Living In The United States

People are sometimes tempted to discuss the USA as if every part of this enormous nation was the same. Nothing could be further from the truth. Whether you're talking climate, ethnicity, scenery, house prices, politics, industries or crime rates, the USA is a country of great contrasts. The contrasts are often so great that, if any one of America's states doesn't appeal to you, it's likely there will be another that does.

• Around 700,000 Britons live in the United States.
• They live in a country more than double the size of the expanded European Union and which - even with the rapid growth in Asian economies and recession - will remain the world's largest economy for many years to come.
• In the United States, success in business and work tends to be rewarded more than elsewhere.
• Failure can be disastrous. The welfare safety net in America is less developed than in other western countries. For example food stamps, not money, are given to people in need.
• Most Americans pride themselves on their self-reliance. Hard work and short holidays are the norm. Americans are often shocked when they learn the number of weeks holiday workers in Europe get.

The United States has a labour market in which those at the bottom have not, in recent times, benefited as much as those at the top from gains in pay, health insurance, and other rewards. For more than 30 years now, most of the gains in household income in the United States have gone to the top 20 percent of earners. In real terms, blue collar Americans are thought to be worse off now than they were in the nineteen-sixties.

Despite these potential difficulties, America has been a magnet for ambitious people for many decades and this continues to be the case. The material rewards for those who do succeed in America can be enormous.

Immigration and Living in the USA