work if you're sick. Attendance policies here make it dangerous for people with autoimmune diseases and miserable for sick employees. People here don't call in when they're sick or they'll lose wages, they'll get points added to their attendance giving their employer something to hold over their head if they ask for a raise or additional days off. God forbid you have an emergency that takes you away from your work and it doesn't meet their requirements because your sick/dying loved one wasn't your parent, child, or marriage partner. 
  Beyond that health insurance is a giant scam, the more money you earn the more you pay for insurance, and the more you're able to pay for that insurance the more they expect you to pay out of pocket before they'll cover any medical expenses. Paying hundreds of dollars a year to your insurance so they'll cover you in case you get hurt badly enough that you can't possibly cover it. You'll still have to cover the first few thousand or more in healthcare expenses each year so why would you see a doctor unless your condition is bad enough to warrant the out of pocket expenses? Oh right and your insurance rates go up if you have a pre-existing condition, that makes a lot of sense.
  Add to all of this the fact that the housing market has been getting more and more impossible, food prices are on the rise, gas prices, automobile prices, EVERYTHING is more expensive and compared to our wages the math just isn't mathing for how an adult could reasonably enjoy any of the money they're earning. You wanted to go on vacation? Too bad you had to have an x-ray/your car broke down/your rent went up/etc. now all your hard work and savings is gone, and you used up all your measly vacation days while you were sick, so maybe next year. 
  I could keep going. This country has never been great, mediocre at best. Especially not if you're chronically ill. >
  
  Bro you can buy twice as much shit with your salary than we in Europe since you aren't taxed as much. It's not our fault you have a housing crisis. >
  
  Ehhh, still consider America the greatest country on earth >
  
  The United States is larger and more diverse than any of the places you listed.
  Comparing the best of Europe with the average or worst of the United States will be unflattering to the US. 
  But comparing Germany and the Netherlands to to Alabama and Louisiana is about as unhelpful and misrepresentative as comparing California and Massachusetts to Romania and Moldova.
  America is at the same level as the rest of first world. The differences are mostly minor.