Americans think the American dream is dying

The biggest problem is the cost of housing, and it's entirely a self-own. There's nothing inherent to America that means the cost of housing has to price into the stratosphere anywhere that has good jobs, we just constantly screw ourselves by not building enough housing.

Whether it's private developers or public, we just constantly refuse to do anything beyond quarter-assing the problem, prioritizing having enough free street parking for cars over affordable housing for families.

American productivity, our GDP per capita is still doing quite well, but it doesn't help the average person if all that money has to go into their rent or mortgage. And benefitting from property values rising from scarce housing is just a generational ponzi scheme.

My parents had it rough, being born in 1929, they didn't really have a "good year" until 1946, the first year after the war. Then, there was a small recession caused by the war ending which didn't clear until about 1949.

But, the house they lived in when they first married could be rented for $10 USD (in 1951 I think). The 50s allowed them to get a mortgage and get in a house of their own, and start the savings treadmill...

Minimum wage was $0.75 per hour ; so in terms of hourly work, the house could be rented for 13 hours of labor (excluding taxes). If you figure $1200/month for typical rent (this is low) that means the equivalent of earning $90-100 per hour in wages, or $180k-200K per year. Quite a difference!

The American Dream is not dying. It died decades ago.

The Australian dream of owning a house is dead in Australia.

Only rich people and corporations can afford to buy houses.

FWIW - people were complaining back in the 70's about being locked out of the housing market when mortgage interest rates were double-digit. The last decade I remember people not complaining about the cost of housing was in the 60's.

What happened?

President Nixon unilaterally destroyed the Bretton Woods System with his Nixon Shock. That sent interest rates soaring. As a result, the buying power of the average American peaked in 1972. The cost of housing has been rising ever since.

How in the world can anyone believe that a country that adds O($trillion) in debts every year will leave its future generations better off than previous ones?

Death of a Salesman was published in 1949. Has the American Dream just been dying in different ways over the past several decades?

I think about it a lot, and had some weakly structured thoughts about it:

- when you picture the sickly sweet Boomer American dream of 60s or 70s, you see a suburban family, maybe some high-level blue collar job for the dad and a "homemaker" mum, living in a big house in a pretty suburb of some no-name town.

- I guess these blue collar jobs don't exist anymore. Jobs that pay a medium-to-high salary require high specialisation. It's no longer the days of car companies building entire cities and herding people to them, providing housing, training and a salary.

- the qualifications are also expensive to acquire. If we now say a university degree is a prerequisite to entering the race, and it costs O(100k) then your chance of getting on the gravy train is very small, unless you come from money yourself.

- so I guess, it's easier to grow a less developed economy than a more developed one. The US used to grow by the pluck and bravery of bricklayers building Empire State Building by hand, now it's the highly skilled hands of bioengineers in start up labs.

- out expectations of success have skyrocketed too. Did the boomers of 60s and 70s who made it go on holiday abroad every year? Did they have iPhones and lots of other gadgets? Thinking about films from the era, they seemed happy with a house and a hot family meal at the end of the day.

- GDP per capita outperforms inflation in the US, and yet median standard of life is decreasing. I guess that tells you that more of what is produced is distributed unevenly, to "the rich". I mean, to some extent that happens always, but it's probably gone too far.

- finally, and that's possibly controversial, but how much of the American Dream was fuelled by the "underclasses": ethnic minorities and women. People who contributed to GDP but didn't get to reap the fruit of their work. The US south first became rich literally off slave work, and arguably emancipation is still under way. Ditto for women. But then, have Black Americans experienced a larger increase in the standard of living than say White Americans? My impression is not; eg the previous boom may have been at their expense, but does not explain why it is over now.

Realistically, it is just housing. Fix housing, fix a lot of problems.

And practically, just bam corporations from owning non-multifamily homes. I just don't understand why investment funds should compete for the same house as average Joe. It's not like the fund management will go homeless if they don't secure a house, but the average Joe will be.

And this is why homelessness is on the rise. Corporate ownership has priced out real people.

It's been dead for 30 years.

TV has been a mirror of general society. And what did that look like? A shoe salesman could have a wife and 2 children in a 2 story house in the suburbs (Married with Children).

Or, the Simpsons had similar. Again, single worker household paying for 2.5 children and 2 story house.

It goes on and on.

But yeah, the 'American Dream' of prosperity was uncovered, viewed, and all wealth extracted from that. And it left bones in their wake. Those bones are minimum wage staying the same since 2005 or so. Or home ownership blocked for most. Or student loans keeping generations in poverty.

We all are collectively getting poorer, and some billionaire fucks are getting richer on the rest of us one cut at a time.

We used to have it good. Those days have been done for a while now.

It is for children of broken family structures, but those with both parents are still flourishing (although this population is collapsing fast).

And bear in mind that the US economy is better off than pretty much the entire rest of the developed world outside maybe Switzerland. Americans who think housing is expensive shut up the moment they look north of the 49th parallel, for example. So just how much worse off is everyone else?

(And if your answer is that somehow "free[1] health care" and "vacation days" are enough to compensate for non-Americans, boy have you missed the point.)

[1] No, Virginia, the NHS and Canadian Medicare's approaches are not the norm for the developed world

I think there are two issues the article, and perhaps the wsj poll highlight.

Firstly the "hard work leads to success" myth. In truth hard-working (by itself) means nothing. Johnny's hard work studying doesn't lead to an A. Answering the questions correctly leads to an A. Just working hard isn't enough, you have to work effectively on the correct material.

So in the sense that "if you work hard, you will succeed", that American Dream has best be described as "incomplete specification."

Hard work matters. An athlete works hard Monday to Friday in the gym, and on the training ground, so they can perform well on Saturday. Do they always win? Does the one who worked the hardest always win? No.

Hard work, on the right thing, in the right way, stacks the odds. But luck plays a part. Sometimes a huge part. You still need the work to exploit the luck, but its helpful if its there.

Secondly I think the "inequality" gap is not as significant as the "general standard of living". I know, I know, im supposed to care if you have a billion, and I only have a million, but I don't. For me, enough is enough, and good luck to you.

Put another way, if you "have enough", then be content - you have achieved the American Dream.

BUT that's not to say that I think we gave achieved that. The problem either the "inequality" reported is not the top end, but the bottom. At the moment the bottom are losing. Their standard of living us too low.

I know it's controversial, but for me it's better to look at the problem as "how to raise the bottom", not "how to squash the top". Decent environment, housing, food, transport and health care would be enough. I don't need fancy yachts or private planed.

Sure we can "hate billionaires", because they got rich exploiting labor (think amazon), but if they were all just millionaires, that wouldn't help much. (But yay, less inequality.) On the other hand raising the bottom likely makes the inequality gap bigger, not smller, but also makes it irrelevant.

I'm aware that raising the bottom is not easy, it's a multi-faceted problem with many moving parts. There are no quick fixes. But I think its helpful to frame the problem this way. (Squashing the top is "easier" but less usefull overall).

There is no direct and certain pathway to prosperity but the right amount of hard work, hustle, creativity, and luck still produces success stories. It has never been a given. What has worked for the previous generation will not work for the next generation. America will remain the land of opportunity even if it is not the market of opportunity because of its capitalistic government with strong protection of property rights. Parents have always tried to give their children every unfair advantage. It will be successful for many, but many will also squander their inheritance.

Edit: I’d love to hear from the downvoters what is controversial or misleading about my previous statement.