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Inequality is Killing the American Dream
What kind of dreams has made people dream from four centuries ago till today? What kinds of dreams have been the most craved by people for 400 years? It is the American Dream. The American Dream can be traced back to the discovery of North America, and the definition of the American Dream has evolved from time to time: from the return to paradise to freedom, opportunities, equality, and achievement. Unfortunately, ultimately in the 21st century, the American Dream is being killed by inequality.
What is the American Dream precisely? The American Dream was about paradise and opportunities for Puritans in the 17th century: they believed the wilderness and unspoiled New England (America), which provided an opportunity for starting a new life, was a chosen land from God (Gupte). Centuries later, the American Dream was about hopes, opportunities, and achievements during the darkest period of the Great Depression. Then the first appearance of the phrase the American Dream came out from James Truslow Adamss treatise The Epic of America in 1931. He states, The American Dream [is] that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement (Adams). Years after, the American Dream was about equality for Dr. King; he brought up the idea during his I Have a Dream speech in 1963, saying that his dream of equality was deeply rooted in the American Dream (Hendricks). The American Dream has a new definition in 2014. Thomas Hirschl, a professor at Cornell University, wrote in the book Chasing the American dream that Its not about getting rich and making a lot of money, the American dream is about security. Americans want to feel that their children will have a better life than they do (Hirschl).
But what happened to America after the 1970s? In the film Inequality for All, Robert B. Reich, who is Chancellors Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, indicates Americans encountered the biggest economic collapse in 2008. He wants people to raise their attention to serious economic inequality issues. According to Reich, since the wages in the same job position dropped greatly, women went into work in the 1970s and people started working longer hours in the 1990s; however, both of these coping strategies could not help keep the balance of family income and spending anymore. American families have gone into deeper and deeper debt (Inequality). Meanwhile, the extremely-rich people are wealthier than the bottom 150 million Americans put together, and the top one percent of rich people take home 23% of their income. Moreover, there are 42% of children born in poverty (Inequality).
However, some significantly different opinions about wealth inequality arise from other economists. They disagree that wealth inequality should be emphasized. David R. Henderson, President Ronald Reagan’s former Council of Economics adviser, took the historical fact as examples: light one-man chainsaws were invented in 1940, and the inventor made himself richer by selling those chainsaws, which increased the wealth inequality between the inventor and his customers, and so as Bill Gates started Microsoft (Henderson). Regardless, it improved millions of peoples happiness and convenience at the same time. Therefore, this good kind of economic inequality is inevitable, even desirable (Henderson). In addition, Reich mentioned in the film that Nick Hanauer, the millionaire inventor in Amazon from the film, argued that the middle class created 70% of the economy through their spending. We should increase the wage for the middle class since if the middle class does not have money to spend, the economy will not grow ( Inequality for all ). However, Paul Roderick Gregory, professor of economics at the University of Houston, claimed, most businesses operate in a competitive environment. If they pay more than the competitive wage, they cannot remain competitive themselves, and that would be the main reason that caused a decrease in the economy (Gregory).
Undoubtedly, some inventions could somewhat increase the well-being and comforts of ordinary life. Nonetheless, not everyone can afford them. Take cars for example, First-class citizens drive motor vehicles, second-class Americans walk, cycle, or ride public transit. Certainly many of the latter are poor, but millions more are middle-class Americans (Roberts). The inventions created not only wealth inequality but also gaps in freedom and independence between poor and rich people. Moreover, diminished wages could cut down the cost of business operations as well as weaken the willingness to hard-working. Besides, the middle class might need more than one job to support their family (if they can find jobs), so they are likely less efficient because of exhaustion. Both of the bad effects on employees would cause a much more decrease in the business’s competitiveness than increasing wages.
There is even more evidence that the opportunity for upward mobility is limited by a vicious cycle of decreasing salaries and increasing tuition. Education is the primary procedure to promote equal opportunity and social mobility for poor families (Greenstone et al). However, over 80% of the students from higher-income families, which have incomes greater than $75,000, attend four-year colleges, while only 50% of their low-income counterparts will matriculate (Bedsworth). Over 60% of students from higher-income families will earn a bachelors degree, but only 20% of low-income students will do the same (Bedsworth). The American dream is still alive, but fewer and fewer of us can afford to live it. USA Today estimated that costs approximately $130,000 annually in fulfilling the American Dream for a family with two children, which includes owning a house, grocery plan, four-wheel-drive sport-utility vehicle, educational expenses, etc. Meaning only less than 13% of American families could possibly achieve the dream (Howard R. Gold). What we talk about is not the American Dream anymore; instead, marriage, children, increasing debts, and student loan debts are what most Americans are concerned about.
Over the years the American Dream is almost out of reach because of wealth inequality. People are angry and frustrated with the rising of the astonishing debt obligations; America is not a freedom paradise. It is breaking down the idea that everyone who is willing to work hard could be s success or upward mobility; America is not a place with equality, opportunities, and achievement. The opportunity for quality education for everyone who wants is a major factor in the accomplishment of the American Dream. If people want America to remain competitive in the economy and also want children to have a fair chance at the American Dream, then taking stock of income inequality is critical.
Work Cited
- Adams, James Truslow. The Epic of America. Little, Brown, 1931.
- Bedsworth, William, et al. Reclaiming the American Dream. The Bridgespan Group, Oct. 2006.
- Gold, Howard R. Price tag for the American dream: $130K a year. USA Today, 04 July 2014, https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2014/07/04/american-dream/11122015/. Accessed Nov. 07, 2019.
- Greenstone, Michael, et al. Thirteen Economic Facts about Social Mobility and the Role of Education. The Hamilton Project, June 2013.
- Gregory, Paul Roderick. Sorry, Mr. Reich: Your Economics Grade Is Still F (Reply to Robert Reich). Forbes. 12 Sep. 2013, https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2013/09/12/sorry-mr-reich-your-economics-grade-is-still-f-reply-to-robert-reich-2/#1894715d6b61. Accessed 06 Nov. 2019.
- Gupte, Samir S. The Reciprocal Reshaping of the American Dream and American Religion. Rollins College, Master of Liberal Studies Theses, August 2011.
- Henderson, David R. Income Inequality Isnt The Problem. Stanford University, Hoover Institution, 20 Feb. 2018, https://www.hoover.org/research/income-inequality-isnt-problem. Accessed 05 Nov. 2019.
- Hendricks, Scotty. Why the original meaning of the American Dream is unrecognizable today. Big Think, 28 March 2018, https://bigthink.com/scotty-hendricks/what-the-american-dream-means-today-versus-what-it-originally-meant. Accessed 04 Nov. 2019.
- Inequality for all. Dir. Jacob Kornbluth. 2013
- Rank, Mark Robert, et al. Chasing the American Dream: Understanding What Shapes Our Fortunes. Oxford University Press, 28 Feb. 2014.
- Roberts, David. The built environment discriminates against those who choose not to drive. Grist, 26 Oct. 2005, https://grist.org/article/automobile-apartheid-another-lesson-from-katrina/. Accessed 07 Nov. 2019.
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