Do Americans that think it is achievable really value more wealth over safety at the bottom?
It seems to me they aren't usually given much choice on the matter. And social safety net programs are very popular, so popular that Republicans can't even safely advocate for getting rid of them.
And since America overall has only grown more wealthy as its social safety net programs expanded -- the one period of contractions, the Reagan era, resulted in stagflation, which wasn't really even considered possible before -- where is the evidence that America must choose wealth or safety net?
America's wealth is due to very many things, most of which have nothing to do with entitlement programs, whether those programs expand or shrink.