Is the American Dream Still Alive?

What the Phrase Actually Means

Free write (5 min): when you hear "the American Dream," what do you think of? Collect the answers before defining anything — the gap between what students picture and what the phrase originally meant is worth a few minutes on its own.

The origin, which almost nobody knows. The term was coined in 1931 by the writer James Truslow Adams: "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement… each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position."

Note what that definition does not mention: a house, a car, or a salary. It's about recognition and the irrelevance of the circumstances of birth. The modern associations — mobility, meritocracy, prosperity, individualism, exceptionalism, freedom — accumulated later.

What Americans say they believe:

• The two most-cited components of the Dream are freedom of choice and family life — neither of which is financial. That result surprises students who assumed the whole thing was about money.
• Americans who believe the US is the best country in the world skew older and more conservative. Belief in the Dream is not evenly distributed.
• Measures of belief dropped between 2020 and 2021 across the board — the pandemic is the obvious candidate.
• Compared with other countries, Americans hold a much stronger belief in individualism and in success being determined by the self rather than by outside forces.

Assign the readings, due before Tuesday — note that these are four genuinely different kinds of source:

• Is the American Dream Alive or Dead? It Depends on Where You Look — Economic Innovation Group
• The Transformation of the 'American Dream' — New York Times
• Family and Individualism: A New View of the American Dream — American Enterprise Institute
• Awaking from My American Dream — Harper's Bazaar. A personal essay, and the only first-person voice in the set.

Mobility, College, and Housing

Mindful moment (5 min), then the economic evidence. Three clusters, each with a specific finding:

Mobility.

• All income groups have gained since 1970, but the upper group far more — and the middle group's share of total income is shrinking.
• A child's expected adult income tracks their parents' closely: about $40,000 if parents were at the 10th percentile, $60,000 at the 50th, and about $100,000 at the 90th.
• The share of children who out-earn their parents has fallen steadily since 1940. Ask why it was so high then — the post-war economy is the answer students should reach.
• Among children born in the 25th percentile, the children of immigrants generally do better than the children of American-born parents — and this has held across different time periods. It's the most counter-intuitive slide in the deck.

College.

• Costs are shown in "2021 dollars," meaning older figures are adjusted upward for inflation. Make sure students can explain that before reading the chart.
• Private college tuition roughly doubled; public four-year tuition rose about 150%.
• Among adults born into the bottom 20%, those with a college degree end up spread fairly evenly across all income levels; those without are heavily concentrated in the bottom. This is the single strongest claim in the deck about what still works.
• Education of all kinds shows a far higher return on investment than housing or stocks — and associate's degrees do especially well, because tuition is low and the skills are in demand.

Housing.

• Homeownership among 25-to-34-year-olds fell from about 45% to 37%; among 18-to-24-year-olds from 16% to 13%.
• White homeownership has held around 70% since 1976; Black and Hispanic homeownership has hovered around 45%.
• Over a third of children whose parents held more than $300,000 in wealth own homes, against 14.2% of those whose parents held under $10,000.
• Survey data shows homeownership is part of the Dream for every age group, rising from 59% among Gen Z to 87% among people 68 and older — and Gen Z is the only group that ranks something else first, a successful career, by a single point.

Open the Discussion

Mindful moment (5 min), then the seminar. The deck first widens the frame: the US has taken in high levels of immigration since the restrictive laws of the 1920s were overturned in 1965, and surveys of would-be migrants worldwide show far more people want to move to the United States than to any other country. Whatever the internal data says, the external verdict is unambiguous.

• Is the American Dream alive today? Was it ever?
• Does the fact that some people move up mean the Dream is real? Should it be attainable for everyone?
• Should the US prioritise economic and social mobility? Which policies actually move it — income, wealth, taxes, housing, education?
• What does the American Dream imply about people living in poverty? This is the sharpest question in the set, and the deck asks it deliberately.

Before students leave: themes, lingering questions, and one new resource for Thursday.

Look Up Your Own Hometown

Mindful moment (5 min), then the activity that makes this topic land. The Opportunity Atlas tracks 20 million Americans from the neighbourhood they grew up in to the adults they became.

• Search for your hometown. What outcomes surprise you?
• Which outcomes would you expect to be related to each other — and are they?
• The data is now several years old. What would you expect to have changed since, and why?

Then close on values, which the deck's teaching notes push toward explicitly:

• What values does the American Dream represent? Do those values come at the expense of others?
• How does the Dream differ for families who have been here for generations against those who arrived recently?
• How do other cultures define a good life, and how does that compare?

Score Your Participation

The four reflective questions, then the participation matrix. Students also use the participation rubric to score the week and explain the score.