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American Dream

Sunday 7th of December 2025

1%ers What is especially striking about the current period in the United States is that more and more people in the top 1 percent are rich both  in terms of the ownership of capital and through their earnings from high-salaried jobs. Consider it another version of American exceptionalism. Nevertheless, the overall implication remains the same: individuals generally become rich not through a lifetime of hard work — as suggested by the American dream — but through how much capital they inherit. Jennifer Welsh, The Return of History  [2016] © 2021 Kwiple.com
American Dream Moving to the suburbs © 2018 Kwiple.com
American Dream Affording all the tattoos I want © 2018 Kwiple.com
American Dream Buying all the limited-edition sneakers I want © 2018 Kwiple.com
American Dream Dying at home © 2018 Kwiple.com
American Dream Good drugs © 2018 Kwiple.com
American Dream Government assistance is said to undermine the American dream. Wait. Undermine whose American dream? Nancy Isenberg, White Trash © 2016 Kwiple.com
American Dream A high Uber rating © 2018 Kwiple.com
American Dream  Hoping my kids have a better life than me © 2018 Kwiple.com
American Dream  Hoping my kids will understand © 2018 Kwiple.com
American Dream I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans. Donald Trump © 2016 Kwiple.com
American Dream If Americans want to live the American Dream, they should go to Denmark adage © 2017 Kwiple.com
American Dream Income beating inflation © 2018 Kwiple.com
American Dream It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position. James Truslow Adams, The Epic of America  © 2016 Kwiple.com
American Dream It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it. George Carlin © 2016 Kwiple.com
American Dream Moving to the city © 2018 Kwiple.com
American Dream Moving to the suburbs © 2018 Kwiple.com
American Dream Not being a burden on the children © 2018 Kwiple.com
American Dream Not living paycheck to paycheck © 2018 Kwiple.com
American Dream Retiring © 2018 Kwiple.com
American Dream Retiring with enough money to live on © 2018 Kwiple.com
American Dream Sadly, the American Dream is dead. But if I get elected president, I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before, and we will make America great again. Donald Trump © 2016 Kwiple.com
American Dream Slowing down change © 2018 Kwiple.com
American Dream Taking a paid vacation © 2018 Kwiple.com
American Dream  Telling them to take this job and shove it © 2018 Kwiple.com
American Dream What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore — And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over — like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode? “Harlem [2]” by Langston Hughes © 2017 Kwiple.com
American Dream Winning the lottery © 2018 Kwiple.com
By the numbers In 1970, 92% of American 30-year-olds earned more than their parents did at a similar age … In 2014, that number fell to 51%. — When looking only at males nationally, the decline is even starker. As of 2014, only 41% of 30-year-old men earned more tnan their fathers at a similar age. — If income distribution remains as tilted toward the wealthy as it is now, it would take sustained growth of more than 6% a year, adjusted for inflation, to return to an era where nearly all children outearned their parents. Wall Street Journal, December 9, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Dead-in-the-heads say There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder for less. But they too had a dream that one day their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, great- grandsons, great-granddaughters might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land. Ben Carson, who thinks slaves were immigrants who came here searching for the American Dream © 2016 Kwiple.com
Selfie What I have said to people is that I've lived the American Dream, because I have. Carly Fiorina © 2015 Kwiple.com
Socio-economic mobility Today it is rarer for a poor American to become rich than a poor Briton, which means the American Dream is less likely to be realised in America. The meritocratic society has given way to a hereditary meritocracy. Edward Luce, The Retreat of Liberal Liberalism  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Snapshot In Trump,  the age of unreason has at last found its hero. The “self-made man” is always the idol of those who aren’t quite making it.  He is the sacred embodiment of the American dream, the guy who answers to nobody, the poor man's idea of a rich man. It's the educated phonies this group can't stand. With his utter lack of policy knowledge and belligerent commitment to maintaining his ignorance, Trump is the perfect represen- tative for a population whose idea of good  governance is just to scramble the eggheads. When reason becomes the enemy of the common man, the common man becomes the enemy of reason. Donald Trump portrayed by Matthew Stewart © 2020 Kwiple.com
Socio-economic mobility [M]ost of the decline in absolute mobility is driven by the more unequal distribution of economic growth in recent decades, rather than by the slowdown in GDP growth rates. In this sense, the rise in inequality and the  decline in absolute mobility are closely linked.  Growth is an important driver of absolute mobility,  but high levels of absolute mobility require broad- based growth across the income distribution. With the current distribution of income, higher  GDP growth rates alone are insufficient to restore absolute mobility to the levels experienced by children in the 1940s and 1950s. If one wants to revive the “American dream” of high rates of absolute mobility, then one must have an interest in growth that is spread more broadly across the income distribution. Raj Chetty et. al., Science, April 24, 2017 © 2024 Kwiple.com
State of the union So let me repeat: The combined trends of increased inequality and decreasing mobility pose a fundamental threat to the American dream, our way of life, and what we stand for around the globe. And it is not simply a moral claim I'm making here. There are practical consequences to rising inequality and reduced mobility. Barack Obama, 2013 © 2019 Kwiple.com
 
Trumpists say This is the fucking American Dream she is shitting on. Leon Cooperman, billionaire convicted of insider trading, responding to Elizabeth Warren's proposed two/three cent wealth tax on every dollar over $50 million/$1 billion in wealth © 2021 Kwiple.com