Is it better to be "rich" in a developing country or "Middle class" in a developed country?

[karl77]

Originally Posted by svelten

I'd definitely rather rent a condo downtown and work 9-5 five days a week in the US, Canada or Western Europe than be some sort of wealthy land baron in an extremely poor country like Haiti or Somalia or Niger or Myanmar. Have to watch your back all the time, probably little international privilege and travel rights and lots of safety issues domestically. Your best luxury is probably servants and call girls and possibly the 3* hotel in the capital city.

But a place like Buenos Aires, or Kuala Lumpur, or Monterrey... those are fine cities, maybe just a couple of notches below a Boston or Toronto. I'd rather be exceptionally wealthy there than middling and treading water in a heartbeat.

This I agree.

Lumping any developing country in the same bag is very misleading.

You CANNOT compare the level of development in Romania, Argentina, Thailand or Chile with the level of development in Honduras, Haiti, Uganda or Afghanistan.


I rather be middle class in Canada than rich in Sudan!!

But I rather be rich in Mexico than middle class in Canada!!

[EduardoFinatto]

In general:

Rich in a middle-income country -> middle-class in developed country -> rich in a truly poor country

But of course there are a lot of other factors that should also be considered.

[AntonioR]

Originally Posted by karl77

This I agree.

Lumping any developing country in the same bag is very misleading.

You CANNOT compare the level of development in Romania, Argentina, Thailand or Chile with the level of development in Honduras, Haiti, Uganda or Afghanistan.


I rather be middle class in Canada than rich in Sudan!!

But I rather be rich in Mexico than middle class in Canada!!

I would argue even Honduras can't be placed in the same level as the other three.

[jvalens]

I want to use a more extreme example: Rich in Mauritania vs. Middle Class in Canada.


I'll take Canada because I think it would be hard to get access to many services in Mauretainia. (Ex. medical care, phone service, internet) I wouldn't be able to enjoy my wealth as much.

For Mauretania to work, I would need to be EXTREMELY rich. Rich enough to build my own road system, hospital, Internet Service Provider, etc.

[jobaba]

Rich in a developing country.

The middle class and lower class in this country slave ...

[RedDogPatch]

azza

[Johnhw2]

Too much focus on the extremes in this threat to be as useful as OP envisioned I believe.

Take someone making say $150k to 250k/year with assets of between $1 and 2 Million and who is retired with very affordable Medicare supplement plan and prescription as well as dental coverage. So clearly he / she has some income on top of social security since those assets produce at most between $40 to 120k/ year income. So say they have $50k/year SPIA or a pension in this amount from former employer. They own the home they live in with a value of $700k.

They live on half the income that thee current Admin wants to increase taxes and have suppled health care coverage that makes it affordable in the USA. Does this example make a difference in anyone's assessment of OP's question? Assume no children or grandchildren and one of the retired couple has significant health issues such that access to the latest medicines and new treatment techniques are critical.

So they need the USA healthcare or another developed countries to access the latest meds but find day to day living costs rising and they are on a semi fixed income and may not too far down the road might need full time or assisted living for one
near term and both down the road with no family to step in to handle. I think this case is a real one and makes the answer more challenging they most seem to think.

So a couple living an upper middle class lifestyle in the USA but less than typical family ties to the USA.

Note" This example is not my situation though it raises similar issues that I have to consider if I were to decide to move from the USA