Majority Of Jobless Still Say American Dream Within Reach: Report

Despite the economic hardship that the Great Recession has caused millions of Americans, belief in the American Dream is still alive and well, even for those who suffered the most.

The majority of unemployed Americans still believe that they have achieved or will achieve the American Dream, a recent poll from Pew Charitable Trust's Economic Mobility Project finds. Forty-one percent of jobless Americans say the American Dream is in their future, while 15 percent say they've already achieved it. Perhaps not surprisingly, Americans with jobs have an even stronger belief that the dream will become reality.

Still, respondents to the poll weren't without their fair share of doubt. Ninety percent of the unemployed categorized their situation as poor to fair, while over half say they aren't confident in their ability to earn enough money to support the lives they want.

But it doesn't take being unemployed to be doubtful about the future. Even investors say the American Dream is now harder to achieve than it was in the past. Nearly 85 percent of investors with a net worth of $100,000 or more say that achieving the American Dream will be harder in the years to come, according to a poll by consulting firm Spectrem Group.

Still, the nature of the American Dream may have changed drastically since the collapse of the housing market. At one time, homeownership seemed to embody the American dream itself, but for many it's now increasingly out of reach. In the last quarter of 2011, the homeownership rate dropped to 66 percent, its lowest level in more than a decade, according to 24/7 Wall St.

See below to for the perceived status of the American dream today:

Comments

[jim gomes]

06:18 AM on 03/23/2013

Good article. For working hard all your life, you deserve to have only all the best that your retirement years can offer. There are many people however who have no idea how to secure their retirement years.

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[Ruby red shoes]

05:17 PM on 04/30/2012

American dream? hmmm..Ever notice how dreams can morph into nightmares?

[gerald4]

01:03 PM on 03/23/2012

I think that the unemployed should blame me and all of the other US citizens for electing both Republican and Democrat US Presidents, US Congressmen, and US Senators that created and ratified all of these "FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS" during the past 20 years that legally allowed and ECONOMICALLY REQUIRED that almost all non-government manufacturing and customer service jobs in the USA be moved to foreign nations by removing the import tariffs that protected the USA jobs, the pay scales, and the benefits of the US worker and required that businesses take advantage of the lower cost labor, lower electricity and lower EPA manufacturing regulation compliance costs available in foreign nations!

Maybe President Obama will ask Congress and the Senate to repeal all of his newly created FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS (treaties) because they will continue to cause the relocation of many more existing US jobs to foreign nations?

President Obama’s newly created FTAs will probably have the same results of "sucking our US jobs to Mexico" as when President Clinton signed NAFTA into law except that these US jobs will go to other nations this time. NAFTA was the first of many subsequent treaties created by many subsequent "FREE TRADE" legislation actions!

The US Businesses are just following the economic requirements of the FTAs when they outsource US jobs to foreign nations.

[gerald4]

06:10 PM on 03/22/2012

Federal, state, county, municipal, school district and other various government taxing authorities CONSUME (or destroy) a the NATIONAL WEALTH that was CREATED BY THE PRIVATE SECTOR BUSINESSES when they spend taxes on activities such as government contracts, government bureaucratic payrolls, wealth re-distribution, and other wealth consuming government activities.

A bureaucrat is an employee of any organization that is being paid by a tax supported government institution by being on the bureaucratic payroll or a government contract paid for with tax collected from the wealth producers.

A person who is riding in the wagon while the others (wealth producers) are pushing the wagon is a bureaucrat.

The US government cannot continue to exist by borrowing money that is raised by mortgaging (selling freshly printed paper US Treasury Bonds that can be redeemed for title to) our privately owned NATIONAL WEALTH that includes businesses, factories, casinos, hotels, farms, land, ports, refineries, forests, ports, breweries, distilleries, and other privately owned wealth and assets located in the USA that were created by previous US generations prior to de-industrialization in order to pay these foreigners to manufacture our imported products that we consume and also to pay for growing US government expenses that are in excess of our federal tax collections.

The US government must reduce its expenses by reducing the number and the costs of government employees, government contracts, government benefits, government grants, and interest paid on the NATIONAL DEBT, for those citizens not on government payrolls to obtain the American Dream.

[gerald4]

05:54 PM on 03/22/2012

US citizens have elected the Republican and Democratic presidents, congressmen and senators who created the "FREE TRADE AGREEMENT" laws that generally did not exist 20 years ago when the USA was a successful industrial giant.

Both of these major political parties are in favor of more free trade legislation, which will destroy more US industries and their associated industrial employment opportunities (JOBS) for the average US working person.

I believe that it might be easier to take over another party compared to creating a new party as Ross Perot did in 1992.

I just then “googled” up the Prohibition Party's website http://www.prohibitionparty.org/platform.html, and they apparently do not have a party platform adopted since 2008 which was about the last time that they up-dated their website.

That platform stood for balanced budgets, and other generally conservative fiscal spending restraints in 2008.

Their website says that a new party platform will be available soon.

Maybe myself and the unemployed should contact them and suggest that they adopt a position favoring the re-industrialization to create US jobs as an issue for the next US presidential election.

They might require that I give up my consumption of alcoholic beverages in order to join the Prohibition Party, but I will if they will promote the re-industrialization of the USA to end the mass unemployment and under employment that the US government created in the past few decades.

[gerald4]

06:57 PM on 03/22/2012

I would consider joining the Green Party, except that they want an even cleaner environment which means closing down more and more US industries and then exporting more of the few remaining US industries and jobs to overseas countries where the environmental costs and the labor costs are less expensive.

