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Once upon a time in America a man could have a dream. He could get a job and earn what was called a decent living. That meant he could earn enough to put a roof over his head and feed himself, buy clothes, and through that great American invention called time payments, even buy himself a car.
Once established as a responsible breadwinner, he could attract a wife and start a family. If he worked hard and was loyal to the company where he worked, that company would be loyal to him. He could earn a raise from time to time for high production, maybe even become foreman of his department. He might rent an apartment starting out, but within a decade he could parlay savings into a down payment for a home. If he was a little ambitious he might learn a skilled trade like carpenter or electrician, and make even more money.
A college degree was not needed to follow this path. Even if someone started life in the projects, he could have this dream. Many a titan of industry began in the poorest section of his town wearing hand-me-downs from siblings or neighbors. If he learned a work ethic early and plied that into a decent job, once he reached adulthood, he could succeed. As they say, the sky was the limit.
In this American dream, the money one man could earn was sufficient to cover the expenses for a whole family. While a wife could work outside the home, running the household and caring for the children she spawned was a full-time and highly respected job in itself. Family and community were strong. The family helped each other, neighbors helped other neighbors and communities thrived. Even if it wasn’t the lifestyle of the rich and famous, it was life in America and it was good.
If a man was sufficiently ambitious, he might start his own business, eventually hiring others and becoming an owner-manager. This enabled him to buy a bigger house in a better neighborhood with more space, better landscaping, shade trees, and better schools for the kids.
The American dream has become the American nightmare.
Lower and middle-class American wages have flatlined over the past forty years when compared to the runaway inflation. Wages doubling might sound good, but what if real inflation over that same period, not the phony government numbers, sends costs up by a factor of four? Skyrocketing medical costs, insurance rates, property taxes, mortgage payments, and higher education only pour salt in the wound. The average new car costs $50,000. The lower you go on the income spectrum, the more purchasing power has suffered. Many in the middle class are buying cheaper food, less clothes, and older cars. Forget about dining at restaurants or a night at the movies, and buying a house has become little more than a distant pipe dream. For many, fast food takeout is now considered a luxury item. Currently well over half the US population live paycheck to paycheck, with 38 million Americans living below the poverty level.
Always included in the American dream was the man’s desire for his children to start out in a better position in the world than he did, and make a better life for themselves and their families than he could. Especially hard hit are young Americans, including college graduates. An NBC poll of Gen Z voters found “inflation and the cost of living” was their most pressing concern, three times more than “threats to democracy,” and five times more than “climate change.”
Currently, the common man can’t start a job making enough to live on his own much less start a family. Rents are through the roof. An adult son living with his parents was once looked at as a character flaw. Now it has become a necessity. Staying in the nest past thirty is commonplace, even for college graduates. Getting married is more of a remote option than a cultural practice. In fact, being a man in any traditional sense is frowned upon. Many of the traits once admired as masculine strengths are now derided as toxic masculinity. For women, having and raising children is viewed as indentured servitude rather than a major role in forwarding society. Being a feminine woman is only admired if you are actually a man.
Home ownership once was something average middle-class Americans could achieve with hard work and a little financial prudence. Now the bar is so high that many of the younger generation have resigned themselves to renting for life. As Klaus Schwab said, “You will own nothing and be happy.” There is even a lifestyle movement that advocates not having children, not settling down, owning a home or even getting married at all, driven in large part by the economic barriers that seem insurmountable.
Not everyone is hurting. The income gap is now a chasm. We have multi-millionaires and billionaires and soon we’ll have the first trillionaire. The top 1 percent are making more money than they could ever spend. A staggering 50 trillion dollars of income has transferred from the lower 90 percent to the top 1 percent over the past three decades.
The disparity is unsustainable in a free society. Either the elite will assume full control in a totalitarian-run caste system, or the people will hold the line and force the elites to re-structure the system into something that is at least fair enough that anyone can win. Something called the American Dream.
And that’s the simple truth.
