All Americans are born equal, and with hard work and perseverance, each one of us has a shot at living better, fuller, and richer lives. That’s how the story of the American Dream goes, anyway. And as parents, it’s what we tell our kids: You can be anything that you want if you apply yourself.
But a distressing new study from the Brookings Institute shows just how far off the American Dream is from the American reality. In this clever video by economist Richard Reeves, who authored the report, Reeves uses LEGO figures to illustrate how people in the top 20% of our economy hold more than 50% of the overall wealth in our country, while people in the bottom 20% only have 5%.
To put that into paycheck terms, families in the lowest economic bracket survive on about $18,000 per year. Families in the highest make over $100,000.
Those are grim numbers, but what’s truly distressing is how hard it is to move up in America. Let’s say you’re born in the bottom 20%. On average, you have a one in ten chance of rising to the top tier, but it’s most likely that you’ll remain in the bottom your entire life. Your chances improve if you’re white, and/or have married parents, and/or go to college, but they get significantly worse if you’re either an African American, a high school dropout, or a child of unmarried parents.
The depressing bottom line is: the majority of Americans will reach the age of forty in the same economic bracket they were born into, no matter how smart they are, or how diligently they work.
Why is this? Just like poor kids tend to stay poor, rich kids tend to stay rich, even if they drop out of high school. Wealthy parents hoard opportunities for their children: they can afford to nab spots in good schools even if their child doesn’t merit them, they have connections in business that ensure their kids will do well as adults, and of course they leave behind valuable assets when they die. The rich can afford to invest heavily in their kids from birth, spending more time with their babies, and sending their children to programs that give them an educational leg up that poor kids don’t have.
What can we do to ensure that all of the children in this country have a fair shot at succeeding? The answers are not likely to be politically popular. As I’ve written before, instituting federal family leave policies is one thing, so that all American children can receive bonding time with their parents at the earliest stages of their life. And a universal Pre-K program, if done right, would provide exposure to literacy and mathematics for all.
As Reeves wrote in The New York Times, the President has proposed giving colleges bonuses for accepting kids who are eligible for Pell Grants, as an incentive for schools to accept more kids who aren’t in the top economic bracket. Colleges themselves could stop privileging alumni applicants. (Your chances of getting into Harvard are about five times better if you’re the child of an alum!) I would add that we should also address the crippling cost of a college education, which continues to rise, making even state schools a burden for many Americans.
The bottom line is, we as a country need to institute some changes, otherwise the stories we tell our children about their ability to succeed in America will be about as fanciful as tales about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. This is something to keep in mind with midterm elections on the horizon. Don’t just think about the policies that are going to benefit you today, think about the ones that will be better for your children, and for all children across America, in the long run.
Image courtesy of ThinkStock