We must somehow repeal existing free trade legislation (and environmental laws) in order to re-industrialize and reverse the balance of trade if we desire to somehow employ US citizens instead of foreigners to manufacture the things that we consume.

The alternative is ti continue on the present economic course and let the US economy to evolve into something resembling the economy of Somalia!

[ECJIM 3ABTPA BONHA]

05:36 PM on 03/22/2012

What did George Carlin say? You have to be asleep to believe it? I too like the cool-aid....cause there's nothing else to drink.

[gerald4]

06:25 PM on 03/22/2012

Do not sit at the front when George Carlin is performing!

[ECJIM 3ABTPA BONHA]

07:36 PM on 03/22/2012

Why wouldn't you want to sit in the front row, other then neck cramps from looking up? He was a funny yet slightly twisted man. But always had a point to get across with his skits.

[stephan67]

05:26 PM on 03/22/2012

Romney and his rich pals want to create ''The American nightmare''. This means super-profits for the 1%ers, and poverty for the rest.

[gerald4]

05:57 PM on 03/22/2012

Maybe all US citizens should get rich by "slicing and dicing" and "pumping and dumping" US businesses.

This worked for Romney!

Why create anything when you can just sell your body parts?

[beenzrgud]

04:07 PM on 03/22/2012

The typical American is forever the optimist. It's a likable trait, but it's unlikely to endure.

[Terri Skau]

12:55 PM on 03/22/2012

LOL...The American Dream...it's gone....;-)

[gerald4]

12:11 PM on 03/22/2012

Employment is the first requirement for obtaining the "American Dream"!

US manufacturing businesses must take advantage of all of the US FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS that were created by US presidents, ratified by the Democratic and Republican members of the US Congress in the last 20 tears, and then signed into law by US presidents that ECONOMICALLY REQUIRES US Businesses to offshore US jobs and/or import foreign made products (including parts and sub assemblies for assembly in the USA) in order to meet the US CONSUMER'S DEMAND for the absolutely LOWEST POSSIBLE PRICE for each product, without the US manufacturing business going bankrupt by using US labor and US environmental manufacturing costs.

How can anybody even think that any of the US manufacturing businesses could ever possibly even consider re-creating any jobs in the USA if they are hamstrung with more expensive labor costs, more expensive electrical energy that is required to be generated in compliance with the EPA, health care payroll tax costs, unemployment payroll tax costs, social security and medical care payroll tax costs, environmental manufacturing costs, fringe (holiday and vacation) benefit payroll costs, OSHA compliance payroll costs, union labor work rules, anti-business laws, and general anti-business attitudes that make manufacturing products in the USA many many times more costly than manufacturing the same product in almost any other foreign country?

[gymgorilla]

12:08 PM on 03/22/2012

Wow, what was the age group representing the unemployed in this poll? I would bet, below the age of 40. LOL

[keithmc6]

12:40 PM on 03/22/2012

Amen to that gorilla. Those of us over 40 that had the rug pulled out from under us... The people that this country and this economy are doing everything it can to render useless... We know better. All you've got to do is look at the numbers. It all adds up to one thing- We're screwed. American Dream? These days? What does THAT mean? Bust your tail to TRY to get a $10 an hour job, lose your home, everything you have, and fight like Hell to survive. Yeah, whatta dream!

[gymgorilla]

04:20 PM on 03/22/2012

Thank you for your truthful response. Your post definitely describes the feelings of most, if not all, people that are over 40 and currently unemployed. I feel these types of articles do absolutely zero justice for the unemployed except to insult their intelligence. We still have millions of unemployed people looking for a job and I have yet to see any reports showing factual numbers on the unemployed being hired. All this hype about job creation and getting unemployed Americans back to work, who's really benefiting from these feel good phrases?

[Jesse Becker]

05:06 PM on 03/22/2012

A nightmare is still considered a dream

[Tom Hendricks]

11:23 AM on 03/22/2012

The American Dream is really just a day away, a National Hiring Day away.

There is a solution to the jobs problem and it could quickly put hundreds of thousands of people back to work. It is not pro left or right. It is not from any corporatio­n, it's outside the government control, it's totally voluntary, works in about one week, and helps all with little sacrifice from anyone.

National Hiring Day - This is a day that corporatio­ns are encouraged to hire new employees. Corporatio­ns are called on to put patriotism first and help their country in
hard times. Those corporatio­ns that cannot hire, are asked to stop firing for that month.
http://wp.­me/p5S9X-n­v

Republicans should love this because it's outside the government and voluntary. Democrats should love this because it helps those needing jobs. Independents should love it because it helps all with little sacrifice from any one corporation, group, or person. Corporations should love this because with just a hire or two they become part of a collective country wide jump start of the economy.

[gerald4]

06:27 PM on 03/22/2012

LOL

[giant robot9]

10:54 AM on 03/22/2012

we are all commodities like cattle, red slime = pig slop being fed to our kids = schools are now stockyards. bad health is profitable= treatment / not cure is more lucrative =obesity creates more health problems than fitness programs= more health expenses less saving= less security = less threat to the system= cattle in the stockyard

[reader1]

10:41 AM on 03/22/2012

That dream was an illusion in the first, and last place. Who are these people that they spoke to any way? Was it on the condition of secrecy? The dream is an expensive nightmare, steer clear, Wallstreet is looking for the eventual end of the 99%.

[reader1]

10:38 AM on 03/22/2012

No Muppets signed Goldman Stacks!