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.’
With respect to the vast majority of the “recent ones”, it is difficult to argue otherwise and I have to agree.
Given that the legal immigration policy in this country had descended to a leftist scheme to bring as many warm, unvetted, and useless (when not openly hostile) bodies into the country and “grant” them citizenship so they could take their place in the electorate as typical Leftist voters for Democrats, what else could be expected?
Well, except for the societally destabilizing forces that the open hostility and contempt towards this Republic that these 3rd world scumbags bring with them could be brought to bear to bring it down and destroy it...which is always in every aspect a goal of the Left in general, and the Democrat Party in particular...
I think it's more attainable.
I know about the worthless "homosexuality in homo-sapiens" studies degrees, but many students did what they were supposed to do. They got training in tech skills, only to have the older generations offshore the jobs from under them. Now they're the perfect fodder for the leftists war plans against us.
We also have a growing deficit because the free traitors didn't consider the loss in tax revenue or the increase in government dependency that would come with offshoring our tax base when they were calculating how much money they would save by buying Chicom made paint brushes. In 2024, they had to raise the debt ceiling just to pay the interest on all of that money we've borrowed. No problem, we'll let our kids worry about paying it back, as long as we get ours.
We trashed the American Dream, and if we care about our future generations and our Vets, then we'd better start working to bring it back while we still can.
No, there was no greedy desire for cheaper products.
The desire was to import products that could sell.
American made prices were no longer competitive. Sales were zero
I will argue that 59% are too lazy to even try to achieve the dream.
vs
The desire was to import products that could sell.
They're basically the same thing.
American made prices were no longer competitive. Sales were zero
Am I the only one who has noticed that the more we've offshored, the less affordable things have become in relation to our salaries? Could it be that offshoring all of those high paying jobs has contributed to the affordability crisis? Of course, you'd have to look beyond the price tag to see that.
There has been general inflation over time.
The selling price for my house is now ten times what I bought it for.
The other side to the coin is that America now manufactures lots of stuff that is exported all over. We now make complicated stuff that most others cannot.
The president is not actually bringing jobs home, he is assuring that there will be new jobs making what amounts to different but new stuff. The old stuff is obsolete
The affordability issue goes far beyond inflation. Offshoring our high paying jobs means that many of us can't even afford the cheaper prices.
We've not only offshored our high paying jobs, we offshored our tax base. That's money that is going into the infrastructure and military buildups of other nations instead of ours.
The government insulated us from the effects of that by borrowing and more borrowing, to the point that we're barely paying the interest on all of that money we've borrowed. I know about the fraud, but our deficits are in the trillions. Who do you think will get stuck with paying that back when our debt becomes too risky? Not us. We got ours, so we can just let our kids worry about that. That seems to be our attitude.
BTW, I've made a few major purchases this year and managed to buy American, so it can be done. All it takes is some research.
The data I provided, which you apparently did not peruse, do not support that statement.
Unless we're talking about 1947 ...
The uniqueness of the American experiment was the ability to move up and down the economic/social ladder.
It was never easy..................................
Now the message is it should be easy and all should be at the top.
Geez,,, you can’t even tell when I am being sarcastic….lol. You really are clueless.
Clueless?
I, the clueless one, provided sourced and verifiable data.
You’re welcome.
“work hard and play by the rules you will eventually be successful.”
If you work hard and play by the rules the government grabs a big piece of your money and gives it to people who don’t work and who scorn the rules of fairness.
I agree, and that makes it easier for the 41% to achieve it.
I’m eternally grateful for these things above all
I believe in Jesus as the Redeemer and true Son of God and that I have the freedom to know this greatest of truths
I was born in the USA
I have my family
In addition to these, I thank you God and Jesus for:
Sinking the Spanish Armada
Guiding the pilgrims to the barren shores of Massachusetts
the brave Americans who gunned down the British on the yet unnamed Freedom Trail
George Washington and all his brave cohorts
Abraham Lincoln
The American military that saved us against the totalitarians
Richard Best and his 2 wingmen
Ronald Reagan
Donald Trump
“Inflation was never 17% in 1979. The peak was about 11%.”
Governments lie to protect themselves. It was higher than 11% and was closer to 20%. Just like under Biden.
He based his conclusions on people where he landed—New York, which pretty much everyone else in America recognizes is the rudest of any other American city.
I totally agree! Great post. I've bookmarked it in my browser.
I feel excactly the same.
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