The “American Dream” was coined in the depths of the Depression by James Truslow Adams, an author who defined it as the chance of “a better, richer and happier life for all our citizens of every rank”.
But nearly half of people in the United States today do not believe the Dream applies to all Americans, a survey has found.
Before the US turns 250 in July, The Times asked YouGov to explore citizens’ attitudes to the idea that success is available to anyone who works hard and plays by the rules. Although 61 per cent of respondents said they believed in the concept, only 38 per cent thought it existed for everyone:
…while 59 per cent deemed it less attainable “for Americans overall” than it was when they were growing up:
Aspiration has been written into America’s DNA since the Declaration of Independence pledged a commitment to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.
Yet in YouGov’s interviews with a representative sample of 1,821 American adults this year, only 38 per cent rated today’s quality of life as “excellent” or “good”, significantly fewer than the 60 per cent who said the same about 1976, the year of the bicentennial.
The sense that the Dream is dying was reflected throughout the poll. Almost half of respondents believed that children today would be worse off when they grew up than their parents were now. Only 17 per cent said the next generation would be better off.
And while Americans are famous for their optimism, 51 per cent of all ages said society was less fair than when they were growing up. Only 45 per cent believed they would achieve the American Dream if they “work hard and play by the rules”.
How to explain this unease in what many see as the world’s only superpower, the “land of opportunity” and a global engine of entrepreneurship and innovation?
Eight in ten Americans ‘stagnating’
Mark Rank, who has made studying the Dream his life’s work, said The Times-YouGov results marked a “quite shocking” break from past polls. Historically, he said, surveys found that two thirds of Americans said they had either achieved the Dream or were confident they would, and the same proportion predicted their children would do better.
“What’s happened is that the economic gains over the last 50 years have almost all been concentrated in the top 20 per cent of the population — the rest of the population has really stagnated,” said Rank, a professor of social welfare at Washington University in St Louis and author of Chasing the American Dream.
“Wages for full-time male workers have completely flatlined,” he added. “They’re making no more today than they were in 1973, once you control for inflation. At the same time certain things like healthcare, childcare and education costs have dramatically increased over the last 20 years or so. So people feel like, ‘I’m working but I’m not getting ahead’.”
The poll revealed significant differences in opinion depending on political affiliation:
…and gender:
Louis Warren, a distinguished professor of western history at the University of California, Davis, said: “My sense is that the discussions around the American Dream have been darkening for quite some time. The economic mood is dark and the American Dream is so associated with economics that it doesn’t surprise me one bit. There are a lot of people having a very hard time.”
‘Living paycheque to paycheque’
Traci Parker, an associate professor in African-American history at the same university, noted the sense that life in the US was much better 50 years ago. “There was this promise after the Second World War with the GI Bill and a thriving economy that gave you the opportunity to become a homeowner,” she said.
“There were more white-collar jobs and more people moving out to the suburbs … among African-Americans you saw the growth of black middle-class homeowners.
“There was this belief that if you worked hard enough, you wouldn’t have to live paycheque to paycheque. I think that idea has gone away completely.”
The survey also revealed significant personal economic anxiety. Overall 73 per cent said they were worried about saving money, 61 per cent about paying bills and 59 per cent about medical costs.
Sixty per cent of Americans who had debt said they were “somewhat concerned” about it, including three in ten who were “very concerned”.
Recession fears loomed large:
Almost half of respondents to the poll, which was conducted in January, thought a stock market crash would happen this year.
Financial pressures appeared to be affecting retirement plans. While 41 per cent of workers and students said they wanted to retire by 65, only 29 per cent expected to.
‘To become a multimillionaire, America is your place’
Despite all these concerns, only 21 per cent said they would be better off financially if they lived outside America. Republicans were far more likely than Democrats to say they would be worse off, at 46 per cent against 16 per cent.
Moreover, 55 per cent thought that, compared with other countries, the US was above average in giving its citizens the chance of a better life. Only 19 per cent thought the opposite.
Steven Greene, professor of political science at North Carolina State University, teaches the benefits of life in other western countries to his students. “I have a slide in one of my classes that says, for the average person, the American Dream is alive and well in Denmark — it has better social mobility by most indices,” he said.
Still, he added, America presented advantages and opportunities not found anywhere else in the world. “If you just want to be healthy, there’s a lot of other countries that you’d rather be in. But if you need a heart and lung transplant, if you need the latest cutting edge cancer T-cell therapy, you want to be in America,” he said.
“For your typical American, the likelihood that you will substantially increase your standing relative to where you were born is lower than it used to be. But if you’re going to go out and found a company and become a multimillionaire, I think America is your place.”
Greene said he believed the Dream retained a powerful allure, even if it was suffering from a bout of pessimism. America gave people a unique “ability to succeed on a massive level, especially through hard work and entrepreneurship”, he said. “The most ambitious, motivated entrepreneurial people from around the world still come to America for that reason.”
A looming lesson for the midterm elections
Americans are divided about the type of political movement that could offer the best chance of the Dream for all:
Warren said Americans’ political beliefs were “always conflicted, and in a democratic society, I don’t know how it could be any other way. If we all believe the same thing at the exact same time, that might be more a sign of trouble than of anything positive. It might be a sign of a lack of discussion and debate, which is what democracies are about.”
Warren suggested that the Times survey could serve as a wake-up call for politicians in the midterm elections this November. “When people answer the question, ‘Is the American Dream healthier? Is it happening for me?’ and they say, ‘no’, what they’re hoping, I suspect, is that maybe someone will pay attention to that.”
He added that Adams, the Depression-era author, defined the Dream as more than simply the acquisition of material goods. A breakdown of the poll mostly concurs:
“It’s the ability to rise to the level of one’s talents,” Warren added. “It’s [Adams’s] vision of a meritocracy. Despairing of the American Dream has often been a way of commenting on the need for the kinds of reforms and changes that would re-energise the sense of possibility and hope. Clearly, a lot of people are unhappy with how things are going.”
Methodology: YouGov interviewed 1,821 US adults between January 23 and January 26, 2026 for The Times. This sample was weighted according to gender, age, race and education based on the US Census American Community Survey, and the US Census Current Population Survey, as well as 2024 presidential vote, 2020 presidential vote and 2024 baseline partisan identification.
Respondents were selected to be representative of US adults. The weights range from 0.1 to 5.0, with a mean of 1 and a standard deviation of 0.6. The margin of error for a percentage based upon the entire sample is ±2.7 points. The margin of error is larger for subsamples and differences of percentages.