American Dream Harder Than Ever To Attain

A recent piece in the New York Times, by writer Louis Uchitelle, highlights the difficulties faced by the millennial generation, also called Generation Y. But it hasn't been much better for my generation (Generation X).

From the piece American Dream Is Elusive for New Generation:

The Great Depression damaged the self-confidence of the young, and that is beginning to happen now, according to pollsters, sociologists and economists. Young men in particular lost a sense of direction, Glen H. Elder Jr., a sociologist at the University of North Carolina, found in his study, “Children of the Great Depression.” In some cases they were forced into work they did not want — the issue for Scott Nicholson.

Military service in World War II, along with the G.I. Bill and a booming economy, restored well-being; by the 1970s, when Mr. Elder did his retrospective study, the hardships of the Depression were more a memory than an open sore. “They came out of the war with purpose in their lives, and by age 40 most of them were doing well,” he said, speaking of his study in a recent interview.

The outlook this time is not so clear. Starved for jobs at adequate pay, the millennials tend to seek refuge in college and in the military and to put off marriage and child-bearing. Those who are working often stay with the jobs they have rather than jump to better paying but less secure ones, as young people seeking advancement normally do. And they are increasingly willing to forgo raises, or to settle for small ones.

Read the full New York Times report.

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Worse for Black Americans

See reports on Black poverty and the struggle with recession from the BBC and MSNBC. The Loop also has a good piece on childhood poverty from last year.

I gave up on the American Dream some years ago. Now I am just seeking survival. I realized the Dream had become an empty slogan.... that the chances of achieving it were slim to none. I almost feel as if I have been lied to all this time. I started to feel this way at age 27 or 28, when I had begun to run-in-place. I just wasn't achieving, even though I was working everyday and studying hard. The last 5-10 years pretty much confirmed the doubts going through my mind at the time.

Now I am about $80,000.00 in debt with no prospects for meaningful employment. The chances that I will be able to pay this money back is pretty close to zero. Over the last year I have been engaging in all sorts of maneuvers (including going back to school and making matters worse with more debt) to keep creditors at bay just a little while longer. But at some point in the next year or two, I will be looking at default. Once I run out of options and default, I will be ineligible for many....well.... basically all jobs in the Government sector...where I want to work. American Dream? Where?

And the thought of finding a mate, developing relationships, and starting a family have been out of the question. Not even an option for me.... never has been. Men, of course, are damn near exclusively defined by what they do....how much money they earn, their ability to support a family, yadda yadda yadda. This is how women rate men. This is especially the case in the U.S., where women are shallow & materialistic to the extreme.

If a man can't meet certain professional/financial expectations...if you don't have a job with a respectable salary, if you can't support a family.... then you aren't considered a man at all. Chances for actually attracting a decent mate under such circumstances are remote. So in the last decade (really more than that) I have actually never bothered to try with any serious effort. All due to this elusive "American Dream".... trying to hold out for a meaningful job opportunity. The lost decade has really worn me down.

(btw... I think one of the next bubbles to pop will be student loans....as students who leave college end up like me... stuck in BS service jobs earning less than $30,000 a year....or can't find work at all).

Needless to say I really hate my life...and the prospects for the future are bleak. With the incompetence of the Obama Administration....not having a clue of what the Hell to do to stimulate the economy...and with all the wars, the misguided foreign policy, and the financial mess (global and personal), I believe things will get worse.

An Xavier University survey seems to support my angst about the future. From the Atlantic:

When asked if it is now harder or easier to attain "the American Dream" than it was for their parents' generation, 60 percent of Xavier's 1,022 respondents said it's getting harder; 68 percent, meanwhile, said it will be even harder for their children than it is for them.

The poll was conducted Feb. 14-21 by Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates (FM3) for Xavier's Institute for Politics and the American Dream, reaching respondents over 18 years old via land lines and cell phones. Margin of error was +/-3.1 percent. Xavier plans to release a similar poll every year.

Even as people think it's getting harder to achieve the dream, Xavier found, they still believe--more or less--that it's possible with hard work: 35 percent said the American dream is "entirely" dependent on hard work, while 53 percent said it's roughly an even mix of hard work and good luck/circumstances. And 67 percent think they can achieve it in their lifetimes.

Fifty-eight percent, meanwhile, said America itself is in decline.

I actually am a little more pessimistic about the "hard work" theme in the Xavier survey, because even with hard work, the Dream seems out of reach. And more important than that was the belief by the majority of respondents that the U.S. was in decline. (Something I have been saying for years).

Read the summary of the Xavier University survey conducted earlier this year. See pdf.

Related Links

The End of the American Dream - Working Harder, Falling Further Behind, by Lee Sustar

Is The American Dream Possible for Most Anymore? (Discussions w/ Barbara Ehrenreich).

Impact of Corporate Based Economy (some links may be dead).

The Economy, Recession and Ordinary Folks

Check out The Boom Was a Bust For Ordinary People, by Barbara Ehrenreich from this Sunday's Washington Post:

For years now, that strange stimulus-crazed beast, the economy, has been going its own way, increasingly disconnected from the toils and troubles of ordinary Americans...

So thoroughly is the economy decoupled from ordinary experience that according to a CNN poll, 57 percent of Americans thought we were already in a recession a month ago. Economists may complain that this is only because the public is ignorant of the technical definition of a recession, which specifies at least two consecutive quarters of negative growth. But most of the public employs the more colloquial definition of a recession, which is hard times. And -- far removed from whatever happens on Wall Street, the Nikkei, Dax, or the curiously named FTSE -- most Americans have been living in their own personal recession for years.

