Despite the US’s economic success, income inequality remains breathtaking. But this is no glitch – it’s the system
The Chinese did rather well in the age of globalization. In 1990, 943 million people there lived on less than $3 a day measured in 2021 dollars – 83% of the population, according to the World Bank. By 2019, the number was brought down to zero. Unfortunately, the United States was not as successful. More than 4 million Americans – 1.25% of the population – must make ends meet with less than $3 a day, more than three times as many as 35 years ago.
The data is not super consistent with the narrative of the US’s inexorable success. Sure, American productivity has zoomed ahead of that of its European peers. Only a handful of countries manage to produce more stuff per hour of work. And artificial intelligence now promises to put the United States that much further ahead.
This is not to congratulate China for its authoritarian government, for its repression of minorities or for the iron fist it deploys against any form of dissent. But it merits pondering how this undemocratic government could successfully slash its poverty rate when the richest and oldest democracy in the world wouldn’t.
Haven’t things changed a lot there since 2010?
Too late, PRC does not do dual citizenships lol. I have US citizenship now so PRC citizenship is automatically revoked. No going back. (It’s not like I want to tbh).
But AFAIK, Hukou issues is still a problem.
Language is probably my biggest issue. My English is literally like 10x better than my knowledge of Chinese, so there’s no way I’d fit in, I mean I could probably read signs, but I can’t do any serious conversations.
I think people are still trying to emigrate, during the Biden admin, there were supposedly a lot of Chinese nationals trying to enter without permission via the Mexican border, I think thery were trying to claim Asylum or something, but with this admin’s autocratization, that went down. But there are still a lot of other (Non-US) western countries people try to go to.
I was there several years ago, working in beijing. Decent apartments were crazy cheap. General cost of living is jokingly tiny in comparison to the US. And the kicker, because I was from the west, they were willing to pay may a salary nearly equivelent to what I was making in the states. I only came back to the US because my wife was there.
What work did you do btw?
I feel like this is the important part to remember, the average locals probably don’t get paid as well as you do.
i wont go into my work, but no the locals definitely didnt get paid as much as me. That really doesn’t change the reality how cheap the cost of living is over there though. If I was making the same as the locals over there when I was there, i’d be living just as comfortably there as i currently live in the states. And considering current inflation, I would argue i’d probably be living even more comfortably.
Do they have any way of knowing you’re a US citizen? As long as you use your chinese documents to enter to China and say you’re only a US resident you should be fine. Just don’t flash your US passport.
Alternately, the US tourist visa is 90 days if applying from the US, but the application process sucks and can be renewed just by jumping out of the country or into HK for an hour.