Ambar Ramirez
Words by Ambar Ramirez
Ah, the ominous success sequence: graduate from college, land a good job, get married, buy a house and have children. The outdated formula that so many once came to America chasing, an idea noticeably recognized by a suburban house encapsulated with a white picket fence. That’s right, the American Dream.
This shiny life package, once chased like a golden ticket to happiness, was the image stamped into our collective psyche: suburbia, stability and a suspiciously well-manicured lawn. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s start at the beginning.
According to Britannica, the American Dream is the belief that the U.S. is a land of opportunity, where anyone, from any background, can rise up the ladder toward freedom and equality with enough grit, elbow grease and the will to succeed. That dreamy ideal traces back to the first European settlers who fled tyranny in search of a fresh start. North America became the blank canvas, a space where freedom and self-determination could finally take center stage. The irony of how the Europeans colonized North America for that blank canvas doesn’t escape me, but we won’t get into all of that right now.
The idea of the American Dream goes back well before 1776, but the phrase didn’t appear until 1931, coined by historian and businessman James Truslow Adams in “The Epic of America.” Adams’ take on the American Dream didn’t necessarily follow the success sequence; it was centered around aspiring to be the best version of one’s self and rise above any preconceived socioeconomic hurdles. His dream wasn’t about two-car garages or Pinterest-perfect homes. Yet, somewhere along the way, the script flipped. The dream got a glossy makeover, wrapped in materialism and tied with a bow of societal expectations. Success became a checklist, not a feeling.
While the American Dream has stood the test of time and has been invoked by many American presidents and voters as a universal framework to measure success, the ideal is muddled and unclear. For some, the American Dream is measured in material wealth and possessions. To others, the dream is exactly as Adams first defined it, the race to become the best version of yourself, however you see fit. But to many, the American Dream is dead and buried beneath political schemes and a capitalist economy that never truly gave everyone an equal chance.
The American Dream: A Political Scheme
Many have argued that the American Dream is less of a dream and more of a tool. A shiny, well-worn wrench used to tighten the bolts of the status quo and push individualistic values. At its core, it’s been a motivational slogan, one echoed by politicians and quietly woven into the American psyche, nudging us to hustle harder and keep the capitalist wheels spinning. And in a way, it’s a manipulative tactic, a blanket term that doesn’t identify the very real disparities among communities and Americans. It sells the idea that if you play by society’s rules, you’ll win, regardless of where your “start” line happens to be. But that thinking props up existing power structures while quietly squashing collective action in favor of personal grind.
President Donald Trump has even nodded to the phrase, giving it a patriotic polish, describing it in his first congressional speech back in March as “surging bigger and better than ever before.”
Funnily enough, while politicians and policies use the American Dream as a rallying cry, a report from the Sine Institute of Policy & Politics found that while Gen Z and millennials remain hopeful about their futures, their political expectations are…well, bleak. In a survey of 1,568 adults aged 18 to 34, the majority were most pessimistic about their political future when defining their version of the American Dream. As NPR summed it up in “For young Americans, politics breaks the American dream instead of building it,” only about a third believe they’ll see a more functional, representative government than the one their parents got.
Sure, family, community and education still rank high as positive forces — but nearly half of those surveyed said the political system and the way we elect officials, has done more to hold them back than to help them build their dream.
Over 40% of young Americans say they don’t trust the very institutions that claim to hand out the dream. The power that created it is the same power that now makes it feel out of reach.
The American Dream: Unattainable
The American Dream was once not just a dream but a promise. A beacon. And for many immigrants, it was a lifeline. You can still picture the glossy propaganda: “Come to the land of the free!” A place where anyone, no matter their past, could work hard and build a future.
Immigrants, in many ways, became the living embodiment of the American Dream. They crossed oceans and borders not with wealth or status, but with sheer willpower and hope. For those fleeing war, poverty, or persecution — think Bosnian refugees of the 1990s or Iraqi families displaced after decades of conflict —t he dream didn’t need to come wrapped in a white picket fence. The very option of a future was enough.
And for much of the 20th century, American policies actively encouraged this vision. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, for example, prioritized skilled labor and family reunification, building on the idea that immigrants would contribute to, and benefit from, the Dream.
