Do you think the ,,American dream” still exist or is long gone ?

29 comments

  4. It still exists for some. For others not so much.

    With costs of living increasing and wages stagnating, the material aspect of the American Dream is dying along with the promise of its standard of living. Hard work and determination doesn’t “buy” you as much as it did in the past.

    I am unlikely to ever afford a home, have kids, or retire no matter how hard I work. The American Dream most likely will never happen for me.

  5. Yes the American Dream still exists. Does it look like the nuclear family in the suburbs right out of a Norman Rockwell painting? Probably not, but people still come to our wonderful country in hopes of finding job opportunities and economic prosperity.

  6. People have this idea that the American Dream is that you will become rich by just existing.

    That was never it.

  7. Dreams still exist in our heads, but it’s never been called the “American reality” for a reason. Life was good for the Greatest Generation after they won WWII, and their children the Baby Boomers had a highly successful country, but once those who were less represented in that success started trying to get their own share of things in the 60’s, it all kind of went downhill. For most of us, America has been on a downhill trend, at least financially, our entire lives. We’ve made some progress on social issues at least though.

  8. The “American dream” is not monolithic, it varies from person to person. For some folks the American dream is the stereotypical “white picket fence, a wife, 2 kids and a dog” For others, it could be satisfaction in your job, moving to the middle of nowhere and starting a farm.

    The American Dream is doing whatever the heck makes you happy.

  9. The baby boomers climbed the american dream ladder and then made sure to pull it up behind them so no one else could come up and possibly knock them off.

  10. When an American asks another, “how’s it going?” or something similar, sometimes they’ll answer with, “oh, you know, livin’ the dream.” So, I would assume it still exists.

    To answer your question a bit more seriously, I think it does exist but it’s certainly not as easily attainable as it once was.

    I remember seeing a comparison between families in the 50s and families today. Back then, the average houses cost around $15,000 while families had an annual salary of $6,000. Today, houses are unattainable for so many. The prices of vehicles have increased to ridiculous amounts, a Jeep Wrangler is around $60,000 now, I think. It’s difficult for many. I should ask you, how much have housing prices increased in your country and does living the dream still exist there?

  11. The American dream has always been the idea that you will have the opportunity to go from poverty into the middle class and make a better life for your children than you had yourself through your own merit and hard work due to the liberty and economic opportunities found in America.

    This hasn’t changed.

    People have been misled into assuming the American dream has to do with becoming super rich or part of the one percent because they lack the historical context of it being a dream for those coming from repressed countries where they had no hope of rising above their own class of peasentry.

  12. It’s tough. You still see lots of immigrants that come to the US with very little, and through hard work, accumulate enough wealth to buy a home and give their children a comfortable life. That would to be a validation of the “American dream”.

    But it also seems like it’s becoming tougher for Americans born in the US to find the American dream. I’m not sure if it’s just that we’re becoming too brainwashed by consumerism or political factions, or what, but it seems to be a real thing. And it seems to be deeper than “kids these days just don’t want to work hard.”

  13. It still exists. It is not automatic. People also complain about never being able to afford a house while not being willing to move out of big cities which haven’t been affordable in a century.

  14. I always find this interesting because apparently nobody bothers other countries with this, especially with this doomer tone.

    “Are Canada’s Peace, Order and Good Government ambitions a thing of the past?”, “is Germany no longer *alles in ordnung*?”, “is it time to pack it in, Russia?”

  15. Define it first. As a German speaker, what does the “American Dream” mean to you? You will get varied answers until then, because it can refer to loads of different things.

  16. There has never been one specific ‘American dream’. The vague concept still exists.

  17. The American Dream is alive and well for immigrants who start a business and/or pursue education and put their all into it.

    I think most people who say the American dream is dead are misunderstanding that the original meaning was that someone could come to this country with little money to their name and (with a ton of hard work and some ingenuity) create a better life for their family so that their children grew up with the opportunity to attend excellent schools and go into lucrative and desirable careers.

