Because it was an immigration policy that selected for that Pakistani gentleman to be in your general vicinity at that moment. But it was something more akin to Math.rand() that chose the American.

If your purpose were to post the same complaint about someone drawn at random from Pakistan, you could try using Math.rand() to pick (on) one of them, too.

As others have said “Happiness = Reality - Expectations.”

For the Pakistani or Mexican man coming from poverty stricken, crime riddled, violent places in the world to America that’s a major step up in quality of life. Whereas I, an American, making $150k per year as a software engineer literally cannot afford a house within two counties of my mother because the costs of housing in those areas are so sky high that I would have to squeeze my wife and three children into a small 2/2 condo in a rough part of town. This would effectively revert me back to the standard of living my poor immigrant grandparents had when they came to America.

In any case I work remote and instead live in a reasonable home in a moderate income area instead so I’m just fine. But that right there is a large part of modern generational bitterness among the youth. Even those that on paper have made it often haven’t.

You make enough money to afford rent on a small villa in very livable parts of the United States - the richest nation on earth - as far as I an tell. How can you, or anyone else, be bitter about such a situation?

They're not bitter about the situation.

They're bitter about the degradation of their situation relative to their parents' or grandparents' situations.

If you convince yourselves $250k is practically nothing, you might be able to psychologically push yourself that extra bit harder to get to $500k.

But if you look around and say "Gee, objectively speaking I am one of the richest people who has ever lived" you might be inclined to actually enjoy that money, which involves spending more time enjoying the money and less time working, which lowers your chances of eventually getting to $500k.

I imagine similar strats are employed by relative high earners in e.g. Albania, trying to go from $25k to $50k, or Pakistan trying to go from $2.5k to $5.0k.