Unthinking Majority wrote:Definition of the American Dream:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/american-dream.asp
I think its still alive and well. But I think rising income inequality is making that somewhat harder, and is making things a lot harder for the middle class and regular working people and the poor.
The US is a very consumerist country, but I don't think that is necessarily the crux of the American Dream. I know people who have achieved this and they aren't materialistic. They went from poor refugees with no money to their children attending an ivy league school and having a successful career, and they worked their butts off for it.
The videos say otherwise UM.
Too many young people graduate with student loan debt. If you have student loan debt even a modest amount of say $1000 they disqualify you for approval for a mortgage. You have to rent. If you rent you are not an owner of a house. Not an owner of a house you will not see your money after paying rent only for years. You get married and you can't own your own home. You have children to support.
It snowballs UM on purpose. You have to pay child care and make too much to qualify for reduced child care costs. So a lot of married couples choose to be without children. You do not have children where are the future taxpayers and future workers paying in to the system for social security to support the older workers getting out of the workforce and retiring?
All the choices have consequences. It only serves banks that make a killing from charging usury interest rates for student loans. Many parents can't afford to pay cash for their children's college educations. Even the state schools do not cover a lot of the costs.
No. The entire system is rotten UM.
It does have some people who are immigrants making it in America. But they are vulnerable.
Like all people who work for a living and are not multi-millionaires. Most people are not multi-millionaires UM. Trying to get to that status without access to large credit amounts or investments and not understanding well how the system works? Is hard.
Many people who make shitty and low wage salaries for years are also immigrants. And they also work very hard. In fact, most people who work hard their entire lives wind up dying without any real money to show for it. I know a lot. Agricultural workers for example. They work in dairy farms, meat packing plants, picking food crops during the season. It is backbreaking work. So is office janitorial, landscaping, diner and food cooks and people working the night shift picking up trash and or doing deep sea fishing for major seafood companies. It is all hard work. Low paid.
Teachers get paid shit in most counties and cities in the USA.
They work very hard. It does not mean they will have a good middle class guaranteed life.
It does not matter if they are Black public school teachers, or White public school teachers or Latino ones either. They get paid badly.
I live in Mexico. The buses are full of people who are good and hard workers. They get paid shit month after month. I have a couple now working here because the husband wants to buy an electric fan in the heat to avoid feeling suffocated in the heat wave in his small town. He has made $8000 Mexican Pesos a month. That is the equivalent of $450 US dollars a month for working Monday through Saturday. Sundays off only.
That has to feed the family, clothe the kids and so on.
It is nothing really. He asked his boss after a whole year of being a good solid responsible employee if he could get a small raise. The man said NO.
They get desperate. They consider leaving the country to get a raise because their families are eating noodles every night.
It is not about how hard you work really sometimes. It is a big combination of life circumstances. Mexico for years only had available for most of its people a standard 8th grade public school education in most of its rural towns. No free high schools for many many years. No one got beyond middle school. Without a well educated workforce with training and a decent income? You are stuck in poverty. And so is your family. Your kids.
This drives immigration to nations that are paying their workers more. But even in the US the wages have stagnated for the US working classes. They have very little ability to socially and economically climb. It is a lot more complex than what many think it is about. Just work hard, after immigrating, learn English, assimilate, and follow the rules. The rules are not working for the people who already have lived there for generations.
Now, the immigrants are motivated people. No doubt about it. But if they have very little formal education? In a world full of technology and a need for further education to navigate it? Where are the lower skilled workers from places like Mexico?
It is very very hard. Though you work very very hard.
- By Negotiator
- By litwin