Americans overwhelmingly desire all the traditional trappings of the American dream—owning a home, having a family, and looking forward to a comfortable retirement. But very few believe they can easily achieve it.
A July Wall Street Journal/NORC poll of 1,502 U.S. adults shows a stark gap between people’s wishes and their expectations. The trend was consistent across gender and party lines, but held more true for younger generations, who have been priced out of homeownership and saddled with high interest rates and student debt.
While 89% of respondents said owning a home is either essential or important to their vision of the future, only 10% said homeownership 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, respectively, but rated as easy or somewhat easy to pull off by only 9% and 8%.
Twelve years ago, when researchers at Public Religion Research Institute asked 2,501 people if the American dream “still holds true,” more than half said it did. When The Wall Street Journal asked the same question in July, that dropped to about […]
As the article states: “By many measures, economists say, people are right to feel that their shot at success has diminished.
“Key aspects of the American dream seem out of reach in a way that they were not in past generations,” says Emerson Sprick, an economist at Washington, D.C., think tank the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Sprick points to the continued decline of private-sector pensions—leading to their near-disappearance—and the surge in the cost of home ownership as two of the biggest economic changes over the past decade. ” The article wisely mentions student loan debt as a factor a well. These things have nothing to do with feelings and everything to do with facts. This is part of a broader trend of neo-liberal economics infecting both parties. If you want your life to change you have to start with changing your behavior. Neither the Democrats or Republicans are on your side. That scam is how we got into this mess. Think outside the box.