I experience this fact every day, guys and gals. Would you like to work for 4 per hour?
So would you say you are classified as "poor" in the US? If so, you realize that you are on a computer right now, likely know where your next meal is coming from and have consistent shelter, right? My guess is that if you were injured or sick you could receive emergency care. The poor in some other countries don't have these key needs. If you take a man, put him in the desert without water, food, shelter or clothing for two days he will be miserable. Take that same man and give him clothes, food, shelter and water and he will be happy. These are the most basic needs, everything beyond that is gravy. The poor in the US, for the most part, seem to have the basic needs. I'm not suggesting that the disparity between rich and poor isn't horrendous, it is. But the reason they may not seem to "care" as much as other nations is because our "poor" are rich by other nations standards.
I spent a while thinking about your comment. While doing so, I remembered these two tables that I encountered in the book Social Class in America: The Evaluation of Status (1960). Here they are: http://imgur.com/xoKlu6l,LJ977Ns Keep in mind this was written in 1960, and I'm not sure how much it has changed. I imagine that it has stratified even more. Based on this classification, I most closely identify with Upper-Lower, but I'm sure I grew up somewhere in between LM and UL. But, having traveled and lived in various places in the "third world," the kind of jobs I get out there put me into a higher class. It is thus a tempting aspect of emigrating. Judging by your pairing me with people in fight-or-flight, impoverished mode, I'm going to guess you're UM.
The point I'm trying to make is that comparing the poor in United States with the poor in extremely impoverished countries is like comparing apples and oranges. In order to confirm or deny your guess of where I fall on that diagram I'd need to know more about the criteria. But it's probably a good guess. Look, I don't think the poor in the US have it good by my standards but by others standards they may be doing quite well. It's all perspective.