Immigrants to the US only come from "bad" countries because citizens of "good" countries would be taking a step backward, amirite?

I'm from the UK. I moved to California two years ago. If you're a skilled or specialised worker (as I am) you're going to have a significantly higher salary in the US and a significantly higher purchasing power to boot. To say nothing about things like weather, access to nature etc. The US isn't for everyone by any means, but saying immigrants from Europe would be taking a step backwards is a bit sweeping. I'm not going to excuse the US healthcare system, its poor workers rights and its car-centric infrastructure, but if you're a skilled worker it's very much swings and roundabouts

by Ill_Swing 4 hours ago

Engineer who looked at the other direction for funsies, I'd agree it looked nowhere near worth it. Even with paying for healthcare I think I'm still coming out like 10-20% a head by staying and would have better ease of starting a company if my career goes that route. (Hopeful for that early retirement and then go see Europe lol).

by OrangeBrief491 4 hours ago

What percentage of people in your country make what you make or higher?

by Anonymous 4 hours ago

Let's ease up on the term "high quality healthcare" bc that's not really an accurate assessment of US healthcare system. And it's def not free

by Anonymous 3 hours ago

No, it is. There's a difference between healthcare ACCESS, which is poor in the US, but the actual treatment and quality of care itself is extremely high for those who have access.

by Anonymous 3 hours ago

If you work as a software engineer you can have access to very high quality healthcare. The problem in the US is cost not quality. You probably have better healthcare as a tech worker in the US than the EU.

by Anonymous 3 hours ago

You could easily buy a house in many UK cities on c.£70k, let alone an apartment.

by Anonymous 2 hours ago

What I meant was, my salary was about £35k when I left (I lived in Paris for a couple of years before I moved to the US. French salaries are more or less comparable to UK salaries, maybe a tiny bit lower but not much). You couldn't buy a flat on that, at least not in the SE of England or IdF

by Ill_Swing 2 hours ago

This X1000 USA is better a lot of the time for people who did something with their lives. My job pays another $15hour before conversion in California with living allowances. A career I tried to switch to starts $40k higher state side, again before conversion.

by Anonymous 2 hours ago

USA is great if you earn well and horrible if you don't. There's no in between. In Europe you can have an ok life even with lower income because of free education and healthcare. However, it's very hard if not impossible to earn a lot here. I would never leave Europe but I totally get why someone that is good at what they do and is willing to work a lot would move to the US. In Europe it simply doesn't pay off.

by ContributionHot 2 hours ago

You've obviously not been in a good college town. There's people coming here from what you would consider a "good" country constantly, on a wide variety of visas, temporarily and permanently. It just doesn't get media coverage.

by Anonymous 1 hour ago

People from Europe immigrate to the US on a daily basis…

by Anonymous 1 hour ago

It's mostly going to be from the poorer Eastern European countries; not France, Germany, or the UK

by Anonymous 1 hour ago

The United Kingdom and Germany were the two largest sources of immigration from Europe in 2022.

by Anonymous 1 hour ago

Those countries were 'pass through' countries for people from places like syria, afgan, saudi...et al.

by Anonymous 53 minutes ago

Source?

by Anonymous 38 minutes ago

Rates of European immigration to us are on decline while us citizens emigrating to Europe has been increasing.

by Anonymous 29 minutes ago

And? The point is that the highest immigrants from European countries to the U.S. are not from "poor" countries.

by Ill-Data-6401 21 minutes ago

Net Migration is still higher to the United States from Europe (including Western Europe), and always has been.

by Anonymous 19 minutes ago

No it's largely the educated ones who want to make more money for their work.

by Anonymous 18 minutes ago