The economy, for example, has been expanding, at least until now, and growth is supposed to guarantee general well-being. As long as the gross domestic product grows, World Money Watch's Web site assures us, "so will business, jobs and personal income."

But hellooo, we've had brisk growth for the past few years, as the president has tirelessly reminded us, only without those promised increases in personal income, at least not for the poor and the middle class. According to a study just released by the Economic Policy Institute, real wages actually fell last year. Growth, some of the economists are conceding in perplexity, has been "decoupled" from widely shared prosperity....

Whether you like Ehrenreich or her politics or not, you can't deny that her diagnosis of our ailing economy and the insecure state of working and middle class people is right on target. While so-called experts are debating whether or not the U.S. is officially in a recession, many people haven't noticed a debate was ongoing because they are already living in a state of hard times.
Ehrenreich's prescription is government intervention:

Government intervention, whether short-term or long-term, needs to get to the heart of this problem by offering a hand to the poor and the unemployed. Until the House capitulated to Bush two weeks ago, Democrats seemed to be standing solidly behind a stimulus package that would include an increase in food-stamp allotments and an extension of unemployment benefits, both of which are screamingly obvious measures. Current unemployment benefits last just 26 weeks in most states and end up covering only a third of people who are laid off. Food stamps are in even shabbier shape, with an allotment amounting to about $1 per meal. Nothing could be more stimulating than putting money in the hands of those who will spend it quickly.

But you can't jump-start a car that lacks a working battery. We need less titillating talk about "stimulus" and more commitment to some fundamental repairs -- higher wages, a real safety net and a return to progressive taxation among them. The challenge isn't just to prop up stock prices but to rebuild an economy in which everyone shares the good times -- and no one is consigned to a permanent recession.

This is the point where Ehrenreich might lose some of people who, otherwise, would agree with everything else she says. (See comments section here). While some might agree that the country is experiencing hard times, they are fundamentally opposed to government intervention. Some commenters even go as far as to red-bait Ehrenreich with the boogaboo S-word--Socialism--in an attempt to discredit her and her powerful essay.

I say enough with ridiculous red-baiting. If you agree with Ehrenreich's diagnosis but fundamentally disagree with her prescription what would you offer as a solution?

Cross posted in An Ordinary Person.

St. Louis Woman Kills Children Then Herself - Felt Hopeless

Tragic story about someone being pushed to do the unthinkable. Of course she did the wrong thing, but I can see how the pressures of today's economy could give the feeling of hopelessness.

And some say that there are no "two Americas". But the people who usually say that are those who are in the top half, doing well, making a comfortable living, and they don't have to decide between their prescription drugs/healthcare, and food. People in the top half often either don't see those in the bottom half of America, or they simply choose to ignore that they exists.

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Report from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Mom who killed girls, self felt hopeless
By Jeremy Kohler
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

JENNINGS — The woman who shot her two daughters and herself to death on New Year's Eve had been distraught because she felt she could not successfully raise a family, police said Wednesday.

The woman, LaRhonda N. Mason, 29, was homeless, jobless and in debt. She relied on friends for shelter, shuffling from house to house with Teleanna, 11, and Jazelyn, 3. She made sure they were fed and clothed and, by all accounts, did her best, said Jennings police Sgt. Shawn Lane.

Her car was towed just after Christmas and she felt all opportunity was lost with it, Lane said. She was inundated with bills. Without a car, she couldn't work. Without a job she couldn't provide a home.

Two days before the deaths, she penned a four-page suicide letter thanking everyone who had tried to help her, Lane said.

On Monday night, she packed her belongings into a plastic bag and set off with her daughters from the home of a friend who had given her shelter. The man was a friend whom she had known from a fast-food job.

The friend followed her in his car, talking to her out his window, urging her to come home, Lane said. When he pulled over to get out, she pulled out a revolver.

At 6:15, outside a wireless phone shop near West Florissant and Apricot avenues, she tossed the suicide note to the ground, shot each girl once in the head, and then herself.

Mason and Teleanna were pronounced dead at the scene. Jazelyn was taken to St. Louis Children's Hospital and died a short time later. Each had been hit by a single gunshot.

Inside the older girl's knapsack was a new journal, a Christmas present. It was signed: "A journal for my little girl."

Police at first believed the friend had been the shooter. He was partially clad and had been following Mason and her daughters. But then they found the suicide note and confirmed that the handwriting was hers.

Investigators learned later that the friend, whom they would not identify, had let Mason store her belongings in his home. They had stayed with him for a few days, and he was urging them to stay longer.

On Monday, Mason's sister Andrea, of St. Louis, published a memorial to her on the Web, featuring un-captioned photographs of a woman and two girls frolicking, laughing. But the family declined to be interviewed.

American Dream Out of Reach For Many - A Labor Day Post

Links To Previous Labor Related Postings

Documentary - Can You Afford To Retire?

Impact of the Corporate Based Economy on Working Class Americans
(check the additional links at bottom of page)

The Poverty Business

Is Wal-Mart Good For America?

My Thoughts On Sicko

Marriage and the Economy

Is The American Dream Possible For Most, Or Just A Fairy Tale?

Marriage and the Economy Pt 2 (new research- marriage Tied to Income)