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Emma Erickson

Mrs. Kitamura

English 1010

4 November 2022

The American Dream: A Literature Review

In recent discussions of the American Dream or upward mobility, a controversial issue

has been whether or not the American Dream is in decline or reasonably attainable today. On the

one hand, some argue that barriers stand in the way of anyone ever attaining the level of upward

mobility required to achieve enough success to achieve the American Dream. In contrast, others

argue that barriers do stand in the way of the American Dream, but they are not as

insurmountable as they may seem.

In this paper, I will be reviewing literature that helps us gain a better understanding of the

American Dream by examining barriers to upward mobility that include education, race, and

gender. Upward mobility can mean many things in different contexts. For the sake of this paper,

upward mobility is how much someone makes in relation to their parents. Several factors raise

concerns about barriers to upward mobility; the major concerns I will be examining are

education, race, and gender as barriers of upward mobility.

Education as a barrier to upward mobility

One concern with upward mobility is education. When people can go to college and get a

better education, this significantly increases their chances of climbing the social ladder.

Education on its own is not bad; however, the problem occurs when people are not getting the

same level of education as others.

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College degrees impact the chances of climbing the social ladder because of jobs and

crap. When a person goes and gets a college degree, they are now open to better opportunities

because of their degree. The Pew Charitable Trusts, a non-profit organization, writes the article

“Pursuing the American Dream: Economic Mobility Across Generations,” which examines

trends in upward mobility. According to the Pew Charitable Trusts, “Having a college degree has

long been viewed as one of the most promising ways to climb the economic ladder, and for a

good reason. The wage premium associated with a college degree rose dramatically during the

past generation, and increased returns on education directly translate into upward absolute

mobility gains” (23). This shows that college can significantly boost a person’s chances of

earning more money, contributing to upward mobility growth. When a person has a college

degree, this improves their chances of making more money than their parents, thus contributing

to the growth of upward mobility.

A four-year college degree promotes upward mobility growth and helps prevent

downward social mobility growth. A degree can significantly boost one up the ladder, making

one three times more likely to rise from the bottom to the top (Pew Charitable Trusts).

Preventing downward growth is vital to the trend of social mobility and the growth of the

American Dream. Having a college degree is a measure of success to many people, and many

believe that the only way to achieve and experience the kind of upward mobility that the

American Dream provides is through success. Adam B. Coleman, a writer for the New York

Post, wrote the article, “There’s no greater dream than the American Dream – and anyone can

attain it.” In this article, Coleman writes, “To achieve the American Dream, you must make

yourself as valuable as possible.” One of the ways to make oneself valuable is to attain a college

degree. This college degree can make one more successful and, thus, more valuable.
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A college education, however, is only in the cards for some. While it is true that a college

degree significantly levels the playing field, only some have the same chance at actually going to

college. Richard V. Reeves and Eleanor Krause, authors and scholars of “Raj Chetty in 14 charts:

Big findings on opportunity and mobility we should all know,” write, “The chances of going to

college soon after high school are very strongly related to household income. In theory, college

education is the great equalizer, in practice it is the great stratified.” According to this study, the

higher the parent’s income rank, the higher the chances of attending college. While college is

great for leveling the upward mobility playing field, only some have a chance at attaining a

college degree.

College is not the only education that can impact a person’s chances of growing social

mobility. Studies have shown that who a person’s kindergarten teacher is can impact their

chances of making more money. Reeves and Krause write, “An experienced kindergarten teacher

boosts earnings by $1,104 on average.” The better one’s kindergarten teacher is, the more money

they make, increasing their chances at upward mobility. When a person has a better kindergarten

teacher, their chances of climbing the income ladder skyrocket, and their chances of attaining the

American Dream increase.

The more education a person receives, the more chances of climbing the economic ladder

increase. Not only that, but the better teachers one has also affect their likelihood of attaining

upward mobility. A college education is not in the cards for everyone because, according to

studies, the more a parent makes, the higher the chances of their child attending college. All of

these things have an impact on education which has an impact on one’s chances of upward

mobility.

Race as a barrier to upward mobility

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Race impacts many things, but upward mobility is one of the biggest. Studies have shown

that African Americans struggle more than white Americans to climb the economic ladder and

attain the elusive “American Dream.” There are many perspectives on this barrier, and many of

those perspectives give more insight into the effect of race on upward mobility.

