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.’
That article was exhausting.
He needs to stay in England and not worry about us. I’m certainly not worried about the English dream.
A lot of older people did live the American dream. Hey, “I got mine.”
You’re not getting the same?? Well, you’re lazy. And you don’t deserve the stuff I got. Sucks to be you. And any way, the American dream deserves to die. The important thing to keep in mind is: “I got mine.”
This is a crap way of looking at things.
Oh give me a break: despite all of the whining, the poorest person in this country has it better than a king had it century ago and vastly better than anybody living in the Third World.
You may not get the job you want but jobs are out there if you’re willing to work hard and honestly.
Freedom is the ability to succeed or fail - based on your own abilities and willingness to work at it.
According to AI—The article argues the American Dream is fading, and that may be good because it was largely fake and helped make an unfair system seem fair.
To all of the unbelievers.....
"Working hard and playing by the rules" does not "lead" to success.
Living your life that way IS SUCCESS!
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American dream is a dream to live in a free society. Not a dream to earn/steal as much money as possible.
“ From the moment I arrived in 1995, I was struck by how contemptuous people were of the people below them in the socioeconomic hierarchy”. Another blatant lie. The vertical mobility in the US is probably the highest in the world because it is not impeded by any other factor (heredity, education, etc), which is exactly the consequence of the country being a beacon of freedom to the world. Why would the hordes of illegal immigrants try to enter the US at any cost if this wasn’t true?
[Oh give me a break: despite all of the whining, the poorest person in this country has it better than a king had it century ago and vastly better than anybody living in the Third World.]
“The American Dream” has become living off other people’s money and not having to work, you don’t even have speak English.
If merit is supposed to mean nothing, then I am not suited for such a land.
If doing nothing, or even doing evil is equally morally and legally the same as working hard or bettering yourself legally, then I suggest we’ve set society to reward sloth and crime.
Just befriend someone who knows how to live well off welfare or a criminal who enjoys stealing and hurting others and start up your new direction in life from them.
If committing crime is your direction, consider your new trade being performed on people who write articles like this one.
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’m beginning to sound like a socialist
Toby's father actually was a socialist (and a lord, like Toby). It's likely that Toby's father taught him to feel guilty about his advantages in a way that others in his position don't. It's possible that lords may feel guilty about their position, but successful, privileged Britons may not be so very different from their American counterparts.
Eurotrash propaganda from a foreign communist faggot.
That's not really true now. One reason is that the older European class structures broke down allowing greater social and economic mobility than Europe had in the past. Another is that the U.S. educational system broke down, and young people often aren't learning marketable skills. Immigration also adds a lot of people who aren't likely to rise much. In more homogeneous societies people start on more of a similar footing. And the income and wealth peaks are higher in the US and harder to reach. It is true, though, that Europe is having its own problems with immigration and education now.
"...Freedom is the ability to succeed or fail - based on your own abilities and willingness to work at it..."
Absolutely. It is why people from all over the world still want to come to the United States. We have our problems, but this stain of an author who thinks he sees accurately how things are can't see the forest through the trees.
👍
1st world problems
the simple fact is the poorest Americans have more wealth and luxury and 99% of humanity that ever lived could ever have even dreamed of.
Inflation was never 17% in 1979. The peak was about 11%.
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