I got the impression that GPs point was that the American Dream is about improving ones own fate (especially when the environment is hard) rather than complaining about unemployment and wages.

I think of the American Dream as more structural: the idea that, unlike in countries with strong, hereditary class systems, anyone could succeed in the U.S. with effort, because your success was less tied to your pedigree. Imo, statistics, rather than anecdotes, are a good way of determining the extent to which that's still true.

Great. Then obviously we should make life even harder for the masses so they can achieve even more glory from overcoming the even more overwhelming odds. And if they fail, they deserve what's coming to them!

/sarcasm

We're not "well-off" by any stretch. We're happy, we're motivated, but we're all sitting on respective powderkegs of fiscal disaster. I'm uninsured--one slip in the bathroom and I'm bankrupt. We live in a house because we can split rent and utilities super cheaply and it lets us live next to where we like working.

I'll be the first one there with you waving signs about unemployment problems and falling wages--do you have any idea how annoying it can be to get livable rates in my area? Where are you from sir (or madam)?

My point was that some notion of the "American Dream" is far from dead or ailing--it's merely changed to something less materialistic.

EDIT: praptak nailed it.

This is getting rather silly. Ask any immigrant what "the American dream" is. Take an average of their responses and you'd have a reasonable approximation of the American dream. Nobody in their right minds would redefine the American dream to be 5 uninsured happy motivated apartment sharing guys one bathroom slip away from bankruptcy changing the world with their precious github commits. I lived 5 years in the texas heartland... nobody I know meets that definition. People are living paycheck to paycheck ans there is genuine concern that the American dream has passed them by.

Yes this is trading an anecdote. It is also sharing his own experience and perspective. And his hopes and dreams.

Which differ from the journalist's take. The American Dream not so much fading as changing.

Reciting the same grim statistics about unemployment and falling wages yet again is what "isn't going to get anyone anywhere." But this sort of conversation? Quite the opposite.

The OP article is mostly anecdotes, too. And the author picks the hardest hit industries when he provides statistics.