jim luke 11:31 pm on February 4, 2017

Unit 3 – Death of the American Dream Readings

One of our first topics is the death of the American Dream -well, at least I think the dream is dead. I recently gave a talk at the LCC Centre for Engagement on the question. Based on the historical analysis I’ve done, I’ve concluded it is indeed dead. So below here you’ll see a link to my blog post on the topic. I wrote a little about how I approached the topic and then I’ve got my Powerpoint slides embedded in the post and links to five other articles that formed some of the main sources I used for my analysis.

Death of the American Dream

Additional articles to read related to this blog post (links are both here and contained in the above blog post from Econproph.com)

- The American Dream, Quantified at Last, by David Leonhardt in NYTimes, based on research by a team of economists led by Raj Chetty .
- Upward Mobility declines sharply as the rich make off with the growth – by Bill Mitchell on Billy Blog.
- Steven Rattner’s New York Times Sunday Review piece on “We’re Making Life Too Hard for Millennials”.
- The Financial Health of Young America, a report by Young Invincibles based upon Federal Reserve Board Survey of Consumer Finances.

Brittney Baley 9:52 pm on February 6, 2017

This was an interesting read with some interesting sources. Though I agree that the “American Dream” is not like it use to be, I do not agree that it is completely dead. Well, not yet at least. As more and more people are successful and become examples of the “American Dream” it becomes harder for others to do the same. Most of the time “doing better than dad”, making enough money to own a home, and moving up the social classes involves creating a successful business of having access to a higher education. As more businesses crowd the market place it becomes harder for people to have a small business. The larger business that wants to be even more successful and move up themselves has the money and the means to crush their smaller, new competitor. Along with this is that many ideas have been already thought of and new inventions are more difficult to come up with, though still possible. So in some ways the “American Dream” is still reachable, just far more difficult to achieve. Access to higher education is becoming more and more common, but the problem is more and more people have degrees. The higher degree you have the more money you are likely to make. This only happens if their is an opening in the field that a person has studied. Since more people have degrees this has become more difficult. Though it is still possible to come from a family that has no collage, work your way through collage, them find a decent job. This only allows for the “doing better than dad” part of the “American Dream”. But many students come out in debt unable to afford a home and do not move up any social classes. In a few years it may be possible to gain the last two parts, but still more difficult than it use to be.
To me the American dream is not just earning money and being on a better financial standing than my parents. I also think that the “American Dream” includes many of the freedoms the United States has to offer. Though the article does not mention these at all. American may not be perfectly equal, but we have far more freedoms than many of the poorer regions. Just by moving here the opportunities are massive. Women and minority groups have more freedom than they ever have even if we as a country still have work to do. This to me is “social wealth”. Freedom and the ability to even try at the economic “American Dream” is a wealth all in its own. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, Democracy, the right to bear arms, all great examples of the “social wealth we all have. Things many people do not have. To me the “American Dream” is not dead. I live it every day. My parents never went to college, my dad never graduated high school. Yet here I am about to earn my associates and am a licensed EMT. I personally will be earning more than either of my parents just starting out. The American Dream may be rare, but it is not dead.
Kody Hetfield 4:35 am on February 7, 2017

