Only 36% of US voters believe American dream is still possible: poll

Just a little more than a third of US voters believe the American dream, which holds that those who work hard can get ahead regardless of background, is still possible, according to a new poll.

A Wall Street Journal/NORC survey from October found 36% of voters said the American dream “still holds true,” 45% said it was “once true but not now,” and 18% said it “never held true.”

Half of American voters also believe life is worse in the US than it was a half century ago, while 30% disagreed and said it had improved over that time period, the poll shows.

Similarly, half of respondents agreed with the statement that America’s economic and political system is “stacked against people like me,” compared with 39% who disagreed with that statement.

The sentiment cuts across partisan lines, with both Democrats and Republicans mentioning life being “objectively worse” and the American dream being “past tense,” according to voters who spoke with the Journal.

“We have a nice house in the suburbs, and we have a two-car garage,” Oakley Graham, a 30-year-old, stay-at-home father from Greenwood, Mo., who voted for President Biden, told the outlet. “But I’d be lying if I didn’t say that money was tight.”

“[N]o matter how good it looks on the outside, I feel we are all a couple of paychecks away from being on the street,” he added, blaming in part the decline of strong US labor unions.

Meanwhile, John Lasher, a 78-year-old retired electrical inspector for aircraft carriers and submarines and supporter of former President Donald Trump from nearby Springfield, Mo., blamed Biden and his administration for rising inflation when speaking with the Journal.

“With inflation, you’re working hard just to make ends meet, and then any extra work that you put in is just trying to get so you’re not in the hole,” he said, also mentioning that in the past “if you showed up for work and you did your job well and you tried to help out, you were rewarded.” 

Diana Walker, a 62-year-old African American from a suburb of Atlanta, also told the outlet that her kids “have not been rewarded,” and circumstances were “better” for her growing up.

“I’m African-American, and the odds are always against black people,” she added.

Unemployment rates for black Americans hit a record low 5% in April.

The survey revealed 68% of black American voters said that economic and political forces were “stacked against” them. About half of Hispanic and white voters said the same.

Responses to the poll were more divided along gender lines, with 28% of women voters and 46% of male voters saying the American dream is still alive.

An age difference also shows up, with 48% of voters over the age of 65 believing in the potential to advance through hard work, while 28% of voters under the age of 50 agreed.

Past surveys found 48% of voters believed in the American dream in 2016 — and 53% did in 2012.

But put a slightly different way, a 2022 Journal poll found 68% of registered US voters agreed when asked whether those who work hard in America were likely to get ahead.

Inflation outpaced increases in workers’ wages in both 2021 and 2022, but could reverse course by the end of this year. Mortgage rates have also hit their highest levels since 2000.

However, the percentage of US voters who currently rate the economy as “excellent” or “good” has doubled since last May, the poll found, as those who rated it “not so good” or “poor” fell from 83% to 65% over the same period.

The Journal-NORC poll, which was conducted from Oct. 19-24, surveyed 1,163 registered voters, with a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4 percentage points.