State Of Working America Analysis

The “American Dream” as we know it is dead. The term was first used by James Truslow Adams in his 1931 book The Epic of America where he describes it as:

“…that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth

Economic mobility is the ability of an individual, family or some other group to improve (or lower) their economic status—usually measured in income. This is often paraded by politicians as being one of the most intrinsic values of American life and that anyone can “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” through hard work, but that isn’t really possible in most cases. In The State of Working America, 12th Edition, the authors demonstrate, “…61.0 percent of families that start in the bottom ‘fifth’ are still there a decade later, while 52.2 percent of families that start in the top ‘fifth’ finish there at the end of the decade. In addition, 84.3 percent of families starting out in the bottom ‘fifth’ end up in the bottom ‘two-fifths’ a decade later” (Mishel, et al., 140). Some, however, might retort, “But this is still better than the rest of the world.” Unfortunately, this simply isn’t the case. The State of Working America cites a study from the OECD to show intergenerational elasticity (the correlation between a father’s earnings and his son’s). According to the data, America has one of the highest correlations between earnings of father and son of any developed nation (152-153, figure 3H, 3I), thus demonstrating a lack of economic mobility and an unrealistic “American

According to a 2015 report from the Centers for Disease Control, "fewer 55- to 64-year-olds reported being retired in 2012-2013 (14.6%) than a decade earlier [2002-2003] (17.0%), while the percentage not employed due to disability rose from 11.5% to 12.7%, and the percentage employed remained the same at approximately 60%." (p. 22) and it’s apparent that employers are part of the problem. According to the Forbes article “The Retirement Crisis: Why 68% Of Americans Aren't Saving In An Employer-Sponsored Plan” by Laura Shin, nearly half of employers didn’t offer their workers retirement accounts. This has led to extreme poverty for many workers near retirement age (55-64). Without a secure retirement, Americans would be forced to work until they no longer can or they’re replaced by someone younger. The ability to retire comfortably is one of the many things those living the “American Dream” would enjoy with hard work, but it seems that in some cases, even if you work hard enough, a comfortable retirement becomes nearly