With race as an aspect of upward mobility, one needs to look at how place plays a factor

in the conversation about race. Statistically speaking, African Americans have more difficulty

climbing the economic ladder and earning more than their parents. Imagine there are five rungs

on a ladder. If this is the economic ladder, there is the bottom percentile, the bottom rung, where

one will see poverty at its highest. The next rung up is still below the poverty line but slightly

better than the bottom. The middle rung is just that - the middle. The fourth rung would be the

high middle class, with the fifth being the highest economic growth rate. African Americans are

more likely to be stuck at the bottom of this ladder than white Americans. The Pew Charitable

Trusts writes, “Half of blacks (50 percent) raised in the bottom of the family wealth ladder

remain stuck in the bottom as adults, compared with only a third (33 percent) of whites” (3).

African Americans are also more likely to fall into poverty when starting in the middle.

Sixty-eight percent of African Americans raised in the middle-class fall to the bottom two rungs

of the economic ladder as adults (Pew Charitable Trusts). African Americans are less likely to

attain upward mobility than white Americans.

A friendship bias factor also plays a role with race in the subject of upward mobility. This

“friending bias” is when people tend to make friends in their social classes. Greg Rosalsky, an

author for NPR, writes the article, “Why the American Dream is more attainable in some cities

than others.” In this article, it says, “Economic and racial segregation play a huge role in

preventing unequal groups from interacting with each other in many communities.” Economic
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status is not the only factor with friendship bias; race is too. People often do not feel they can be

friends with people outside of their race, leading to less economic growth. Friending bias does

not have to happen; there are ways to combat it. In religious settings, this friending bias

decreases, and people become friends with those they usually would not befriend.

Race also has an impact on politics in relation to upward mobility. The American Deram

was once a dream targeted at a particular group of people - white Americans. This dream was

wholly shut off from other ethnic groups. Jazmine Ulloa is a writer for the New York Times and

the author of the article “How a Storied Phrase Became a Partisan Battleground.” She writes, “To

politicians of old, “the American dream” was a supremely optimistic rhetorical device, albeit one

that often obscured the economic and racial barriers that made achieving it impossible for many.”

While the American dream has been so sought after for years in this country, it was not always

available to everyone; it was initially only white Americans who could attain this dream.

Race has a significant impact on upward mobility. When discussing upward mobility and

the American Dream in the past, it was often directed towards white Americans and never

African Americans, meaning African Americans did not have the same opportunities as white

Americans to attain upward mobility, which still causes problems today. Friending bias, being

stuck at the bottom, and generational differences make it harder for African Americans in

America to climb the social ladder and achieve the American Dream.

Gender as a barrier to upward mobility

Gender impacts many things in society, but upward mobility growth is a major one.

Studies have shown that boys struggle more climbing the ladder than girls, and while there may

be a reason for it, there is a significant difference between men and women.
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Raj Chetty is a renowned researcher in the field of economics and one of this

conversation’s leading speakers. Raj Chetty and his team, David Grusky, Maximilian Hell,

Nathaniel Hendren, Robert Manduca, and Jimmy Narang, wrote the article summarizing their

research, “The fading American dream: Trends in absolute income mobility since 1940.” Chetty

et al. write, “As noted above, sons’ chances of earning more than their fathers fell steeply.” (7).

When comparing a group born in 1940 to a group born in 1980, Chetty and his team of

researchers found that social mobility declined steeply, but it affected men more than women.

While the rate of social mobility declined to twenty-two percent in 1960, it rose by four

percentage points in 1984. For men, the percentage fell to forty-one percent in 1984 and did not

increase as women did.

Not only are men less likely to earn more than their parents, but men who are born at the

bottom of the ladder in poverty are also more likely to die nearly a decade earlier. Being born

poor foreshadows lifespans and gives an idea of how long one is likely to live. According to

Reeves and Krause, “the effect is more pronounced for men. Poverty takes nearly 10 years off

their lifespan.” According to this, men born into poverty are more likely to die ten years sooner

than they usually would. This is once again specific to men, not women.

Men born into poverty are more likely to die sooner, and they are also likely to work less.

Once again, this is applied to men, not women. In terms of employment, poverty in childhood

damages outcomes for boys more than for girls (Reeves and Krause). Not only that, but where

boys grow up also impacts their chances of successfully climbing the social ladder and achieving

the social mobility level one is expected to. Reeves and Krause write, “There is a gender gap in

terms of the impact of place. Boys who grow up in low-opportunity places feel the effects much

more strongly than girls.” There is a lot that can affect why place matters so much, friending
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bias, economic connectedness being more prevalent in some areas than others, and more.

However, one thing consistent throughout every study is that it affects men more than women

and boys more than girls.

