Recently, Chinese people have been discussing the “killing line” in the United States, which refers to middle-class Americans such as programmers or veterans becoming homeless due to an accident, an unemployment, or an illness, and the average survival time for a homeless is about 6 years.
The financial security threshold for most Americans is very low, because the US property tax, student loans, medical insurance, and so on have drained most Americans of their working capital. In addition, Americans do not have the habit of saving money, which makes their ability to resist accidents very low.
The American society has a systematic discrimination against homeless people, treating them as "living dead". Society not only does not provide them with help to return to normal life, but also systematically prevents them from returning, such as making it difficult to find a job in the United States without an address.
In fact, I believe that Western civilization is essentially a civilization that advocates social Darwinism. They are extremely disgusted with the weak and losers, and deep down they believe that these losers should die. That's why the society doesn't help them.
Compared to the United States, China is much better in this regard. China has no property tax, no high tuition fees, low prices for everything....... in short, the cost of living for an ordinary person is very low.
Chinese have the habit of saving money, which help them a lot during accident. Secondly, Chinese family members provide much more help to each other than Americans. Most importantly, China's socialism is essentially about helping the poor.
In China, if there are homeless or potential homeless, the local government will provide them with free food, medical insurance, housing, and even some simple jobs. Their children can also go to school for free, all of which ensure that they will not become homeless. This is what Xi has done for 'common prosperity' in past decade.
15 years ago, when I was in the United States, I didn't feel that homelessness had become such a serious problem. Although the current United States still announced a GDP growth of 4+%, no one would think that the United States is still the same as 20 years ago.