Posted on 05/02/2026 6:56:05 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The American dream is dying, according to the Times. To mark the US’s 250th anniversary, the paper commissioned YouGov to explore whether the country’s citizens still believe that if you ‘work hard and play by the rules’ you will eventually be successful.
Turns out, only 38 per cent of the respondents think this applies to all Americans, while 59 per cent think the American dream is now less attainable than it was when they were growing up. In addition, 38 per cent rated today’s quality of life as ‘excellent’ or ‘good’, compared with 60 per cent who said the same about 1976, the bicentennial year.
No doubt flatlining real wages and the hollowing out of America’s middle class have played a part in this increasing pessimism, but it’s worth noting that the American dream has never really been grounded in reality. If you define it in terms of how many generations it takes a child from a modest background to reach the average level of income, the Nordic countries come out on top in the OECD, where it takes two generations; America in the bottom half, takes five generations. According to the World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Social Mobility Index, the US ranks 27th out of 82 countries, while Canada ranks 14th and the UK 21st.
In mitigation, one reason it takes longer for a poor person’s descendants to earn the average income in the US is because this is a lot higher than it is in most OECD countries. In Canada, the median income is approximately$40,000, whereas in the US it’s $59,000. GDP per capita is a slightly different metric, but the Institute of Economic Affairs recently published a revealing survey in which it asked Britons where they thought the UK ranked among US states according to that standard. The answer was seventh, but the correct answer is 51st: Britain is poorer than Mississippi, the poorest American state.
So seeing America as a land of opportunity is an illusion, but it’s one that has probably contributed to its economic prosperity. People will work harder if they believe that sheer effort will propel them to the top, even if it won’t. For that reason, the loss of faith in the American dream could have serious economic consequences. But there’s also a dark underbelly to that noble lie which I experienced during the five years I spent in New York.
From the moment I arrived in 1995, I was struck by how contemptuous people were of the people below them in the socioeconomic hierarchy. In London, the professional classes were – outwardly, at least – respectful of the service personnel they came into contact with every day, careful not to make them feel inferior by virtue of the gulf in status that separated them. In New York, by contrast, such noblesse oblige was almost unknown.
Successful people drew attention to their superior status at every opportunity, with none of the middle-class guilt I’d grown used to in England.
Had these cock-of-the-walks earned their places at the top of the pecking order, that would have been understandable. But most of them had been born to a life of privilege. Their achievement consisted of remaining in the same income bracket as their parents. Why, then, did they behave as if they’d pulled themselves up by their bootstraps? The answer, I eventually worked out, is because they believed in the American dream. So powerful is that myth, they were able to persuade themselves that they deserved their immense good fortune in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. But worse than that, they were convinced that those lower down the food chain also deserved their inferior status, hence the dismissive attitude.
I’m beginning to sound like a socialist, but the lesson I took from this was the opposite. All the things I disliked about Britain – the public schools, the belief that it’s not what you know but who you know, the hereditary principle – actually made life more bearable. Because we’re convinced our society is still hidebound by class (a belief no more grounded in reality than the American dream), the people at the top are plagued by doubt about whether they’re entitled to their success and the people at the bottom don’t feel so bad about themselves. If inequality is inevitable, I concluded, better that people think it’s undeserved than deserved.
So if the American dream really is beginning to lose its mythical power, that may not be such a bad thing. Yes, it’s been an engine of growth, but it’s also convinced US citizens that life outcomes are far more closely linked to merit than they really are. As one New Yorker put it to me: ‘Too many of us were born on third and think we’ve hit a triple.’
Good old Jimma Carter. Malaise, his speciality.
I remember his 55 mph speed limit - and naturally, I had to have a 425 HP
l48 corvette and it was a REALLY slow speed. If I tried to go faster, there were always “Carter Enforcers” ready to block the lanes to ensure nobody could go faster.
The joke at the time was “the two things a Naval Officer must learn is Russian and Lifeboat Drill”.
The Socialist Democrats are trying hard to make it the American Nightmare, but if you follow 3 simple steps - you will not fail:
1. Get an education.
2. Get married.
3. Stay married.
Good old Jimma Carter. Malaise, his speciality.
I remember his 55 mph speed limit - and naturally, I had to have a 425 HP
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You disremember. Nixon enacted the 55 mph speed limit.
Chart of monthly average 15 and 30 year mortgage interest rates.
England is dying faster than anything in the West these days
Shockingly so.
Rapidly and frighteningly beyond what I imagined possible.
I never addressed mortgage rates. The running 12 month inflation rate in 1979 was a little over 11%. It was not 17%.
>> In 1979 inflation was like 17% and the interest on a new car loan was 20%. Minimum wage was $2.25 an hour, or maybe a little higher.
I remember those years... as do a LOT of us here. We dealt with it. Back then it was considered important and ethical to pull your own weight.
I remember it well also. That’s why I knew inflation was bad in 1979, but it was not 17%.
Everyone in my immediate family is doing well.
This Euroweenie is full of crap. Hard work and effort may not get you to the "top", whatever that may be, but you'll be way ahead of where you would be as a slacker, especially if you stay away from the commie blue places.
It appears you are correct about the 17% inflation rate (though the interest rate on some loans were in that ballpark (or higher) during that ‘Carter Malaise’ period), but the peak was higher than 11% for some years from some datasets.
Depending on the dataset used for the years 1973 - 1980 the inflation rate for each year is reported to be:
1973: 8.7% (or 8.8% per some datasets)
1974: 12.3% (or 9.39% per some datasets)
1975: 6.9% (or 11.80% per some datasets)
1976: 4.9% (or 6.72% per some datasets)
1977: 6.7% (or 5.22% per some datasets)
1978: 9.0% (or 6.84% per some datasets)
1979: 13.3% (or 9.28% per some datasets)
1980: 12.5% (or 13.91% per some datasets)
And how exactly is the English dream going, two thoughts come to mind
Hanging in in quiet desperation is the English way
Aloha snackbar
“ What a lottery I won: I was born in America!.”
Yes, me too! Traveling a lot of the rest of the world really drives that home. We are blessed beyond our wildest dreams.
For many that is what it has become, but quite funny coming from a British paper
I know. I remember it too well. I knew it was extremely high, but it was not 17% though.
That's nice.
OTOH, I did address them.
Those of us who actually lived through the late '70s and early '80s remember that Jimmy Carter's "stagflation" manifested itself in more than just exceptionally high inflation rates.
Typical anti-American Spectator article.
I noticed he came here from England in 1995. He didn’t come here for the “American Nightmare”, he came here for the American Dream that he is now writing against.
Nothing but petty jealousy by a typical English Nancyboy.
You think I don’t remember that? Excuse me for pointing out that 17% waa not correct, it was embellishing the high inflation at that time.
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