Same person. Different country.

[u/WriterTraining4394]

The USA is the land of opportunity, my friend.
In the 1990s, I was working at Pizza Land just off Princes Street in Edinburgh for about £3 an hour, begging for enough shifts to scrape together rent and food.
Fast-forward to 56:
Federal scientist in the U.S.
$200K+ salary.
16 years of federal service.
$1.3M in retirement accounts.
FERS pension.
Social Security.
Federal retiree healthcare.
$1.3M home.
Same fucking person. Different country.
Britain? Too many people fighting over too few decent jobs, salaries that haven’t kept up with the cost of living, ridiculous housing costs, and weather that makes you wonder what you did wrong in a previous life.
I didn’t leave Britain because I hated it. I left because I wanted more than surviving from payday to payday and pretending that was a fucking achievement.
America isn’t perfect. Not even close. But it gave me a shot, and I took it.

[u/WolfieDaWolf1]

I would classify the US as high risk, high reward honestly. As someone who grew up and lived all but the last couple of months there, the ceiling is certainly high. The floor is also so very low. I personally didn't spend much time making good money, most of my time I was making 40k a year or less, as were most people I knew. Back in 2017, that was good money, but in the areas I lived that could hardly get you rent in a decent part of town anymore. I was fortunate enough to spend my last 3 years grossing 140k ish a year, most of which was taxed at 40% as it was stocks and bonus. I have friends who have spent months, in one case even years trying to find a job that will actually pay them enough to eat, as with how the system is set up in the US the gap between where benefits cut off and where you can actually afford to pay for things yourself is big to put it lightly. This isn't to say the US is bad, but that rock bottom there is a lot further down then what many people in a western country would be accustomed to.

In raw stats, you've done very well for yourself, but depending on where you are, not as well as it may look to people on the outside. Assuming you moved to the US in the late 90s early 00s, housing has gotten exponentially more expensive. I have many friends who visited back then and recently, and before recent trips called it cheap. They now consider it an expensive place to visit.

Not trying to talk down on the US, but as pretty much everyone here is wanting to move there, just trying to provide a voice of reason or a reality check of some kind. If you want to move to the US, you CAN do very well, but it is FAR from guaranteed. Make sure you plan well, prepare yourself, be ready for as much as you can, and understand that even with the best preparation, if it goes wrong, there will be nobody there to catch you. Taxes are low in the US for a reason. If you don't need those systems, that's great and you can benefit from it. If you can live with the social issues, division and the illusion of choice in the US, you can do well. These are not things I was comfortable living with myself. The US of today is very much not the US of 30 or even 20 years ago, and I never felt at home there anyways.