Living in America
Some Basic Information About Living in America
People sometimes talk about "America" as if every part of this huge country was the same.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Whether you look at scenery, climate, ethnicity, politics, house prices, types of work available or even crime rates, the United States is a country of enormous contrasts.
Around 300 million people live in America, in a country more than double the size of the expanded European Union.
Most of these people know that if any one of America's 50 states doesn't appeal to them, there will almost certainly be another one that does.
Around 82 percent of America's people are white, 13 percent are black and 4 percent are of Asian ethnicity. The largest three religious groups are Protestant (53 percent), Catholic (24 percent) and Mormon (2 percent). All of these percentages can change markedly depending on the city or state.
The contrasts don't stop at a city or state level. Differences in wealth are very large at the individual level. In the United States, success in business and work is rewarded more than it is in most other western countries. Failure, although not punished deliberately, can be disastrous. The welfare safety net in America is much more fragile than in other western countries. For example, rather than money, food stamps are given to American people in need. Americans need to be self-reliant. Hard work and short vacations are the norm.
A relatively small amount of government money goes into America's health system. Private health insurance is a necessity and is very expensive. You need to ensure your employer provides health insurance as part of your employment package - most employers do for skilled workers. Employers can fire (and hire) very easily. If you lose your job, you lose your health insurance, so it is important not to be out of work for long unless you can afford to pay health insurance premiums yourself.
Despite these potential difficulties, the material rewards for those who are successful in America can be enormous. For many decades, America has been a magnet for ambitious people and this is still the case.
America has a large number of major cities - over 50 American cities have populations of over 1 million people.
- New York City and Chicago are the country's major financial centres.
- California's Silicon Valley, the San Francisco Bay area, and the Pacific Northwest around Seattle are major centres of hi-tech industries.
- The Midwest is where much of America's manufacturing and heavy industry is located. Some of these areas - in decline now - are unkindly called the rust belt.
- The American car industry - whose home is Detroit - has also suffered recently.
- Tourism is a very big industry in America, particularly in sunshine states like Florida and California.
- Whether people helped a stranger to pick up papers they have dropped in the street
- Whether shop assistants said "thank you" after making a sale
- Whether people held doors open to strangers following them into a public building