WHAT HAPPENED TO THE AMERICAN DREAM?

"Freedom is like the land - to reap its harvest one must be prepared to nature it and put up with the often exhausting burden of supporting it."

In modern terms, the American Dream is the belief that anyone, regardless of their background, can achieve a successful and fulfilling life through hard work, determination, and opportunity. The core idea is that everyone in the US has the chance to improve their circumstances and achieve their goals by moving up in social and economic status, often through education and hard work; pursuit of financial stability, a good job, a comfortable lifestyle, and the ability to provide for oneself and one's family.  It also emphasizes the freedom of individuals to pursue their own paths and make choices that lead to a better life. Key to the American Dream is equality; the belief that everyone, regardless of their background, has the same opportunity for success.

More myth than reality: The relentless pursuit of the American Dream by those who have lived in the United States for generations, as well as more recent immigrants, is more myth than reality.  When learning about immigration in the third grade, we were taught that people were immigrating to the United States to chase “the American Dream.” The image put in our head was a husband and wife, living in a small, simple house in the suburbs, with two to three children, and perhaps a dog. These houses came with green, lush, well-manicured lawns and white picket fences. The image included the idea of the mother being a housewife, as the father — the “breadwinner,” per se — worked a job that paid well enough to allow him to be the only one that needed to work. Indeed, this idea was born in the mid-1950s, during the rise of post-war consumerism. As women returned to being housewives from their wartime factory jobs, advertisements for household appliances quickly changed their targets to the idealized post-war American family. In this image, we have the hardworking man who earns all the money the house needs, the housewife who has all of the best appliances that she needs to be the perfect spouse, and children that play sports and need to eat picture-perfect meals every day of their lives.

What this image does not have, and did not ever have, was a BIPOC family in the same scenario, as in Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. It's a term used to emphasize the unique experiences and systemic inequalities faced by Black and Indigenous communities, while also acknowledging the broader diversity of racial and ethnic identities within the "people of color" category.  American Dream sets an inherently racist expectation, one that focuses on the “perfect,” white American family that BIPOC folk should assimilate to. It effectively disregards the existence — and therefore, importance —  of families of color. 

One could argue that the reason this was never depicted was because BIPOC families did not live that way, and they would be correct. Families of color did not live idyllic lives due to the systemic racial inequality they have faced throughout history. “The American Dream” has never been a privilege extended to persons of color, and that is certainly seen in both post-war consumerism as well as modern-day America.

Now for the real deal:

The main reason “the American Dream” is dead for all Americans, regardless of race, is due to wealth inequality in the United States today. As the world has become more evolved, more jobs require education further than high school. Much to the working class’s disadvantage, the cost of higher education has disproportionately risen in comparison to the income of average Americans. This makes a college education much harder to achieve for people from lower-income families.

One must also consider what it currently means to be a “middle-class” family in America. With the general range of the “middle-class” status being between $45,000 and $130,000, and the median American income being approximately $30,000, it is clear to see that most families who manage to fall into the middle or lower-middle class are closer to the poverty line than they are to achieving upper-middle class status (at approximately $140,000 to $150,000).

Furthermore, the generational gap between then and now is exceptionally wide. While it was perfectly viable for a person just out of high school to pay for their college education by flipping burgers for $4 per hour, that is not the case today. Inflation has increased at an alarming rate. The same idea applies to the millennial housing crisis; the cost of owning a home is almost 50% higher than it was in the 1980s, which is around the time the later boomers were finishing college. We can no longer afford the lives our parents led, or the lives their parents led during the birth of “the American Dream.”

The lucky generations: On the same level, “the American Dream” is something commonly used by today’s older folk to berate and belittle millennials for their financial instability. The idea that a person who works a full-time job 40 hours a week, with benefits, can be totally financially stable is a fallacy we need to stop perpetuating. It is by no means possible for every American because of racial inequality, gender inequality and a lot of other things that cause people to be stripped of any chance at “the American Dream.” In fact, it has never been real for most Americans, and instead, has served as an unachievable standard for generations, for people of all backgrounds. Older generations were lucky to be in the right place at the right time to achieve their relative success in attaining this unrealistic ideal, as if it was proof of their superiority. We are no longer in that world of promoting consumerism and capitalism as a societal norm, but the myth continues.

Invoked by American presidents and certain voters, the American dream serves as a deeply personal yet universal framework for people to talk about their lives, their government, their economy and the values they cherish.

President Trump has nodded to the American dream time after time. In his first congressional speech in March, he described it as unstoppable — “surging bigger and better than ever before.” But Americans are increasingly skeptical about the concept, both in whether the country can live up to its ideals or whether it can help its citizens fulfill their own personal goals.

Today, just over half of the country still believes the dream is possible, according to a 2024 Pew Research Center survey. Another 41 percent said the dream was no longer achievable, and 6 percent said it was never possible. Some believe Trump’s economic agenda will eventually deliver the dream as he promised through a stronger, made-in-America economy. For others, the entrenched income disparities and economic uncertainty have been disruptive and unmooring, more barrier than pathway.

Indeed, time for a gut check.

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