It is hard to argue with factual, quantitative statistics however I also believe that the “dream” is not completely dead, although it may be spending its remaining years hooked up to a life support machine, and its end is inevitable. I believe that the “American Dream” was a gently coined phrase in the awkward teen stage in America’s life. This stage being after the industrial revolution and leading into the depressive 20’s and 30’s. Coming out of a period like the great depression in an established, developed country, the only way was up. As capitalism sank its teeth into our nation, soon followed opportunity. As the cliche goes, “Every good thing must come to an end” the “American dream” is also not immune. In past years, a high school diploma was widely viewed as a surefire path to success. Higher education was left to the intelligent and the wealthy future 1%-ers. Nowadays, many career options can only be achieved with a Master’s degree, and even then the pool of people with these credentials is forever expanding. In some cases, an individual may not even be able to work in a minimum wage position without a diploma. This exponential curve associated with education requirements is a cause in the above graphical trends. I do also agree with Brittney’s views on the competition in our free market. Capitalism, in my opinion, is one the greatest achievements in human history, but it too has a peak or perhaps just a plateau. Each day the market’s pressures either force smaller businesses to leave the market or to merely never enter to begin with. This hurts the competitive nature of capitalism which slows down economic progress and leads to the death of the dream. This is not a fault of the system whether that be the government or the economy as a whole, but a byproduct caused by the one factor that inhibits a “true” capitalistic system, greed. Granted, without the desire of self preservation a society is doomed regardless, but this greed-driven engine on which we all ride regardless of choice, is the nail in the coffin for the American Dream. There may never be an optimal remedy for this phenomena, which is the scary part. Just as every other instance in history, the only way to create a clean slate for progress to resume, is for just that, the slate to be cleaned. We may have never discovered the “dream” without the preceding great depression. With the population increasing at a faster rate than ever before, jobs becoming more scarce, competition is lessened with corporations not only growing in size but also having political influence, and the constant increase in educational requirements the dream will soon take its last breath.
- Denae Mongeon 12:59 am on February 10, 2017
  
  BRAVO! Well said!
Denae Mongeon 12:58 am on February 10, 2017

I see a definite contradiction between the article Upward Mobility declines sharply as the rich make off with the growth – by Bill Mitchell on Billy Blog states “The Left has to launch a massive educational onslaught to redress this knowledge gap as they set about reversing the ravages of neo-liberalism.” While the article Steven Rattner’s New York Times Sunday Review piece on “We’re Making Life Too Hard for Millennials”. States “The most educated generation in history is on track to becoming less prosperous, at least financially, than its predecessors.” Maybe I am confused, but, which is it, provide better education or that we provide plenty and it’s just not making a difference on reviving the “American Dream” for various reasons, student debt being one major cause or is the information in the latter old enough that the issue addressed has been out-grown or corrected? Steven Rattner’s article continues to say ” That’s a daunting challenge that would require revamping federal outlays to emphasize areas like education, infrastructure and research and development. Spending more on these areas would require higher taxes on my generation, which is getting a lot more from government than we are paying into it.” So far this is the most feasible approach to reviving the American Dream. However, the older generation is currently in a lower income bracket due to retirement, therefore, would raising taxes on them really provide enough to lower the costs of education enough to make it profitable again?
Daoud Esa 11:57 pm on February 11, 2017

The so called “American Dream” in my opinion was greatly exaggerated. What I believe the “American Dream” is how we as individuals perceive it to be. Here’s a great example, let’s say there are two poor families, one in the U.S. and one in Africa somewhere. The “American Dream” for the family in Africa is very much similar in terms of wanting to be successful. The differences come in, in terms of what they perceive that success to be. The poor African family would probably just want a better home than the one they are in. Meanwhile, the poor family in America is living quite differently than that of the African counterpart. They might have a decent home but feel as if they need more. I do agree with the children wanting to be “better than their dad”. They could continue that success that their father has set forth for them. There are limited factors to this however. This notion that we can become anything in America gets really limited as we grow older and reality starts to set in. We are taught as children that we could do anything in America as long as we work hard and and succeed, but we all know there is more to life in America than this. To climb up that social hierarchy ladder, or “upward mobility”, is getting more and more expensive. Nowadays it’s almost impossible to make over 30 thousand dollars a year with only a high school diploma. The cost of college is increasing as well. This is further proven in the NYTimes article “The American Dream, Quantified at Last”. From the graph on the top, the chance (percentage) of making more money than your parents decreases the as the years progress. Furthermore, the blog by Bill Mitchell further enhances my point. “This also means that as fiscal austerity has further pushed people towards to the bottom of the income distribution that increasing numbers of children will inherit the disadvantage of their parents and this inheritance becomes a vicious circle of poverty and alienation.” In summary, the idea of the “American Dream” has been greatly exaggerated. At the time this term was first coined by James Adams, the time period was drastically different than the time we live today.
Alexander Westerlund 5:38 pm on February 12, 2017

