Is This the End of the American Dream?

The Financial Times published an extensive article in which the so-called American dream, the possibility of starting out with nothing and reaching financial fulfillment in the U.S., was referred to as “America’s Fitful Reverie.”

The newspaper’s portrayal of the American middle class — one that provided the country with the deepest beliefs in its potential — is devastating. Instead of saving for a comfortable retirement and providing for their children, American families are struggling to pay the bills at the end of the month.

“If we lost our jobs, we would have about three weeks of savings to draw on before we hit the bone,” says Mark Freeman, a quote the newspaper provides as an example of the current situation. “We work day and night and try to save for our retirement. But we are never more than a paycheck or two from the streets.”

Mark and Connie Freeman earn decent salaries. They bring in $70,000 a year, a joint gross income that is more than a third higher than the median U.S. household. But this doesn’t help their situation and that of millions of other couples in the country. The image of the vibrant, carefree middle class portrayed in American TV shows “might approximate how some in the top 10 percent of the population live. The rest live like the Freemans. Or worse,” writes the newspaper.

It states that the average income of the majority of Americans has risen by only 10 percent over the past 37 years. Over the same period, the incomes of the richest top 1 percent in the country have tripled. Chief executives were on average paid 26 times the median income. Now the multiple is above 300.

With a middle class stripped of economic mobility, it is hard to imagine that the U.S. will be able to come out of stagnation anytime soon. Michael Spence, the recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, thinks that this scenario has brought America into a deep identity crisis: “To be pessimistic about the future is so new for Americans,” says Spence.