A little over 7 years ago, I moved to Australia with less than $100 in my bank account. Now, my partner and I are getting ready to buy our first apartment. I can’t credit this change in circumstance to some uniquely Australian way of life. It’s possible that some of this would have happened anyway if I had stayed in America, by virtue of progressing along a career path and sharing financial resources with a partner.

But what I felt in America was a pervasive sense of whiplash: that good things could come to you, but that the rug could be pulled out at any minute. That entire life paths could be foreclosed in the aftermath of an election or with a single court ruling.

This doesn’t happen to the same degree in Australia. For all of the “checks and balances” that America prides itself on, Australia feels more balanced.

Yes, some things are broken, and sometimes the conservative party gets into power and makes bad choices when it comes to climate change or LGBTQ+ rights — but there’s only so much they can do. For the most part, things change incrementally and deliberately rather than unexpectedly and all at once.

Partly, this is due to Australia being a federation of states, rather than a republic, so that the federal government has less power. It’s also because Australia doesn’t have a Bill of Rights, and places less emphasis on its Constitution, so that courts don’t generally overhaul or block policies unilaterally.

I never intended to move to Australia permanently, but the relief I felt upon obtaining a Medicare card, setting up a retirement fund, and moving my money into a stable banking system is hard to overstate.

Life in America, by contrast, felt like a constant state of whiplash.

In my late 20s, in Portland, OR, I qualified for SNAP benefits (government-funded food assistance), which I could “double up” at local farmers markets for extra fruits and veggies to take home. But to maintain them, I had to report my earnings, and the slightest rise or fall in my freelance income could knock me from one eligibility tier to another.

When I qualified for the Oregon Health Plan, I was eligible for free dental care and up to 10 free therapy sessions. After my third or fourth session, my therapist called to tell me the payment for it hadn’t gone through - did I know that my coverage had lapsed the previous week, presumably due to exceeding the income threshold? Of course, I didn’t - I wouldn’t get the letter telling me so for another week.

Australia has means-tested government benefits too, so it’s not that low-income Australians are free of these bureaucratic absurdities.

But in America, the patchwork nature of these benefits makes the whiplash more extreme. Losing OHP meant not having health insurance at all until I could enroll in a subsidized Obamacare (ACA) plan, which itself has limited enrollment periods and income criteria. For all its flaws, Australia has a universal healthcare system that is unlikely to be overturned by a rogue government or court.

Student loans are another case. My partner and I graduated from college with similar levels of student loan debt in our respective currencies.

Last year, the Australian government adjusted indexation on student loans to match the cost of living and reduced everyone’s student loan debt by 20%. Australians can adjust their life plans and budgets based on these changes. There is no risk of the government taking them back or a court overturning them.

My own student loans are still in limbo. I’ve gone through periods of believing they would all be forgiven, to frantically calculating payment amounts based on complex income-based repayment plans. For now, they’re on hold while matters wind their way through the courts and because living overseas reduces my student loan payments.

The ability to plan, predict, and pay for a comfortable life in America is severely compromised by American whiplash.

And this isn’t the only way America goes back and forth on its promises. In 2022, the Biden administration allowed non-binary Americans to choose an “X” gender option on their passport. In 2025, the current administration removed this option, leaving many people wondering if their passports will even be accepted at the border.

It was, perhaps, irresponsible for Biden to make the change in the first place. It feels cruel to have encouraged non-binary Americans to out themselves, only to have put themselves at greater risk of being targeted by a hostile government.

Australia’s government does not have a perfect record on LGBTQ+ rights — the postal vote on same-sex marriage was problematic, and the government has backflipped on whether to include questions on sexuality in the upcoming census.

But it remains one of the most queer-friendly countries I’ve ever been in, and there’s less risk of a right-wing government singlehandedly taking entrenched LGBTQ+ rights away.

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I don’t have a solution to the problem of American whiplash, but I think it’s important to name it. Americans have a right to predictable and consistent policies on which to base their life decisions. Policies should be designed to make things slightly easier, or marginally more difficult, not to see-saw between achievable and impossible.

In the 2024 election, Kamala Harris pledged to create a $25,000 Homebuyer Fund to help people buy their first home. That dream is gone — but homeownership shouldn’t depend on the outcome of an election in the first place.

As I write this article, some Americans are panicking that an unelected billionaire may have their social security number, and federal Medicaid and disability payments are at risk of being paused.

I feel lucky that I froze my credit score and moved my money into an Australian bank account years ago.

For those who can, now is the time to obtain a second residency or at least open an overseas bank account. Not because you’ve given up on America, but because by doing so, you’ll be better prepared to withstand American whiplash.

Having dual residency isn’t just a luxury for the rich. Many international students and partners of foreign citizens can acquire it.

Australia and New Zealand have working holiday visas for Americans under the age of 30. Many European countries offer citizenship by descent. Other countries offer digital nomad visas.

Even a temporary reprieve from American whiplash can give you the opportunity to move back to America on your own terms.

I was afraid to move overseas because I was broke, and yet moving overseas turned out to be the very thing that brought me financial stability.

We all have the right to a back-up plan. We have the right to a medical and financial system that isn’t beholden to the new robber barons. We have the right to a social contract in which the terms and conditions don’t change by the day.

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Photo credit: Jordan McDonald