A lot of the kids these days are not planning their future as well as they should, they are grown into a healthy family and don’t have too hard of an upbringing so they don’t apply themselves to do “better than dad”. They have dreams as young kids but when high school hits a lot of students don’t want to be there. The drive for their dream or “the american dream” is now gone. Today in society everyone has it so good coming into this world, the advancements in technology are blinding that nobody really knows how to be social anymore and have the urge to be the best that they can be. Back in mid to late 1900s there was no social media to be able to see the celebrities lifestyles that everyone so craves. I think that now everyone sees the good lifestyles from popular people they see it from them but not them selves and its just tearing everyone down. But the thing is people don’t even realize it. Anyone can do anything they want to if they apply themselves… Young adults need to stop looking at all these celebrities dreams being lived and make their own dream become a reality. I see the american dream as just this thing society said we could all achieve but the truth is that very few actually will ever live the american dream lifestyle in today’s age. This is due to a lot of factors but if everyone has the same opportunity then why is it so hard? In the post by The Financial Health of Young America, a report by Young Invincibles. Seeing the statistics that said the boomers had double the assets at a young age than young adults have now. Also earning 10,000$ less than in 1989… These were very shocking because the fact its been 20 years almost and the cost of living has gone up along with minimum wage. It almost seems like we should have multiplied in a positive direction by now. Maybe the dream really is dead and people are just merely existing… not living “The American Dream”.
Julia 5:47 am on February 14, 2017

It’s a very interesting subject. The American Dream is dead, let’s not kid ourselves. In todays economy the hope to ” to better than dad” is the least of our worries. How about just trying to do as good as our parents. I recently read an article that stated millennials are making 20% less than our parents were making at our same age. With that being said I think that there are many factors that have led to this. The first factor being the advances in technology over the years, change in values, change in the way of life, governmental policies, minimum wage slowly increasing, and finally the introduction of social media. Let me elaborate, increase in technology has made the job market slim seeing as how computers and robots automatically do jobs now that someone once held, and they predict that in 20-25 years manufacturing and production jobs will be obsolete and solely run by robots. As well as customer service jobs such as fast food service, like we already see being implemented when we pull up to a drive thru and its automated greeting turns on, will be run by computers and automation. These advances that are suppose to make life easier are actually making it ten times harder to just survive by slowly decreasing companies needs for employees. These technological advances are only cutting cost for the corporations. Another reason the american dream is dead is because the new generation does not hold as strong of values as the previous did. Generations today do not just marry for life and work together to build there dream, majority of people divorce, or are single parents, or choose to live differently than what their parents chose. But to be fair we live in a completely different world than our parents. We grew up with computers at our fingertips, where apps connected people all over the world, where we are introduced to people outside of just our town, school, or state, and that kind of accessibility kills the chances of people being ever satisfied with what they have when they can see and compare their lives to so many others who have better. I really wish social media would become obsolete. It’s a brag book. If everyone is always worried about what everyone else is doing how are they advancing their own lives and living for them? The american dream is dead because we have made life too easy with technological advances and we have become a lazy society, we killed the american dream when we made it nearly impossible to achieve more than we were born into. We have destroyed generations of hope, aspirations, and ambitions.
- Brenna 1:02 am on February 17, 2017
  
  Julia,
  
  I really like how honest you are. The American Dream is dead. point blank. I think many people are living in denial and do not want to interpret the facts for what they are. However, have we killed the American dream? We being the millennial’s. Or was is broken before we came into the picture?
Brenna 1:50 am on February 17, 2017

After reading all of these articles it is hard not to become disheartened. At 28 i am considered a millennial. I had no idea. I though millennial’s were born from 2000 and on. Nope, the millennial generation actually starts in 1980 and continues on into the 2000’s. When i was in high school i wanted to sell real estate. Then right after i graduated the housing market started to crash. Than everything else followed. The one article says the number show that generations entering the workforce during a recession start off at lower wages even with a college degree. Than even after we pulled out of the recession its hard for them to catch up, if they ever do. That’s a hard pill to swallow for my generation and it seems to be hard for the generation before us to understand that it isn’t that we aren’t trying as hard as them, its that the economy has changed and it’s a lot harder for us to get where they are. What worked for them will not work for us.

