A recent Pew Research Center survey found that nearly 60% of American citizens under 50 think the American ideal is no longer alive.
More precisely, according to the survey, 57% of adults between the ages of 30 and 49 believe that the American dream—the notion that every person in the country has the potential to improve their own life—was either never achievable or was only conceivable in the past.
With 39% of young adults (30 and under) thinking the American dream is still achievable, they are even more pessimistic about the future of American life.
In contrast, the 8,709-person study found that 60% of younger Americans believe it was either never conceivable or only possible in the past.
In contrast, older persons (those in the 50–61 age range) have a much higher likelihood of believing in the American dream.
According to the study, among those American adults, 61 percent say it is still possible to realize the American ideal, 35 percent think it was once attainable, and 3 percent feel it was never possible.
The American ideal is still viewed as attainable by 68% of people 65 and older, compared to 29% who say it was never achievable and 29% who think it was once achievable.
Pew discovered that opinions on whether the American dream is still achievable differ depending on factors like political party affiliation, income, education, and race.
Higher earners are more inclined than middle-class or lower-class Americans to think that the American ideal is still attainable.
According to Pew, over 64% of Americans with higher incomes think the American dream still exists, compared to 56% of Americans with middle-class incomes and 39% of Americans with lower incomes.
In each of the four racial groups Pew noted (Black, White, Hispanic, and Asian), around half of Americans think the American ideal is still attainable.
The data indicates that approximately 5% of adult white, Hispanic, and Asian Americans say they don’t think the American ideal is achievable.
However, 11% of Black Americans hold this belief, which is almost twice as prevalent.
Adults in the United States who have completed college are more inclined to believe that there is still room for upward mobility—57 percent of them think that the American ideal is still attainable. According to a Pew study, half of Americans with less than a college degree still think that the American dream is attainable.
This difference in believing along political lines is closely mirrored in that opinion gap based on educational attainment.
According to the survey, half of persons who identify as Democrats or who lean Democratic also think that the American ideal is still feasible, compared to 56% of Republicans and Republican-leaning adults.
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