Description
The American dream has always been the heart of the United States: the belief that through hard work and good character, anyone can achieve a good life or even great success. This idea of social and economic mobility powered the nation’s growth. Today, however, that dream feels empty. The system is stuck. If you are born poor, you are likely to stay poor, no matter how hard you work. If you are born rich, you are likely to stay rich, no matter how little you try. The system is rigged, and it often punishes the very people who try to live the American dream.
The first major barrier blocking the path to success is America’s failing public education system. US school standards have fallen dramatically. In subjects like math and literacy, America is dropping in global rankings while other countries improve. This isn’t just an academic problem; it is the root of social inequality. Studies show a direct, almost perfect, link between the quality of a child’s education and their chances for success later in life. America’s system is deeply unequal, often providing the best education to the richest students and an inferior education to the poor. This failure doesn’t just hurt poor families; it hurts the entire country. A poorly educated workforce drags down the whole economy. Studies show that if American public schools could simply match the standards of Canada, the US could balance its debt crisis and give every worker an average pay raise of 20 percent.
This inequality continues all the way to college. In the United States, a good higher education is mostly reserved for those who can afford it. Wealthy families can put their children on a “fast track” to a top college by making large financial donations. This practice allows many undeserving students, including the children of famous politicians and business leaders, to get into elite schools even with poor grades. But even if admissions were based purely on merit, such as SAT test scores, the rich still have a massive advantage. They can afford private schools and expensive tutoring, which leads to higher scores. Children from families earning over ,000 a year score, on average, hundreds of points higher than children from families earning less than ,000. And even if a low-income student overcomes the odds and gets accepted, most cannot afford the crushing costs of tuition.
Even for those who manage to get an education, the system creates new barriers to starting a career. One of the biggest problems is excessive occupational licensing. These are official permissions required to do a job. Only 20 years ago, just one out of every 20 American workers needed a license. Today, that number has jumped to one out of every three. These rules now cover hundreds of jobs, including professions that pose little risk, like yoga instructors or city tour guides. In some states, a yoga teacher must go through a mountain of paperwork and pay thousands of dollars in fees. These requirements often don’t exist to protect the public. Instead, they are often pushed by established “insiders” in an industry who want to block new competition, keep their own prices high, and stop new entrepreneurs from entering the market.
The immigration system is another area that is failing to help the economy. While America was built by immigrants, its current policies are not selective enough. Two-thirds of immigrants are admitted based on family preference, meaning they have relatives already in the US. Their skills, education, or work experience are not the main consideration. Canada, by contrast, uses a point system that prioritizes language skills and education, resulting in two-thirds of its immigrants being classified as “skilled workers.” The difference is clear: In Canada, it takes only two generations for an immigrant family’s income to catch up to that of native-born citizens. In the US, it takes four generations. The slow American system also forces applicants to wait for years, stalling their ability to find steady work or continue their education.
The nation’s tax code is also rigged to help the rich stay rich. The US tax system is filled with complex loopholes that wealthy individuals and the biggest corporations can exploit. As a result, corporate tax revenues have collapsed, falling from 32 percent of all government revenue in 1952 to just 9 percent by 2009. Using offshore accounts and deductions, a massive company like General Electric was able to earn .2 billion in one year and pay absolutely nothing in federal taxes. Corporate executives do the same thing. They often take a small official “salary” to avoid public criticism, but then earn millions more through performance bonuses and stock options, which are taxed at much lower rates. In a perfect example of the rigged system, corporations are even allowed to use the giant salaries they pay their executives as a tax deduction.
Finally, the American legal system itself often works against fairness and mobility. The US is buried in so many random and arbitrary laws that it is easy for an honest person to accidentally become a criminal. One man, Krister Evertson, was arrested for a simple mistake: mailing a package of sodium for his clean-energy project without the proper sticker. A jury saw it was an honest error and acquitted him. But federal agents, angry they lost, found another obscure law and arrested him again—this time for “abandoning hazardous waste” while he was in jail for the first charge. He was sentenced to two years in prison. This same attitude is used against small businesses. In one case, inspectors returned to a barbershop with eight armed police officers, admitting to the barbers that there are so many regulations, they were “bound to be breaking one of them.”
A major source of this problem is that US prosecutors have been given far too much power. They can use a grand jury, which meets in secret without a judge or a defense lawyer, to bring charges. They can use hearsay and rumors to convince the jury. This power is often used as a weapon against corporations. The US files more criminal charges against companies than any other developed country. Most companies, rather than risk having their reputation destroyed in a public court battle, are forced to make large cash settlements, even if they are innocent. When the energy company Enron collapsed due to its own fraud, prosecutors didn’t stop there. They also went after Enron’s accounting firm, Arthur Anderson. The firm was completely destroyed, and 28,000 of its employees were put out of work.
This aggressive legal system is not afraid to target even the most successful and famous Americans. Martha Stewart, a self-made billionaire, was a prime example. She did not commit the crime of insider trading. However, when interviewed by federal agents, she lied to protect a friend. Lying to a federal agent is a crime, and prosecutors pursued her mercilessly, sending her to prison for five months. In another case, Michael Milken, a Wall Street financier who created the high-yield bond market that helped the economy soar, was targeted. To make his successful strategy illegal, prosecutors essentially created new rules after the fact. Milken was found guilty on 98 counts, fined million, and sent to prison.
The American dream is not just fading; it is being actively undermined by broken systems. The path to success is blocked by a failing education system that favors the rich, by economic rules that kill competition, by a tax code that rewards loopholes, and by a legal system that punishes honest mistakes and success. To find “the way back,” America must commit to fundamental, difficult changes. It must fix its public schools, simplify its tax code, untangle its web of arbitrary laws, and restore true free enterprise.