    As far as I understand it, the American dream was never about people who have been here for generations being able to consistently move up the ladder to higher and higher incomes. Once a family is middle class, it’s difficult to continue to move up to upper-middle or upper class.

  19. It never really existed outside of stories to make people feel like it’s true.

  20. I work with small businesses, and it is still alive for those who have something of value to offer their customers, plus a willing to work long hours, plus business sense. I see that more in immigrants than native born Americans.

  21. It’ll be back once the Dems come to their senses with a sane President, or the Republicans get back into power. Right now the patients are running the insane asylum (and the universities).

  22. It’s still alive in my household.

    I was the fourth son of an 8th grade educated factory worker. After he disowned me for being born gay, I put myself through school and grad school and am a VP in a Fortune 5 corporation.

    My husband grew up poor in Brazil, came to the US, got his citizenship, a degree, and also works for a Fortune 10 corporation.

    We have a beautiful home, two vacation homes, and a daughter who is a doctor.

    So, yeah, we both started out with nothing and made something of ourselves.

  23. In terms of material stability and working-class prosperity (anchored on reasonable paths to affordable homeownership and the ability to become an asset owner prepared for the raising of a family and retirement) the American Dream is super dead and has been for decades.

    I’m tired of this squishy “how do you even define the American Dream” argument. Yes, everyone’s version of the American dream is highly personal and your mileage will vary, but let’s not be myopic and precious to the point of dishonesty.

    Reasonable paths to long-term prosperity for Americans who aren’t highly educated or equipped with specialized skills have vanished in recent decades and incomes have stagnated while the cost of living has absolutely soared.

    The American Dream was effectively a blip of post-war prosperity that is unlikely to ever be replicated again. You can thank the corrosive nature of runaway neoliberalism for that.

  24. The American dream has from the beginning been to live a satisfying life using American opportunity. For some people that’s going from a poor life to a middle class life. To others it’s providing their kids with a better life than they had. For some it’s the freedom to move to a farm or big city to start a new life.

    The white picket fence with two kids is just one iteration of the same idea

  26. Wikipedia defines the American Dream like this:

    >The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States, the set of ideals (democracy, rights, liberty, opportunity and equality) in which freedom includes the opportunity for prosperity and success, as well as an upward social mobility for the family and children, achieved through hard work in a society with few barriers. The term “American Dream” was coined by James Truslow Adams in 1931, saying that “life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement” regardless of social class or circumstances of birth.[1]

    [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream)

    ​

    To me, the American Dream was always about upward mobility–the idea that if you work hard, your kids will do better than you, regardless of your class.

    To some extent, it still exists. We still have millions of immigrants into the United States per year. Of course, there’s still lots of illegal immigration, too. If people didn’t think there was economic prosperity and a future for their families here, these numbers would be much lower.

    [https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/special-reports/legal-immigration](https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/special-reports/legal-immigration)

    And, though America has its problems for sure, one regular chorus you’ll hear here is that America is much more open to a “melting pot” of people from other places and is overall less racist than many countries in continental Europe. We’re also one of the leaders of the disability rights movement and ensuring access to government services and (primary and secondary) education for everyone.

    Of course, in the past few decades, we’ve seen more and more wealth being owned by fewer and fewer people. There’s less social mobility than there was perhaps in most of the 20th century. But those are problems to fix, not an indication that the American Dream is “long gone.”

  28. It does. For people who come to this country, for whatever reason, I believe it’s still a thing. For some who were born here it probably still is but the “work hard” attitude isn’t enough anymore. Gotta get some lucky breaks along the way and it just doesn’t seem to happen for a lot of people.

  29. It still exists. If you’re ambitious, hardworking, intelligent, and willing to take a chance on yourself then you’ll probably be successful.

    This guy comes to mind. He’s the son of a Turkish farmer, came to America, and became the billionaire founder of Chobani yogurt.

    [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdi_Ulukaya](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdi_Ulukaya)

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