Only about one-third of U.S. adults believe the American Dream is still alive, according to a Wall Street Journal/NORC poll released Wednesday.
Twelve years ago, a Public Religion Research Institute survey of 2,501 people found that more than half of respondents believed the American Dream was “still true,” but now only a third feel that way. According to A recent WSJ/NORC poll of 1,502 adults also found a growing gap between people's financial goals and what they believe is actually achievable — a trend consistent across gender and political parties but especially among younger generations. (Related article: “Cancer on the American Dream”: John Kennedy criticizes “Biden economics,” compares Biden polling to “chlamydia”)
“Key aspects of the American Dream now seem out of reach in ways that weren't the case in past generations,” Emerson Sprick, an economist at the Bipartisan Policy Center, told the Journal.
The American Dream is out of reach for most people
According to a Wall Street Journal poll, people want a home, a family and a comfortable retirement, but say that even working hard makes it hard to achieve those goals.https://t.co/Chr1Ix7bQW
— Anthony Lamesa (@ajlamesa) August 28, 2024
The decline in faith in the American Dream coincides with a decline in the percentage of Americans who believe homeownership and financial stability are achievable, according to the poll: Even though 89% of respondents see homeownership as “essential or important to their vision for the future,” only 10% of WSJ poll respondents believe homeownership is “easy or somewhat easy.”
The same goes for financial security: while 96% of respondents believe it is “essential or important,” only 9% claim it is “easy or somewhat easy” to achieve, according to the WSJ.
“No one tells you how hard it is to achieve the American dream,” Markel Washington, who earns about $30,000 a year working at a youth development nonprofit, told the Journal. “You have to learn it for yourself.”
The decline comes amid years of inflation, with prices rising more than 20% since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021. It also coincides with a surge in credit card debt, with delinquent credit card balances hitting a 12-year high in the first quarter of 2024.
Homeownership has also become increasingly difficult in recent years, with the U.S. facing a shortage of between 4 million and 7 million homes as of November 2023 and rising interest rates pushing the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage from less than 3% when Biden took office to more than 6% as of Thursday. According to to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
About 9% of homes are now worth more than $1 million, and the average price of an existing home in the U.S. hit a record high of $419,300 in May. Moreover, housing costs accounted for 90% of inflation in July.
“To me, the American Dream feels further away than it's ever been,” Kevin Murphy, 31, of Des Plaines, Illinois, told the Journal. Murphy makes $95,000 a year but doesn't own a home and doesn't get his paycheck on time. “I'm worried that if I'm still the same when I'm 50 or 60, I'll be totally screwed.”
The poll was conducted between June 26 and July 8 and has a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.
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