Many Feel Living the American Dream Is Unattainable
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Access to affordable credit helps me pay my employees, but I don't really need it. Inflation is killing me. But who cares? Big retailers are making record profits. That's why we support the Durbin Marshall credit card bill. See? Banks and credit unions help small businesses make payroll. This bill would cut the vital resources they need. While increasing megastore profits. They deserve it, don't they? Tell Congress, stop the Durbin Marshall money grab for corporate megastores. Paid for by the Electronic Payments Coalition.
Here's your Money Briefing for Tuesday, September 3rd. I'm J.R. Whelan for The Wall Street Journal. Living the American dream is a wish for many people. But in a recent poll, a majority of adults said they don't feel they'll be able to achieve it, even with hard work.
They can't plan a wedding. They can't plan for kids because they need to have the house in order to do all of those things that they can't. hit this first rung on this ladder. And so then they can't keep moving. So they feel pretty stuck. They feel like they had the dream that the country promised them something and then took it away.
We'll talk to Wall Street Journal reporter Rachel Wolf after the break.
Access to affordable credit helps me pay my employees, but I don't really need it. Inflation is killing me. But who cares? Big retailers are making record profits. That's why we support the Durbin Marshall credit card bill. See? Banks and credit unions help small businesses make payroll. This bill would cut the vital resources they need. While increasing megastore profits. They deserve it, don't they?
What do Americans say the ‘American dream’ includes today?
Tell Congress, stop the Durbin Marshall money grab for corporate megastores. Paid for by the Electronic Payments Coalition.
Living the American dream and being able to achieve financial milestones has been a goal for generations. But few people currently feel they can reach it, according to a recent poll. Wall Street Journal economics reporter Rachel Wolf joins me. Rachel, what do people generally feel the American dream entails?
So Americans overwhelmingly still desire all the traditional trappings that we have always associated with the American dream. Think owning a home, having a family, and looking forward to a comfortable retirement. But now the difference is that very few believe they can easily achieve it.
What were they asked in the recent poll and what was the response?
A July poll that was a collaboration between the Wall Street Journal and NORC showed a super stark gap between people's wishes and their expectations. So while the vast majority of respondents said that they wanted to own a home, for example, only 10% said home ownership is easy or somewhat easy to achieve. Financial security and a comfortable retirement were similarly labeled as essential or important by 96% and 95% of people, but then rated as achievable by only 9% and 8%.
Struggles to make ends meet and build a nest egg aren't new. Why are these poll results significant?
It's never that the American dream has been easy. The point is that it was possible. And if you worked hard, probable that you would ultimately get these things like a house, a family, comfortable retirement, that it was within reach. reach if you followed the rules. Twelve years ago, when researchers at Public Religion Research Institute asked this question of whether the American dream still holds true, over 50% of people said, yes, it's still possible. Now that's only about a third of Americans. And so the What we're seeing is that this faith that it's out there for people is plummeting. And, you know, it's been this steady decline over the past decade. So it's not just that it has gotten harder, which it has.
It's that people no longer believe it's possible for them.
What factors contribute to consumers' feelings about not being able to achieve financial milestones?
So by many measures, economists told me people are actually right to feel that their shot at success has diminished. I spoke to an economist at Washington DC think tank, the bipartisan policy center, who pointed to the continued decline of private sector pensions, which has led to their near disappearance and the surge in the cost of homeownership as two of the biggest economic changes over the past decade.
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