Waking up from the American Dream
America is 237 years old now — the right age to finally be told the American Dream doesn’t exist.
We can argue whether it ever existed in the first place, or whether it exists for some of us, still. Either way, it’s difficult to prove that comfort and happiness reward hard work, that the foundation of the American dream will ever be a reality for the majority of Americans.
A dream-busting study by the Economic Policy Institute concluded that since 1948 — the dawn of the American dream of green-lawn suburbia, modern kitchen appliances and cars as big as boats — our country’s productivity has risen by 2543 percent, but our hourly wages have increased by just half that, 1131 percent, stalling out in the 1970s. Everyone, including college graduates, contributes more to capitalism than ever before but are not gobbling a bigger slice of pie. Why do we continue to work so hard? Because the promise of the American Dream is always there, hovering just out of reach, unless you’re one of a shrinking group of the super-wealthy that possess 43 percent of the nation’s wealth and have, in the last 30 years, increased their income at 12 times the rate of the middle class and 24 times the rate of the lowest earners. Increases to their household income, when laid out on a chart, look like a slope of Mount Everest rising from the wide Great Plains that represent the rest of us.
It’s unlikely that their great gains are proof in the value of hard work. Do top executives really work harder or accept more risks to their health than a coal miner, say, or a slaughterhouse worker?
The Economic Policy Institute identifies the top factors that allowed the top one percent to rise and the 99 percent to fall: unemployment, low minimum wage, deunionization, deregulation, eroded labor standards and globalization (i.e., outsourcing), while determining that health care costs, technology, education gaps and tax breaks for the wealthy play only a tangential role, comparatively (lower taxes for executives means bigger bonuses to bloat their income and less revenue for education and safety nets, which keep the bottom earners stagnating, but researchers say higher taxes on the one percent won’t fix income inequality).
Unions, you might be surprised to learn, which covered 27 percent of workers in the 1970s, now cover just 13 percent. Wage negotiation is a huge factor in allowing a lower-class worker to rise to the middle class and beyond — to have a shot at the American dream — and wage negotiations without the collective bargaining power of unions are often fruitless. Behemoth employers like Wal-Mart and fast food companies, now much larger employers than unionized manufacturers, have gone to great lengths to stifle union activity, while manufacturing jobs are shipped overseas. This is the changing face of America.
And although the Economic Policy Institute leaves education out of the equation, consider college: one of the last avenues for Americans to rise out of their circumstance is becoming increasingly impossible to access and at the same time more essential for staying away from non-unionized, wage-based jobs.
Since 2007 — just five years ago — tuition has risen by as much as 78 percent in some states, after being adjusted for inflation. In Pennsylvania, it’s risen by a comparatively low 18 percent, but state spending on education has decreased by 30 percent.
It’s true that, when looking at the global picture, Americans are still lucky. Our country as a whole possesses 25 percent of the world’s wealth, and some countries, like Chile, have incomes far more unequal than ours (though there are many, many countries with better parity. We are the fourth most unequal).
But ultimately, believing in the possibilities for our lives if we work hard and don’t complain can be damaging, even if we have a roof over our heads. While the Baby Boomers had the chance to achieve more than their parents dreamed, children of Baby Boomers are finding themselves graduating college and moving back home. It takes a toll on mental health. While in places like India and Latin America, where there’s less wealth and, one would imagine, less pressure, they’re happier.
So, I offer this as a solution. Maybe it’s time we reframe the dream a little bit. Maybe not everyone will be able to purchase his or her own home or a nice car. But they can live their lives with integrity, giving back when possible and finding happiness in non-material things. The top one percent would struggle to do the same.