According to a recent Wall Street Journal poll, Americans are finding it more difficult to achieve the traditional elements usually associated with the American Dream, including owning a home, having a family, and looking forward to a comfortable retirement.
From WSJ:
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 a third of respondents.
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.
More over at The Wall Street Journal:
The American Dream Feels Out of Reach for Most https://t.co/FbZ2hQdlmH
— Eddy Elfenbein (@EddyElfenbein) August 28, 2024