Reworking the American Dream:

1
Reworking the American Dream

• Equal Opportunity and Upward Mobility in a
  Post-Industrial Era

2
The American Dream

• Decent wages and benefits
• Job security
• Home ownership
• Middle-class lifestyle
• Sense of pride and belonging
• Upward mobility for ones children

3
Post-war social policies

• Funding and loans for higher education
• Home loans and tax benefits for mortgages
• Regulation of employment opportunities, wages,
  and benefits
• Public works projects
• Economic support for those without jobs
• Policies that protect workers rights to unionize

4
Myths of a classless society

• Equal opportunity for upward mobility
• Erasure of class consciousness and conflict
• Everyones middle class
• Sense of entitlement

5
Since the 1970sRedefining the American Dream
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Economic Globalization

• Easy movement of financial resources
• Communication becomes fast and easy
• Transportation makes it easier to move goods
• International divisions of labor
• Development of global markets increases demand
• Institutional lag

7
Geographic Shifts

• Movement of industries
• From cities to suburbs
• From northeast to south and west
• From U.S. to other countries
• Leads to weakening of the economic value of
  industrial labor
• Deindustrialization
• Undermines the urban northeast
• African-American workers especially vulnerable to
  economic struggle

8
Changes in Work

• Loss of manufacturing jobs with high pay and good
  benefits
• Growth of service and retail jobs with low pay
  and poor benefits
• Growth of part-time, contingent, and multiple
  employment
• Many people cannot find work consistent with
  their training and abilities
• Unemployment

9
Work Life vs. Home Life

• Longer hours cut into family life
• Combined hours of work for married couples has
  increased by almost 20 in the last 3 decades to
  almost 70 hours a week
• Womens second shift
• Workplace sometimes offers more satisfaction than
  home life
• Work moves into the home
• Telecommuting
• Workers always available by phone or e-mail

10
More Work, Less Pay

• US workers work one full month longer per year
  than they did 20 years ago by working more jobs
• Workers in the U.S. work more hours and are paid
  less per hour than workers in other
  industrialized nations
• Real wages are declining
• Average hourly earnings fell 9 in real terms
  since 1973 despite productivity gains

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A larger share of earnings go to pay for
benefits
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Growing Inequalities

• In 1976, the top 10 owned 50 of the wealth
  today they own 70.
• In 1978-80, the ratio of the family income of the
  top 20 to bottom 20 was 7.4. In 1998-00, it
  was 10.
• According to Business Week, in 1980 CEOs of the
  Fortune 500 companies were paid 41 times more
  than the average for workers. In 1990, they were
  paid 85 times more. In 2000, 531 times more.

13
Changing Composition of the Workforce

• More workers
• Baby boom
• Women entering the workforce
• Birth control
• Economic Need
• Feminism
• Immigration
• Changing demographics
• More educated
• Older
• baby boomers age but keep working
• Minorities women gaining access to better jobs

14
Work in the 21st CenturyWho Works

• The median age of the labor force is rising
  almost 41 by 2008
• 60 of all women are in the labor force 75 of
  all men
• 20 of married women make more their husbands
• 75 of mothers work

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Who Works Racial Composition of the Workforce
16
Education and Work
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Education and Work

• College graduates over 25 make twice as much as
  those with high school or less
• Earnings of college educated women more than
  doubled in last 20 years, but they still earn
  less than men
• The unemployment rate for men who dropped out of
  high school is four times the rate of college
  educated men
• Some jobs with above-average earnings do not
  require a college degree but most require
  substantial training

18
Future trends

• As the population ages, fewer workers will
  support more retirees
• Men are tending to stay with one employer for
  fewer years women stay longer
• Temporary help industry growing rapidly
• 13 million people work as independent
  contractors, temps, contract workers, or on-call
  workers

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New jobs, Growth industries

• High-tech computer engineers, computer support
  specialists, systems analysts, database
  operators, desktop publishing specialists,
• Health care personal care and home health care
  aides, medical assistants, social and human
  service assistants, and physician assistants

20
Competing Visions of the American Dream

• Polarization of America
• New ideas about class
• New nationalism
• Struggle over memory

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Polarization

• Income and wealth gap increasing
• New entrepreneurs raise expectations about
  success
• Getting rich, not just comfortable
• Ever-increasing expectations of consumption

22
Polarization

• Average Americans are working more and earning
  less
• Job security is no longer expected
• Wages and benefits decreasing

23
Social supports have disappeared

• Reduced funding for education
• Privatization of social supports
• Education
• Health insurance
• Pensions
• Welfare reform
• Government policies geared to supporting global
  corporations rather than people

24
Class becomes more fluid

• New ways of talking about social groups
• Dot com millionaires
• Soccer moms
• Working families
• Working poor
• Underclass

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New nationalism

• Loss of entitlements
• Economic opportunities
• Sense of invulnerability
• Safety personal freedom
• Innocence of imperialism
• Politics of resentment
• Blaming others for economic losses
• Workers in other countries
• Global corporations
• Resistance to globalization

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Struggle over memory

• Nostalgia for better times
• Ideals about American exceptionalism
• Ignores the limitations of the American dream
• Expectations of a better future
• Every generation should move up
• Standard of living should keep improving

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Is there a future for the American dream?

• Dont stop thinking about tomorrow