For generations, the “American Dream” has been a guiding myth of U.S. life, the promise that anyone, no matter their background, can climb the ladder of success with enough grit and determination.
But for younger Americans, that dream is looking less like a roadmap and more like a mirage.
A recent Pew Research Center survey reveals just how sharply the nation is split on this pillar of the national identity.
Though 53 percent of Americans continue to indicate the dream is possible, 41 percent feel it once was but no longer is the case, and 6 percent indicate it never was. Figures vary sharply by age, income, and race, but the divide by generation is perhaps the most extreme.
Younger Generations Lose Faith
Even among Americans 50 and older, most continue to believe the dream still awaits. But the enthusiasm vanishes fast as you ask younger.
Just 43 percent of the 30-49 age range claimed they believed it was possible. Among the youngest adults 18-29, belief drops all the way down to 39 percent, with more than a third of them stating outright that the American Dream lies beyond their reach.
Economic Shifts Recalculate Expectations
The notion of the American Dream was long connected to the notion that each successive generation could do better than the previous one. But over the past four decades, that trend has reversed.
Wage growth has slowed, homeownership has become harder to achieve, and the cost of education has ballooned. The 2007 financial crisis hit Millennials just as many were entering the job market, wiping out savings and creating a “lost decade” of stalled careers.
The New York Times even dubbed the 2010s the “Decade of Disillusionment.” Then came the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, and yet another round of economic instability.
The outcome? Fewer young Americans see a bright future. They’ll more likely end up in debt, unable to afford homes, and facing an economy where the rich continue to distance themselves from the rest.
Inequality Separates the Gap
The income gap in the United States is higher than in the developed world, and it continues to widen. In 1971, about 61 percent of Americans lived in middle-class households. In 2023, just 51 percent of Americans lived in middle-class households, according to Pew.
While the number of billionaires has risen sharply, jumping from 66 in 1990 to 748 in 2023, according to Statista.
As for those numbers, they only serve for many others to confirm how they feel on a daily basis: the success ladder lacks some rungs, and the ascent is steeper than ever before.
Race and Reality
Race also determines how Americans view the dream. Black Americans tended to report the dream never came to pass at a higher percentage than whites, 11 percent as compared to 4 percent among whites.
A third of Black Americans further reported that the dream was now out of their range. In comparison, 55 percent of whites reported that the American Dream remains within their reach.
It has long been harder for people of color to access the promised benefits of hard work and grit due to the existing barriers as well as systemic racism.
A Dream Under Pressure
So, where is the American Dream now? On paper, it still appears as a potent cultural vision. Politicians refer to it, marketers market it, and millions of immigrants still pursue it.
But for younger generations looking at soaring housing prices, increasing student debt, and dead-end paychecks, it seems ever more remote.
What’s more, skepticism itself could be transforming the country’s ethos. If fewer think the dream’s possible, fewer will see the point of trying for it, as their parents’ generations likely did.
That could change how the next generations define being “successful,” where it’s less about owning homes and ascending the corporate beanstalks but about having balance, security, as well as individual contentment.
The American Dream isn’t dead yet. But it’s certainly transforming at the very least. Gen Z and the Millennial generation made it very clear they’re not about to buy into it, as the previous couple of generations had.
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