Having escaped from poverty in my 20s (I'm one of those guys who made it in software via dumb luck and no college degree) that's a cozy concept, but I don't think it's at all accurate. The poor people I grew up with have no idea of the life we lead. They live in a world where there's no such thing as air travel, you'll probably never travel outside the US, having your car start in the morning (if you've got one) is a sometimes thing, and you'd be mega-rich if you had 4 figures in your bank account - and that's all most of them have ever experienced. They don't see themselves as embarrassed millionaires, because most of them don't even have the faintest understanding of what that means.

Socialism did take hold. It was brutally repressed.

The battle of blair mountain is a clear example of what happens when workers demand fair treatment in America. They didn't just send the army in to break the strike, they sent the air force.

Though they lost, in the long term it raised awareness enough to actually lead to organized labor victories like the New Deal (which effectively led to the creation of the middle class 'good life' from the 50s).

The thing that really worries me is that another, similar battle would be necessary in order to arrest the current decline of the middle class.

Just because you have some insurance your state isn't a socialist state. Socialism would actually mean poverty for everyone.

I think even in the US people pay taxes and the government buys things from that which are supposed to help everybody (like, say, roads). Ooops - I guess you already live in a socialist state.

Why is it OK to build roads with tax money, but not to provide social insurance?

In the end, society pays either way for people who have fallen on hard times: either they pay for welfare, or they pay indirectly by having to deal with the inconvenience they cause (like, as I have heard, human turds on SF streets).