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In practice violence and crime is the primary complaint that the public have with mass immigration to the West and long has been. Taking our jerbs is secondary and largely confined to the US (both on the h1B Indian and Mexican laborer sides); Swedes aren’t worried about Somalis taking their jobs. Even Brits weren’t as worried about Poles taking their jobs as some Brexit-related commentary suggested.
It seems relevant that the US maintains consistently lower unemployment rates anyways, though.
Life on welfare is probably worse in the US than in much of Northern Europe.
Relative to the median? Or overall? I can buy that greater social equality in Denmark or Germany puts welfare recipients closer to the average standard of living, but that’s probably as much because the US standard of living is much higher as it is about more generous benefits.
Edit: a quick google suggests Texas'(one of the stingier states relative to income) unemployment payments are something like four times Germany's, and disability is 40% more. I could have inaccurate information and there could be other programs making up the difference, but that points strongly to "Germany has greater social equality between the middle and welfare classes than Texas because the middle class has a lower standard of living, not because welfare pays more".
In ~99% of Texas, a car is necessary to live, and loan payments, maintenance, fuel, insurance, etc. eat up a huge amount of money compared to public transit costs in Copenhagen or Hamburg.
Not to mention the whole healthcare-prices debacle, or daycare for any kids.
The very poor in Texas don’t pay for their healthcare(and if you’re on disability you’re on Medicare), and the point of being on welfare is that you don’t work, so you don’t need daycare. Cars are potentially relevant, though, but it seems relevant that gas costs half as much and poor people drive beaters that you can’t get a loan on(because they’re worth so little it’s not worth it to repo, and also because they have bad credit and can’t get a loan). Maintenance might be expensive but they just drive around without insurance most of the time.
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Does the middle class actually have a lower standard of living in those countries? From the way I see it, I don't think that's the case at all. Sure, relatively speaking obviously it's lower, compared to their own lower classes. I would make the argument that it's possible that prices are going to adjust to whatever the middle class can afford to pay, so all you're doing with lower class/middle class inequality is making life worse for the lower classes with little actual benefit for the middle classes. (And I really don't care about relative benefit, as I think that's not a healthy way to view things)
Based on apartment/house sizes, yes. I’ll grant that Germans have fewer cars partly because they don’t need them, but they also just generally have less stuff in smaller houses.
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