The American Dream, like the country it inspires, is ever-changing.
If you ask 100 people what their ideal is, you’ll probably get just as many answers. For example, most people might agree that the American Dream includes achieving financial security and happiness, but what that looks like is more personal.
Some are optimistic that their vision of opportunity is alive and well despite personal and even societal challenges. Others, especially the younger generation, are wondering whether such dreams are really within reach, and if not, how to build a new roadmap to personal fulfillment.
But ultimately, some aspects of the American Dream persist, and people are pushing past barriers to forge their own paths and define the terms of success.
In celebration of our nation’s 250th anniversary, CNBC Make It brought together prominent voices from across the age spectrum in politics, finance, and relationships to sit down and spark a conversation about what it means to achieve happiness and success in this country today.
Vivian Tu started her career looking for quantitative wins. “How can I achieve the kind of success that’s so mundane that I’m going to piss off the people I don’t like, and I’m going to piss off the people who don’t believe in me?” says the Wall Street trader-turned-media personality who founded the financial education brand Your Rich BFF. Now, at age 32, she appreciates the opportunity to have meaningful work and repay the efforts her parents have put in.
Gail Rudnick, 84, says she’s in the second round of realizing her biggest dream. First she raised a close-knit family, and now she’s starting a new career as a content creator and co-host of a podcast with her granddaughter Kim Murstein, 30.
Sylvia Kwan, 62, says her American Dream has led her to rewrite the script of her life and pursue goals she thought were impossible, including becoming CEO of Elvest, a women-centered financial planning and wealth management platform.
She also recognizes that there are significant challenges that prevent many people, especially young Americans, from achieving their dreams. Experts say today’s youngest generations face barriers that are worsening at a rate that previous generations were never able to cope with.
Generation Z, now between the ages of 14 and 29, has had their educational and social growth disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving high school and college graduates entering the precarious workforce but facing an unaffordable housing market and inflationary pressures.
Khalil Greene, a 26-year-old history newsletter writer and social media creator who was elected Yale’s first Black student body president in 2019 as the youngest member of our class, says he doesn’t feel hopeful about America’s future and worries that the country is on a “downward trajectory.”
“It feels like the odds are insurmountable in terms of solving the problem. I’d like to try, but I can’t imagine how to do it,” he says.
Robert Reich takes the opposite view. “I’m optimistic because we are resilient,” the 80-year-old UC Berkeley professor and former U.S. labor secretary told Greene.
“I’m at the age where I’m seeing this country recover from the Depression and war and everything,” he says. “It seems to me that it is very important for us to avoid cynicism and remain hopeful, because if we don’t, we will stop trying. If we don’t have hope in our hearts, we will stop fighting seriously for the betterment of our country.”
