That's what government social programs like Medicaid and SNAP/EBT are for, accounting for about 800 billion in gov spending in 2025, and a total of 1,2 Trillion the US gov spend on welfare in 2025. That's exactly the opposite of being poor. If you want to see real poverty, go to countries that don't have any government welfare programs.
In EU many workers also wouldn't be able to afford to live without taxpayer-funded government subsidies, tax credits or regulations forcing employers to not be able to pay minimum wages below a certain threshold (which is not coming out of shareholders pockets BTW but from the overall company salary budget pie, IE high earners) which also gets inflation adjusted yearly.
The lower class is always subsidised in wealthy de-industrialized western countries, since the low-skill jobs that previously could support a family, either got automated or offshored to Asia, causing a loss of worker bargaining power, so your only chance of preventing mass riots is to subsidize the lower class here and there. It's a masked UBI with extra steps.
> That's what government social programs like Medicaid and SNAP/EBT are for
Many people intend those programs to work that way, but they don't: People still can't afford food, healthcare, housing, and education. The programs are also being cut back on a large scale.
> The lower class is always subsidised
Many would say it's actually the wealthy who are subsidized. For example, most policy, laws, regulations, and both political parties are oriented toward serving and facilitating the wealthy, or at worst, not displeasing them. The military is sometimes used to serve large corporations, such as oil companies. Weathy people often pay a lower rate of taxes: The tax on their primary form of income, capital gains, is lower than the tax on other people's primary form of income, wages; the numbers get worse when you account for welfare taxes, which are regressive. People literally die of poverty - they are unable to afford the care they need.
>Many people intend those programs to work that way, but they don't
It's not as binary. It fails for some people, but it definitely works for most. There's always people slipping through the cracks of the net, even in the most generous welfare states, but that's a long stretch to claim americans are "dying of poverty" when they have an abundance of resources at their disposal to not die.
For example, if you're homeless american in a large city, you can go dumpster diving and get fresh food that's been thrown out just because it "looks ugly". If your tummy hurts, you can go to the ER and receive mandated sci-fi healthcare to not die, even if you're homeless. This is a far cry from the definition of "dying of poverty". I suggest you visit places like Russian republics, Myanmar or Nigeria if you want to see what actual dying of poverty looks like where you don't have access to free food and scifi healthcare.
The biggest problem killing americans is drug addiction and mental illnesses. Since if your brain is fried you won't be able to make much use of available free food and healthcare.
>Many would say it's actually the wealthy who are subsidized
That's always been the case since post-WW2 at least and gotten worse since Reagan. What's your suggestion to fix it? The super wealthy have too much power and influence over finance and politics, no matter who you vote for. Elected officials, on either side, will never touch them since they're in this together, so the system is working as intended, there's nothing you can fix here.
