It's a bit lower but it's not a huge change. The promise of the "American Dream" was fair opportunity for success, and social mobility through hard work -- on a meritocratic basis. Not fabulous wealth or anything like that... just fair pay for a job done, and the ability to make a comfortable living from that. It doesn't seem like a lot to us these days but it's still a "dream" to a lot of people outside the US, and I can definitely see how it was a dream to immigrants ~100 years ago.

Reminds me of the piano player at Nordstrom's who worked 27 years and put his kids through college. Not something most of us would want to do, but definitely the American Dream by a lot of definitions.

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/01/27/2452005/nordstrom-p...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream

Good answer. Thanks. But it still seems to me that this can't be the American dream. It is satisfied so well by so many other countries with healthcare and good employee protections.

The American dream must surely be an exceptional one, to justify some exceptional hardships?

The American Dream is connected to our frontier culture, so it's a few hundred years old. I think even a century ago, places like Europe has prosperity but still very strong class systems (some might argue they still do.) The promise of America was freedom, that hard work would mean prosperity (not riches, but prosperity), and that your kids could do better than you did. We take all this for granted but I think in some ways we now struggle to still offer this; in particular, it's not clear that the new generation today will have to opportunities that the last one did.

That's always been the old one apparently. And she thinks it's more of a promise, although tbh it sounds a bit like a warning.

Meanwhile in europe they eat chocolate for breakfast and sleep in the afternoon.

As an a startup engineer with 3 kids, its more like:

"Want a family in addition to work demands? Get ready to work as hard as you possibly can."

The American Dream is freedom. The concept goes back to the 1770s and originally had nothing to do with cars or houses in the suburbs. Freedom from old relationships and inherited ruling classes and entrenched, market-capturing oligarchies.

Corporate employment is not the American Dream. It's a sign that the "Dream" is over.

Part of that freedom (a very important part, for immigrants) was freedom from oppressing poverty and a class system that kept you in poverty.

I like your version of the American dream. :)

It's not mine, but the guys I stole it from for this post died 200 years ago and weren't major fans of long-lived copyright.

The good news is that 95% of historical progress comes from the most talented people (the "cognitive 1%", that Jefferson called the "natural aristocrats") overthrowing the entrenched elite. This time around, that's us. We are the ones who'll come up with what replaces VC-istan.

VC-istan isn't that terrible. Neither was George III. (No, I'm not suggesting we use violence as was done in 1775-83. Electoral systems and markets are designed to allow nonviolent overthrow. I'm suggesting we outperform them on the market regarding the use of talent.)

The bad news is that when the rising elite wins, they have an onerous tendency to become hypocritical (see: American slavery from 1776-1865, company towns and Pinkertons from 1866-1939, the failure of Fordist paternalism beginning in the late '70s, and the failure of VC-istan to provide something better than regular old Corporate America circa now). We need to agree not to do that. Historical cycles run faster now and if whatever we build sucks as much as what we replace, then we'll see it torn down within our lifetimes.

It's also not the "American Dream" anymore because whatever we are is trans-national.

Sounds more like an American Nightmare. Geesh.