The American dream is the most important of our national myths. It’s the idea that, with hard work and determination, anyone in this country can achieve middle-class security, own a home, start a family, and provide the children they raise with a better life than they had. Is that still true?
On the one hand, our economy is the envy of the world. We are the richest country, leading the pack when it comes to innovation. And more people choose to move here for economic opportunity than to any other nation.
And yet, everywhere you look in this country, there is a growing sense of pessimism. A sense that you can work hard, play by the rules, even go to college, and still end up saddled with debt and unable to afford the basics, like a home.
Americans were told that higher education would be their ticket to the good life. Now, there’s more than $1.7 trillion dollars in student loan debt hanging over a generation. Americans were told that free trade would make everyone prosper. But try telling that to the 4.5 million people who lost their manufacturing jobs in the last 30 years.
Perhaps all of this is why a July Wall Street Journal poll found that only 9 percent of Americans say they believe that financial security is a realistic goal. And only 8 percent believe that a comfortable retirement is possible for them.
Now, do those numbers reflect reality? Or just negative vibes?
Last week, we convened four expert debaters in Washington, D.C., to hash out the question: Is the American dream alive and well?
Arguing that yes, the American dream is alive and well, is economist Tyler Cowen. Tyler is a professor of economics at George Mason University and faculty director of the Mercatus Center. He also writes the essential blog Marginal Revolution. Joining Tyler is Katherine Mangu-Ward, editor in chief of the libertarian Reason magazine and co-host of The Reason Roundtable podcast.
Arguing that no, the American dream is not flourishing, is David Leonhardt, senior writer at The New York Times and the author of Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream. David has won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. Joining David is Bhaskar Sunkara, the president of The Nation magazine and the founding editor of Jacobin. He is the author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality.
Before the debate, 71 percent of our audience said that yes, the American Dream is alive and well, and 29 percent voted no. At the end of the night, we polled them again—and you’ll see for yourself which side won.
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The biggest problem by far is the cost of housing.You fix that and it fixes a lot of other problems
And there's only one way to do that we need to build build build
Over the last fifteen years, we should have Built about ten million more homes to keep pace with population growth
If you build those homes, it's gonna fix the cost of housing problems
Thank you for hosting this debate - overall I’m glad to have heard it. Having said that, one of the most frustrating parts of listening to the “declining America” argument was the lack of evidence - and rebuttal of realistic facts - around the “problems” of life expectancy duration, opioid addiction, the dangers of school shootings, etc. The simplest rebuttal would have been to point out that tens of millions of people’s life expectancies are nearly double what they were a century ago; that 10 of millions of school children go to school every single day and encounter no life-threatening school violence; that hundreds millions of people go about their lives not addicted to any drug; that massive numbers of people live a life that is exponentially better than their parents lives, not to mention what billions of people worldwide must endure. And that it is improving every day.
I wish you had invited Steven Pinker to the debate.
The argument also suffered from a kind of “recency bias“ in which only the exceptions were quoted, and hardly any mention was made of the norm, in which the vast majority of people cannot honestly claim to be suffering.
Lastly, nobody adjusted for structural changes that impact people’s perceptions. Back in the so-called wonderful 1950s, men and women started work in their teens, and families in their 20s, and began to accumulate wealth, status, and opportunity earlier in their lives. Thus by the time they entered their 30s and 40s their standard of living had dramatically accelerated. Today, people in their 20s stay in college until nearly their 30s; they are employed substantially less during those years; and marry significantly less during those same years. And they somehow claim they can’t “afford” or achieve the American dream, by which they mean, the upper end of housing, automobiles, travel, and other luxuries.
Finally, I was amazed that the pro American dream group not once pointed out the fact that many people reporting to be dissatisfied live in some of the most expensive ZIP Codes in the United States. They complain they can’t afford a place to live in downtown San Francisco; but they never consider moving 50 or 1000 miles away. Again, this isn’t a failure of the American dream; it’s a failure of American governance. You’re not going to find any $300,000 starter homes in a San Francisco ZIP Code; but three hours outside the city or two states away and you’ll find options. We must be cautious, not to declare the American dream, simply because people expect to have their cake and eat it too.
Thanks again for an insightful debate. It’s easy to armchair quarterback the conversation from the recording, so I offer my comments lightly.