Problem is, poor people in the US still are way better than middle class elsewhere.
Middle class in US is not always better off than elsewhere. Consider Dubai and Qatar.
Elsewhere here means everywhere beyond the US, so you should take an average income across the world to make comparison valid.
If you take the average it may give other results and indicate that, but living standards in Qatar or Dubai are very different than say India.
Their population is small and they had the luck to be born literally in oil. When the oil reservoirs are finally depleted, they will return to where they started from, that is to nomadism and camel breeding (the richest will obviously emigrate to Europe or America). And their ultra-modern high-scrapers cities of today will be slowly but surely devoured by sand and desert.
if they're smart, they're going to use the oil money to develop an another source of income before they deplete the reservoirs
It is because culturally we (americans) feel that we must own a car, house, tvs, and other things for entertainment. As a result we borrow money. We all know what happens when we borrow money. Basically we made it culturally unacceptable to be poor so people would rather go further in debt than appear to be poor which they really are.
More and more we live in materialistic world where just money is important, not any more family, kids, friends etc.
money pays for your sons health, money provides food for your wife, money pays for stuff you do with your friends
money allows you to shape the world as you want it
Seem somebody steal the productivity gain:
one word
inflation
American wages have been stagnating in America for decades now, partly thanks to freemarket globalization, the erosion of workers rights and the lack of union membership.
it's because there is no world war so the USA has no one to sell weapons to and hand out loans
the "american dream" is built on pain and suffering of other nations in 2 world wars
USA just had a nice distant position from where they could exploit others
There is a huge reason Americans are getting more poor.
We keep giving jobs to illegal immigrants who do the job for less than min. wage and are happy to do it.
The min. wage is a joke compared to what inflation says it should be, and thus all wages are slightly lowered due to this. College education is literally raping us, it costs so much to go to school that people need a full time job just in order to pay for school.
So many things need to change or America will go down the drain...
that's not just USA, that's most countries