B2-29 · The American Dream: Myth or Reality?

The American Dream: Myth or Reality?

In 1931, the historian James Truslow Adams wrote that America offered "a 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." He called it the American Dream, and the phrase stuck. For almost a century, it has been one of the most powerful ideas in the world: if you work hard, it does not matter where you come from. You can rise.

Rags to riches

American culture loves stories that seem to prove the dream. Andrew Carnegie arrived from Scotland as a poor boy in 1848 and became one of the richest men in history. Oprah Winfrey grew up in poverty in rural Mississippi and built a media empire. The founders of Google, Apple and Amazon started in dorm rooms and garages. Every year, around a million immigrants are granted permanent residence in the United States, and many of them say the same thing: they came for a chance.

The dream is not only about money. For many families it has meant owning a home, sending the children to college, or simply living without fear. In surveys, most Americans still say that people who work hard can get ahead, and that belief shapes politics, movies and even the way parents talk to their children.

What the numbers say

Economists, however, tend to be more skeptical. One famous study led by the Harvard economist Raj Chetty looked at a simple question: do children earn more than their parents did at the same age? For children born in 1940, the answer was yes for about 90 percent of them. For children born in 1980, it had fallen to about 50 percent – a coin toss.

Where you grow up also seems to matter a great deal. Chetty's team found that a poor child's chances of moving up are much higher in some cities than in others, even within the same state. Good schools, stable families and mixed neighborhoods appear to make the biggest difference. In other words, talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not.

Critics also point out that the dream has never been equally available. For a long time, African Americans, Native Americans and many immigrant groups were legally excluded from good jobs, schools and neighborhoods. Today, the cost of college and health care can push even hard-working families into debt.

A dream worth keeping?

So is the American Dream a myth? Not exactly. Social mobility in the United States is lower than many Americans believe, and lower than in countries such as Denmark or Canada. Yet millions of people still move up every year, and the country continues to attract ambitious newcomers from all over the world.

Perhaps the best way to see the dream is not as a promise but as a goal. A promise can be broken; a goal can be worked for. As the writer James Baldwin once said, "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." Many Americans would argue that the dream is still alive – it just needs better roads leading to it.