It's interesting that otherwise educated and informed people believe the average American is on the verge of poverty

Janan Ganesh identified simplistic ways people think about foreign countries. The UK counterpart is for foreigners to explain Brexit as imperial backlash.

Anyone familiar with cross-country income/consumption comparisons knows that the US is around the very top in both average or median incomes, especially after adjusting for COL.

This persists even after adjusting for taxes and in-kind benefits like health and education.

I'm talking about the typical American living standard here. Income inequality is high in the US, so as you go down the income scale at some point incomes in many other Western countries exceed American incomes at the same percentile.

But I think most foreigners overestimate where this 'crossover point' happens, because they underestimate the US wage level. This is the point below which income levels are higher than in the US for the same percentile (2011):

Germany: 40%
UK: 10%
Australia: 30%
Spain: Never

I don't think this income distribution is good, but in any case median Americans are very well off by global standards.

The US middle class stereotype from TV and films has an SUV and an unnecessarily large house. It's curious both rich and near-destitute stereotypes coexist.

The other interesting thing is that the people who believe that the average American is on the verge of poverty have been to the US. They've seen the big modern cars and the large houses.

They must believe they just have not seen the "real America" of middle class hardship.

The anomaly is that this is the opposite of what tourists take from visiting other countries. They come away believing standard of living is higher than it actually is, because they stick to places catering to tourists, who usually have a higher income than locals.

E.g. this Seattle Times piece says 99% of Greeks have AC. Anyone aware of Greek incomes intuitively knows this must be wrong (and it is, Greek stats agency puts it at 9%)

But a tourist might leave Greece believing this is plausible if every hotel has AC https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/hotter-days-but-much-of-europe-still-cool-toward-air-conditioning/

The problem with these misconceptions is that they hinder cross-country learnings. Europeans should not accept US policies wholesale, but they should be aware that the US has a lot to teach Europe about creating wealth for large swathes of the population.