Analysis Of The American Dream: Dead And Gone

Great Essays
V. T. Grace N. Maniu
Aylen Rounds
English 101
August 12th, 2015
Dead and Gone: The American Dream
What is a dream? Is a dream something that can’t be attained? Will a dream always be just an idea? The “American Dream” is often seen as a pathway to large homes, expensive cars and lots of money, however, the “American Dream” for Americans has always been defined as an ideal that every United States citizen or resident should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and through taking initiative. Citizens of today however, believe the American Dream is dead and is impossible achieve because of the factors that stand in the way of their opportunity to rise and create that dream. Is the dream
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Although it did officially end, many are still under the impression that the United States economy has yet to return to its pre-recession state. According to the article “Why half of U.S. adults no longer believe in the American dream” by Simone Pathe, almost half of American born citizens who at one point believed that the American Dream was “if you work hard you’ll get ahead” now think that’s not the case. The post-Recession still has an effect on Americans; economic insecurity has led 72% of Americans to think that the economy is still in a recession. Consumer confidence has been greatly affected and, in turn, impacted the overall GDP of America. A GDP is defined as Gross domestic product and is the market value of all officially recognized final goods and services produced within a country in a year, or other given period of time. The GDP per capita is frequently thought to be an indicator of a country 's standard of living, and the decline in recent years lead Americans to think that the economic security that they once had is completely lost. Even before the Great Recession hit, massive shifts like paying extreme amounts of tax has eliminated a lot of middle-class jobs and has been replaced with low-wage jobs, therefore …show more content…
In the Article “The Immigrant Advantage” by New York Times columnist, Anand Giridharadas, Giridharadas states that Immigrants make more money than born citizens and they are more likely to define the American Dream as the pursuit of opportunity, having the ability to get a good job, and possibly having an opportunity to own a home. Immigrants make an average $1.00 for every 84 cents of native born Americans in the U.S. “Many are trained in their homelands to behave as though the state will do nothing for them, and in America they reap the advantages of being self-starters.” Because of this they have remained more positive and hopeful about their potential to achieve the dream in a forging land whereas, United States born citizens have increasingly viewed the dream as becoming harder to reach. Immigrants having a higher pay rate, a 24% lower divorce rate and, a 36% less likeability to live in poverty leads them to be able to have a better “American Dream” in the eyes of Americans. They see that if you

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