But while the dream may have drawn people in, it hasn’t always kept its promise. Systemic barriers, racism and shifting immigration policies have made the path to “success” much steeper for some. As I write this, protests — some being labeled as riots — are erupting across the country in response to the Trump administration’s immigration policies. The most recent wave began in Los Angeles after a series of aggressive ICE raids swept through the city, but the unrest has been simmering for quite some time.
Under Trump’s presidency, the administration revoked Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of immigrants, many of whom had lived, worked and built lives in the U.S. for decades. ICE’s authority was expanded dramatically, with sweeping crackdowns aimed at detaining and deporting millions. And then came the travel bans — policies targeting predominantly Muslim-majority and African nations, later expanded to include countries like Cuba, Laos, Venezuela and others under the pretext of national security.
In a recent 2024 ruling, the Supreme Court sided with the federal government in ending humanitarian parole protections granted under the Biden administration to over 500,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, a move that some have called the largest single action stripping legal protections from non-citizens in modern U.S. history.
These recent events prove that each day, the American Dream feels more and more like a mirage. What once brought people to America is turning them away.
But it’s not just immigrants who are realizing the American Dream is more nightmare than fantasy. Younger generations, Millennials and Gen Z especially, are waking up to the fact that the society the American Dream was built for no longer resembles the reality we’re living in.
As a refresher, what sociologists call the “success sequence” is the once widely accepted formula for achieving the Dream: graduate from college, get a good job, get married, buy a house and have children.
But success doesn’t look the same for everyone anymore. That doesn’t mean we, the younger generations, are devoid of aspirations; it just means the metrics have shifted. Let’s walk through this so-called success sequence step by step and unpack why each rung on the ladder has become harder to reach.
Step 1: Graduate from college.
A college degree used to be the golden ticket. Now? Not so much. According to a 2024 Pew Research Center survey, nearly half of Americans say a four-year degree is less important than it used to be for securing a well-paying job. The return on investment just isn’t what it once was, especially with student debt levels soaring and wages stagnating.
Step 2: Get a good job.
Even with a degree, the job market isn’t exactly rolling out the red carpet. A “New York Times” article titled “How to Land a Job in 2025—Even If Everyone Says It’s the Worst Time to Graduate” highlighted that the unemployment rate for adults ages 22 to 27 rose to 5.8% in March 2025, compared to the overall U.S. rate of 4.2% (Bureau of Labor Statistics). It’s not impossible to get hired, but it is increasingly competitive, unstable and affected by new forces like AI automation, which continues to reshape entire industries.
Step 3: Get married.
A 2023 “Wall Street Journal” headline said it best: “Gen Z on Marriage: In This Economy?” With rising living costs, student loans and economic uncertainty, many young adults are delaying or opting out of marriage and children entirely.
Step 4: Buy a house.
Buying a home was once the cornerstone of the American Dream. Today, it’s a luxury. In 1960, about 68% of Americans could afford a home; in 2024, that number has dropped to around 43%, according to data from Redfin and the National Association of Realtors. Wages haven’t kept up with housing prices, and for many, even a dual income isn’t enough to meet today’s mortgage demands.
Even if we strip away the outdated checklist and redefine the American Dream as simply becoming the best version of ourselves, we still run into systemic barriers, economic uncertainty and income disparities. There’s the lack of affordable healthcare, the looming climate crisis, increasing gun violence, attacks on reproductive rights and a minimum wage that hasn’t budged federally since 2009.
The American Dream: Redefined
According to a 2024 Pew Research Center Survey, over half of the country still believes the American Dream is possible.
For many, the dream never fully disappeared, it’s just changed a little…or a lot. In “The New York Times” article, “What Has Happened to the American Dream?” reporters interviewed people from across the country about what the Dream means to them today. The responses ranged from optimistic to pessimistic: some said they’re living the traditional version, having the house and two kids and a good job; others said it’s more about opportunity rather than guaranteed outcomes; some felt it’s more attainable now than it was four years ago, while others called it pure propaganda, a political tool and the dream never being meant for their economic class.
That same Pew survey found that 41% of Americans believe the Dream is no longer attainable, and 6% said it was never real to begin with. The truth? It’s a blurry, diffused concept. The white-picket-fence ideal was always a narrow path that fit only a select few. And the version that promised equal opportunity? Well, that might’ve always just been a dream.
Ask anyone on the street what the American Dream means to them, and you’ll probably get a different answer every time. The dream isn’t dead; it’s just changed. It’s been redefined, reshaped and personalized to fit the times. And maybe that’s the most American thing about it.
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