from the July 03, 2007 edition -
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0703/p01s04-ussc.html
American dream still burns bright for many – but results vary
Men in their 30s earn about $5,000 less in real terms than their
fathers' generation did, according to a new study.
By Peter Grier | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
If the American dream means doing better than your parents did, then
Mike Brockman's not living it. Single, with a 10-year-old daughter, he's
a server at a Black Angus restaurant in Mesa, Ariz. His father at his
age had a good, steady job as a machinist at TRW.
Today "there aren't the kind of jobs available you used to get with a
high school education, and work yourself up," says Mr. Brockman. "Now
you have to have training or experience to start – then you can work
your way up from there."
Norman Payne, on the other hand, thinks the American dream is alive and
well. An immigrant from Panama, he's lived in the US for 16 years – and
on June 28 in Boston he was sworn in as a US citizen.
Mr. Payne works in customer service at Kodak and has high hopes for his
young son and daughter.
"I don't think the American dream has changed," he says. "I am trying to
do everything I can do so that they can do better than I did."
Two hundred and thirty-one years after the 13 colonies declared their
independence from Great Britain, is the United States still the land of
opportunity, the light of hope for the poor of the world?
The economic dream that has united a diverse population for generations,
that children would be more prosperous than their parents, is in
question as perhaps never before.
Yet the nation's overall standard of living remains high. Immigrants
both legal and illegal arrive every year by the tens of thousands,
testament to the US economy's continuing dynamism.
Less mobility in US
Overall, there is actually less economic mobility in the US than in
Canada and many European countries, notes John Morton, Managing
Director, Program Planning and Economic Policy, for the Pew Charitable
Trusts.
But for immigrants "the economic assimilation machine is in fact still
very strong," says Mr. Morton, who is helping lead a long-term Pew
project on the American dream's health.
The phrase "American dream" is relatively recent. It was popularized in
the 1930s by historian James Truslow Adams, who in his day was a widely
read author on the major themes and figures of the nation, similar to,
say, David McCullough today.
Yet the idea expressed by the phrase, that the US was a land of
opportunity where generation after generation would keep doing better
and better, has always been the "gyroscope of American life," writes
Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson in his
book "Pursuing the American Dream."
In some periods the American dream has seemed more attainable than in
others, says Mr. Jillson. Most recently, it was alive and well in the
era from the end of World War II through the early 1970s.
But since 1973, median family income has been essentially flat, says
Jillson.
"This is one of those periods in American history when to many ... the
American dream seems illusory," Jillson says.
Some polls back up this contention. In a recent CBS News survey of 17-
to 29-year-olds, only 25 percent of respondents said their generation
would be better off than their parents. Forty-eight percent said they
would be worse off.
The American dream is "obsolete," says Adam Gandelman, a Boston bike
messenger. "It's a scam."
Single-earner families see fall in pay
Income figures show that the days are gone when a single, stable income,
typically earned by the father, was enough to launch the next generation
to greater prosperity, according to a Pew report on economic mobility
released this spring.
Today, men in their 30s earn about $5,000 less in real terms than did
their fathers' generation, according to Pew.
That fits with Brockman's experience. Neither he, nor his father,
graduated from college. Nor did his grandmother, but she worked her way
up from a secretarial position to the executive ranks at GE.
"I couldn't get the job my dad had at [age] 30 without a degree, or
waiting in line for years," he says.
However, overall family income is a different story. Families with men
in their 30s today have about $4,000 more in annual income than did
their parents' generation.
"The main reason that family incomes have risen is that more women have
gone to work, buttressing the incomes of men by adding a second earner,"
notes the Pew economic mobility report.
Katy Curtis, a real estate agent in north Scottsdale, Ariz., did not
work when she was in the family-rearing stage of life. "And we survived
quite well," she says.
But her two daughters, now in that thirty-something cohort, are finding
life economically more difficult, she says.
They see new cars and plasma TVs and other accoutrements everywhere, and
they want them, too. "I think there are more demands made upon them
materialistically, and it's harder," says Ms. Curtis. "Things have gone
up in price, and I don't think salaries are commensurate with that."
Some experts point out that income measures today are an inexact gauge
of family well-being.
Cash, for example, is just one part of compensation. "Total compensation
includes such increasingly important components of workers‚ pay as
health benefits, contributions to retirement plans, and paid vacations,"
writes Heritage Foundation labor expert James Sherk in a recent analysis
of economic mobility.
And the use of the Consumer Price Index to calculate inflation-adjusted
pay is a mistake, according to Mr. Sherk. Economists should use the more
accurate implicit price deflator instead.
"The result of this mistake is that wage growth will almost always
appear to lag far behind productivity growth, even when workers are
making gains," writes Sherk.
Nor does everyone judge the American dream to be purely based on
monetary gain.
Mike Heitmann is a Kansas City resident visiting his wife's family in
Boston, his four daughters in tow. "The American dream is having a
strong family and living in a place where we have freedoms like we do in
the US," says Mr. Heitmann. "Family is the most important thing."
More to American dream than money
Wallace Sheppard will return to Iraq for his third tour there in
October. The Army serviceman, based in Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, is also
in Boston as a tourist.
"I define [the American dream] as being happy," he says. "Money doesn't
really mater if you make enough to sustain your family."
And for the masses in many other parts of the world, whether they are
huddled or not, the Statue of Liberty still stands as their dream
destination.
Joseph Nemorin today is a line cook at Nick's Italian Restaurant on
Ocean Drive in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He's been there 17 years.
He arrived in the US from Haiti when he himself was 17. Today he is a
legal permanent resident who says he has done better than his parents.
He expects his children will do better than he has, because they were
born in America.
The American dream is available for those who come to the US for the
right reason, he says. "If you come to work, you don't get in trouble
... you should be doing fine, just like me."
Faye Bowers in Phoenix, Bill Frogameni in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and
Bina Venkataraman in Boston contributed to this report.