There may be a significant difference between men’s and women’s upward mobility. The

fact that women have had struggles entering the workforce and fighting for equal pay and rights

is not a secret, and some think this is where the difference lies. The Pew Charitable Trust writes,

“Comparing daughters’ earnings to their mothers’ earnings could overstate the gains made by

women in the past generation while comparing daughters’ earnings to their fathers’ could

understate women’s gains.” Because women in the workforce have changed dramatically and

quickly, there have not been enough studies on women and upward mobility to accurately

represent the data. When comparing working women now to their mothers, there will be a higher

increase in earnings than there. Comparing women to their fathers, the opposite effect happens; it

looks like a lower percentage than it is.

Since there are dramatic differences between men and women, men tend to struggle more

to attain the level of upward mobility required to attain the American Dream. Men have more

things stacked against them, preventing them from attaining upward mobility. If men are born

into poverty, they are more likely to die sooner and more likely not to work. When men are born

in certain areas, they feel the effect of the low-income area more than women do. This does not

mean that men have more against them, just that women have not been studied as closely as men

have since women have not been out in the workforce as long as men have. Since women entered

the workforce, much has changed, making it harder to accurately study and compare men and

women.

Conclusion
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In sum, then, the issue is whether or not these issues impact the growth of the American

Dream. Is the dream growing or fading away entirely? Or was the dream ever really attainable in

the first place? The literature indicates that while, from the surface, the American Dream is

fading, it is not. There are more barriers to the American Dream today than there were a few

generations ago, giving the impression that the American Dream is fading. These barriers,

however, are manageable. Education, race, and gender are all barriers to upward mobility, but

this does not mean they prevent growth entirely. One needs to put in more work to get around

said barriers than people had to a few hundred years ago. This conversation is important because

the idea of the American Dream and upward mobility is something that is always going to be

around. Attaining something better is a common goal in today’s world, and it is not leaving

anytime soon. As the economy grows, the need to be better grows as well. Not just the need to be

better than those around, but better than the ones who came before.

Knowing what the barriers are for upward mobility is helpful for everyone. With the

knowledge of these barriers, people can know how to overcome them. Overcoming these barriers

is inevitable for people to achieve more than their parents, and achieve upward mobility. These

barriers will be hard to overcome, it won’t be easy, however, the end goal of the American dream

is worth the trouble.

Further Inquiry

What has yet to be discussed in the literature is the effects of barriers for women in the

discussion of upward mobility. This has been studied in small areas; however, it is essential to

study this further to know upward mobility trends for women. Women have not been studied the

same way as men because women entered the workforce much later than men. Since they entered

the workforce later than men, some women made more than their mothers simply because their
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mothers made no money at all. Compared to their fathers, women made little money because

men have worked since modern civilization began. Without studying the effects of women in the

discussion of upward mobility, the only knowledge is from men. This is not necessarily bad;

however, men and women can vary drastically, so knowing how different barriers impact women

is so important.

Having this part of the conversation is vital because there is a difference between men

and women in many things other than upward mobility. Without the knowledge of women in

upward mobility, there is not a variety of information to study. Without a variety of information,

one could be working to overcome barriers that are not even there. Studying and having the

knowledge of different barriers to upward mobility for women specifically can help women all

over America know what they need to do to overcome barriers and achieve the American Dream.
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Works Cited

Coleman, Adam B. “There’s no greater dream than the American Dream - and anyone can attain

it.” New York Post, July 4, 2022,

https://nypost.com/2022/07/04/than-the-american-dream-and-anyone-can-attain-it/

Chetty, Raj, et al. “The fading American dream: Trends in absolute income mobility since 1940.”

Science, April 28, 2017, https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aal4617

Krause, Eleanor, and Reeves Richard V. “Raj Chetty in 14 charts: Big findings on opportunity

and mobility we should all know.” Brookings, January 11, 2018,

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2018/01/11/raj-chetty-in-14-char

ts-big-findings-on-opportunity-and-mobility-we-should-know/

Pursuing the American Dream: Economic Mobility Across Generations. The Pew Charitable

Trusts, 2012.

Rosalsky, Greg. “Why the American Dream is more attainable in some cities than others.” NPR,

August 1, 2022,

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/08/01/1114661467/why-the-american-dream-is

-more-attainable-in-some-cities-than-others

Ulloa, Jazmine. “How a Storied Phrase Became a Partisan Battleground.” New York Times,

August 21, 2022,

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/us/politics/republicans-american-dream.html