Guest Post by Catey Hill
Americans say the American Dream is suffering — and that our laziness and low morals may be partially to blame.
Searches for “American Dream” have fallen 24% since Google began tracking this data in 2004 — and when you type “American Dream” into Google, three of the four top autofills are “dead,” “a lie” and “leaving America,” according to an analysis of Google Trends data released Friday in a report by brokerage firm Convergex.
Furthermore, three in four Americans now say that the “American Dream” — broadly, the notion that through hard work and determination every American can have a successful life — is suffering, according to the 7th Annual American Values Survey unveiled last year at the Aspen Ideas Festival.
What’s more, 69% say the obstacles to realizing the dream are “more severe today than ever” — and note that a decline in work ethic is the primary hurdle to Dream achievement. The poll of more than 2,300 Americans was conducted by Burson-Marsteller and market research firm Penn Schoen Berland.
Top 10 barriers to achieving the American Dream
Percent of Americans who say this is a top barrier to more people achieving the American Dream
| Decline in work ethic | 22% |
| Decline in values/moral standards | 20% |
| Personal debt | 20% |
| Rules favoring the wealthy | 19% |
| Lack of economic opportunity | 18% |
| Economic inequality | 17% |
| Big government | 17% |
| Decline of the middle class | 17% |
| Cost of healthcare | 15% |
| High government spending | 14% |
Source: 7th Annual American Values Survey
Strangely, while the vast majority of Americans say the American Dream is on the decline, most think that they themselves are living the Dream — or at least expect that they will down the road. Half of all Americans say they are living the Dream now and 22% believe they can achieve it in their lifetime.
“The macro-picture is that things are poor but the micro-picture isn’t,” says Mark Penn, executive vice president and chief strategy officer at Microsoft, and founder of Penn Schoen Berland. The discrepancy may be, in part, due to the fact that there is a lot of partisanship in this country and plenty of negative ads and other messaging around politics that lead people to believe the country is on the wrong path, he explains.
White people are the least likely to think they either are living the American Dream or can achieve it. While more than 80% of Asian-Americans, Latinos, and African-Americans say they are either living the dream or believe they can, just 68% of whites say the same thing. Penn notes that this may be due, in part, to the fact that thanks to the Obama presidency, African-Americans and other minorities now feel better about their prospects as well.
White people think the American Dream is least achievable
| Whites | African-Americans | Latinos/Hispanics | Asians | |
| Currently living the American Dream | 51% | 43% | 55% | 55% |
| Not living the Dream, but believe they can | 17% | 39% | 28% | 27% |
| Not living the Dream, and don’t believe they can | 32% | 19% | 17% | 18% |
Source: 7th Annual American Values Survey
The notion of what exactly makes up the American Dream seems to be changing. While it used to be a home and two kids, now fewer than one in four people name “owning a home” as a key part of the American Dream and just 15% say having kids. Instead, items like “living comfortably” and “achieving financial security” top the list.
What the American Dream means today
Percent of Americans who say these are important to achieving the American Dream
| Living comfortably | 41% |
| Achieving financial security | 37% |
| Being debt free | 36% |
| Providing a comfortable quality of life for your family | 35% |
| A healthy marriage | 28% |
| Owning a nice home | 26% |
| Having affordable healthcare | 24% |
| Pursuing happiness | 23% |
| Being free to pursue your personal or professional passions | 18% |
| Getting ahead through hard work | 18% |
| A healthy balance between my professional and personal lives | 17% |
| Helping others | 16% |
Source: 7th Annual American Values Survey
The ‘Free-Trade’ deals send jobs offshore, which in turn reduce opportunity. Also, the corrupt financialization of our economy via QE and ZIRP punishes savers and doesn’t allow for increasing wealth via compounding – it has been transferred to the Banksters.
Living it, though we were better set financially in 2001 than today, even with raises, savings, and a serious habit of saving and financial responsibility caused by a quarter century of extreme poverty. I am so frugal it drives the wife nuts.
It’s a scam system, based on never ending debt: Higher education debt, car payments, car insurance , mortgage debt, health care racket insurance, reoccurring property tax debt (even when you own the home) .
A hamster wheel of debt.
My idea of the American Dream?
Being left alone to live my life the way I want to by my own chosen standards instead of having someone use government as a weapon against me to dictate how I must live it instead.
That’s the way it was when we got our country started but it’s certainly changed over the centuries.
And no, I don’t believe that is attainable in today’s America and won’t be again without some really excruciating changes taking place.
I call BULLSHIT on work ethic being the major cause. BULLSHIT, BULLSHIT, BULLSHIT, BULLSHIT and more BULLSHIT, BULLSHIT.
Most successful people own their own businesses. But nowadays there are tons of obstacles to small businesses. I don’t know how in the world a non-compete is even legal. Any lawyers out there want to help a hard working person who has a better idea than his boss but has to deal with a non-compete?
Hey, bring in a few million more hopelessly incompetent H1-B visa workers to further fuck educated Americans out of decent jobs. That should fix everything.
Stop nitpicking poor catey. Here she explains guns to us. Bet your gonna grumble about that, too. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/10-things-the-gun-industry-wont-tell-you-2014-03-07
wip,
Read that clause well, they usually have a specific time period on them.
If not, a lawyer can usually break it unless it involves a proprietary intellectual property or other proprietary trade secret (i.e. you work for Coke, you can’t use their formula to produce a competing brand ever).
But I’ll bet nobody will find fault with her career advice for lindsay lohan. See, catey’s not dumb as a rock. http://m.nydailynews.com/news/money/lindsay-lohan-save-career-article-1.365445
Meanwhile, in Obozo’s fundamentally transformed economy that is firing on all cylinders, and anyone who says otherwise is “peddling fiction”, Sprint just announced the layoff of 2500 employees, or eight percent of their workforce. Yes, a wonderful, hunky-dorious economy it is, at least for some. So much for living comfortably, achieving financial security, having affordable healthcare etc etc etc and so on ad nauseam for these 2500 folks. “We screwed some folks.”
The perception of the American dream has been way off the mark in modern times, which is why Republicans can still get elected. People envision themselves with the ability to “get rich”, yet even though they haven’t achieved that status and probably will never be, they vote against their best interests, and vote for the guy who says he’s going to “lower taxes”.
Millennials may have the best opportunity in decades to flip this thinking on its head and elect Bernie Sanders.
Westy, I hope your Commie dog loses and runs for governor of California or Oregon or wherever you pollute the environment.
After seeing the movie Martian.I wondered how Hillary and Obama would have handled a man left behind on Mars.1-Like Benghazi blame it on an anti Muslum video.
American dream = small business,
and, leave us alone. End all welfare.