Is this a utopia? A fantasy? A belief? In the United States, it is said that anyone can achieve success and prosperity through hard work and determination.American Dreamthe famous American dream, about one in two citizens still believe in it, according to a survey by the Pew research center.1.
But what is “success” and “prosperity”? The American Dream has not always been about material comfort or upward mobility, American literature professor Sarah Churchwell wrote in a 2021 essay. Until the 1930s, the American Dream referred more to “the idealism of the American experiment,” or more about the common good than about personal and material success.
And that may be what colors the perception of the “American dream” according to the age of the respondents. Young people say they believe less in the American dream than their elders. In 2014, in a CNN poll, 63% of 18- to 34-year-olds no longer believed in it. Ten years later, that has hardly changed: 60% of Americans under 30 believe that this dream has evaporated.
Perhaps as Americans get older, they are reevaluating their definition of “success” and are instead considering that they have “succeeded” in life? Or perhaps young people are aware that they face significant economic obstacles (home ownership, student debt, etc.) and have difficulty seeing how they could afford to… dream.
1. Check out the Pew Research Center survey
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