IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/amposc/v64y2020i4p968-981.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Dynamic American Dream

Author

Listed:
  • Jennifer Wolak
  • David A. M. Peterson

Abstract

The American Dream is central to the national ethos, reflecting people's optimism that all who are willing to work hard can achieve a better life than their parents. Separate from the support for the idea of the American Dream itself is whether the public believes it is attainable. We consider the origins and dynamics of the public's belief in the achievability of the American Dream. Is the American Dream a symbolic vision, rooted in political socialization rather than contemporary politics? Or does optimism about the American Dream follow from the viability of the dream, rising with economic prosperity and falling with declining opportunity? We develop a new macrolevel measure of belief in the American Dream from 1973 to 2018. We show that it moves over time, responsive to changes in social mobility, income inequality, and economic perceptions. As inequality increases, belief in the attainability of the American Dream declines.

Suggested Citation

  • Jennifer Wolak & David A. M. Peterson, 2020. "The Dynamic American Dream," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(4), pages 968-981, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:64:y:2020:i:4:p:968-981
    DOI: 10.1111/ajps.12522
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12522
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ajps.12522?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Larry M. Bartels, 2016. "The New Gilded Age," Introductory Chapters, in: Unequal Democracy:The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age, Princeton University Press.
    2. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2003. "Income Inequality in the United States, 1913–1998," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 1-41.
    3. Larry M. Bartels, 2016. "Unequal Democracy:The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 2, number 10831.
    4. Clayton Webb & Suzanna Linn & Matthew J. Lebo, 2020. "Beyond the Unit Root Question: Uncertainty and Inference," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(2), pages 275-292, April.
    5. Nathan J. Kelly & Peter K. Enns, 2010. "Inequality and the Dynamics of Public Opinion: The Self‐Reinforcing Link Between Economic Inequality and Mass Preferences," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(4), pages 855-870, October.
    6. Banerjee, Anindya & Dolado, Juan J. & Galbraith, John W. & Hendry, David, 1993. "Co-integration, Error Correction, and the Econometric Analysis of Non-Stationary Data," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288107.
    7. Luke Keele, 2007. "Social Capital and the Dynamics of Trust in Government," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(2), pages 241-254, April.
    8. Webb, Clayton & Linn, Suzanna & Lebo, Matthew, 2019. "A Bounds Approach to Inference Using the Long Run Multiplier," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(3), pages 281-301, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andrés César & Guillermo Falcone & Pablo Garriga, 2022. "Robots, Exports and Top Income Inequality: Evidence for the U.S," CEDLAS, Working Papers 0307, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    2. Komlos, John & Schubert, Hermann, 2019. "Les origines du triomphe de Donald Trump," Revue de la Régulation - Capitalisme, institutions, pouvoirs, Association Recherche et Régulation, vol. 26.
    3. John Komlos, 2021. "Macroeconomic Inequality from Reagan to Trump. Market Power, Wage Repression, Asset Price Inflation, and Industrial Decline," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 97(318), pages 450-453, September.
    4. Mijs, Jonathan Jan Benjamin, 2019. "The Paradox of Inequality: Income Inequality and Belief in Meritocracy go Hand in Hand," SocArXiv dcr9b, Center for Open Science.
    5. Zamir Eyal, 2020. "Refounding Law and Economics: Behavioral Support for the Predictions of Standard Economic Analysis," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 16(2), pages 1-35, July.
    6. Florian Scheuer & Joel Slemrod, 2021. "Taxing Our Wealth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 35(1), pages 207-230, Winter.
    7. Florian Scheuer & Joel Slemrod, 2020. "Taxation and the Superrich," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 189-211, August.
    8. Manuel Hensmans, 2021. "Exploring the dark and bright sides of Internet democracy: Ethos-reversing and ethos-renewing digital transformation," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/321232, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    9. Clayton Webb & Suzanna Linn & Matthew J. Lebo, 2020. "Beyond the Unit Root Question: Uncertainty and Inference," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(2), pages 275-292, April.
    10. Aziz Z. Huq, 2022. "The Supreme Court and the Dynamics of Democratic Backsliding," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 699(1), pages 50-65, January.
    11. John Komlos, 2018. "Reaganomics: A Historical Watershed," CESifo Working Paper Series 7301, CESifo.
    12. David Strauss & Daniel Ventosa-Santaularia, 2023. "Does r-g cause wealth inequality? The case of the United States/¿La r-g causa la desigualdad de la riqueza? El caso de Estados Unidos," Estudios Económicos, El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Económicos, vol. 38(2), pages 183-224.
    13. John Komlos, 2023. "Viability of the Political System: A Neglected Issue in Public Finance," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 66(3-4), pages 59-68, July.
    14. Rodriguez, Javier M., 2018. "Health disparities, politics, and the maintenance of the status quo: A new theory of inequality," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 36-43.
    15. Nicholas Carnes & John Holbein, 2019. "Do public officials exhibit social class biases when they handle casework? Evidence from multiple correspondence experiments," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(3), pages 1-9, March.
    16. Hensmans, Manuel, 2021. "Exploring the dark and bright sides of Internet democracy: Ethos-reversing and ethos-renewing digital transformation," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    17. Komlos John, 2019. "Reaganomics: A Watershed Moment on the Road to Trumpism," The Economists' Voice, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 1-21, December.
    18. Evelyne Huber & Itay Machtei & John D. Stephens, 2023. "Testing Theories of Redistribution: Structure of Inequality, Electoral Institutions, and Partisan Politics," LIS Working papers 854, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    19. Xuanye Zeng & Zhuoying Fu & Xin Deng & Dingde Xu, 2021. "The Impact of Livelihood Risk on Farmers of Different Poverty Types: Based on the Study of Typical Areas in Sichuan Province," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-18, August.
    20. John Komlos, 2019. "Reaganomics: una línea divisoria," Tiempo y Economía, Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano, vol. 6(1), pages 47-76, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:64:y:2020:i:4:p:968-981. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1540-5907 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.