As for the American Dream that was defined in 1931 by James Truslow Adams as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone.” Maybe the American Dream is out of date. With the economy changing and technology changing, possibly the “American Dream” needs to be redefined. Before 1931 there was no defined American Dream but you can bet people still had an idea of how they wanted their life to be. They wanted to be free of tyranny. They wanted the slaves to be free. Than when we were free we wanted more. Which led to the “American Dream” as we know it. Now we as a generation have to redefine our American Dream. Do we really need it all? or just enough? Maybe the new American Dream is to live a more sustainable lifestyle to keep the earth healthy for future generations. This wouldn’t necessarily be living “better” than our predecessors but cleaner, and healthier. Our interpretation of the American Dream Could be wrong as well. Better, richer, fuller could mean so many other things besides making more money than your parents. My idea of being better isn’t having a bigger house or nicer car than the previous generation. It’s an idea of utilizing cleaner energy and making it easily accessible for everyone. My idea of being richer is having a lager middle class and seeing many of our lower class rise up above poverty. My idea of fuller is getting rid of all these toxins and carcinogens and living life into my 80’s as a health cancer free person to enjoy old age.

So yes AN American Dream is dead but that doesn’t mean we have to accept its death and wallow in it. Maybe we should redefine it and make it what we want it to be. Why are we letting a definition that is almost a century old define how we should dictate success? I’m not saying our economy doesn’t need help but if the world is evolving around us and we are measuring it the same way we are going to get the wrong measurements.
Chibuzor 12:54 am on February 19, 2017

Does the American dream still exist? Not necessarily but there are two sides to it. If it is in terms of people (foreigners) believing in the American dream, then yes. The hope a foreigner has that when they move to America they are guaranteed or at least have a better chance of attaining a more suitable life for themselves and their families still exists. The hope that America is a land where dreams come true and opportunities are limitless is definitely still alive. But the reality on the flip side though is how achievable it really is. According to the New York Times article, in the survey that was conducted, we see a gradual but consistent decline in this dream for Americans even more so for foreigners. In as much as hard work, education, drive and determination are quintessential to move up the economy/class ladder, it is definitely not a guarantee whatsoever. Another reason too is that those at the top want to keep dominating, leaving those at the bottom or in the middle stuck and not able to move up, but rather are in somewhat of a stagnant position. Also I think that governmental and social structure is also a legitimate reason for such stratification. However a reason for the steady decline in the American dream can be attributed to the wars and economic depression that occurred in the last 60-70 years or so.
In general, this was quite an interesting read and I definitely learned a couple things from this unit.
Zachary Dowling 1:33 am on February 28, 2017

The idea of the American Dream is a very complicated one. The idea that the American Dream is dead is definitely a possibility, but what if it were never real at all? As you’ve stated professor, the American Dream may have been a myth the whole time, even throughout large growth during the 1940s and 50s. Or is it still as alive and well as ever before?

As the parents of baby boomers raised their children during the depression, the idea of the American Dream was not in sight and seemed to be nonexistent for their offspring. Fortunately, that was not the case. The children during the great depression started at the very bottom and grew up with little if any economic growth. That lack of growth and inequality that persisted through out the great depression is what led to the myth of the American Dream. These are children that grew up with nothing. When someone goes through tough times, the drive for being better is usually there. These kids of the great depression had no option but to experience a much better standard of living because they knew how bad it could be.

Like any economic system, there are times of growth and decline, and when someone starts near the bottom of the x and y axis they’re going to eventually go up from there, and that’s what happened. When the American Dream was created, the baby boomers had experienced huge growth, so it was easy to look back on it and think “each generation will keep going up from here”. All the American Dream was in reality was just small look into our country’s economic cycle. Ups and downs that can only be seen when looking at a large scale picture.

Sure there will be times when children generally make more than their parents, but there’s also going to be times where all of that growth slows to a halt, eventually repeating its cycle again. This is a dark and depressing view knowing that a lot of this is out of your control, but it’s just an idea about what the American Dream really was and is today.

Econproph [Comp. Systems 2017]

Jim Luke's Comparative Economic Systems Course

Unit 3 – Death of the American Dream Readings