‘This bargain is being eroded’: Inside Gen Z’s view of the American Dream

Every generation faces economic and social “shocks,” as David Blanchflower describes era-defining crises such as the Great Recession, 9/11, and the Vietnam War.

But the post-silent generation of Americans, including those now between the ages of 81 and 98, have been hit as hard as Gen Z, and their American dream is in jeopardy, said Blanchflower, a labor economist and lecturer at Dartmouth College.

Generation Z, now between the ages of 14 and 29, has had their educational and social growth disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, leaving high school and college graduates entering the precarious workforce but finding housing markets unaffordable and facing inflationary pressures.

Blanchflower said older Gen Zers with “good jobs” are struggling with anxiety, stress and depression. An August 2025 study he co-led found that the traditional U-curve of happiness is flattening, with young people becoming increasingly unhappy throughout their lives.

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Mark Rank, an author, professor and researcher on the American Dream at Washington University in St. Louis, says the American Dream, which became popular in this country after World War II, is becoming less achievable.

Since the baby boomer generation came of age in the 1970s, each generation has had a tougher time than the last, some researchers say. Rank added that the adage that “if you work hard and play by the rules, you should be fine financially” no longer holds true. “This deal is falling apart.”

Still, some historians and economists are optimistic about young people’s ability to bounce back and find new paths. It may not resemble the American dream their parents once had.

Economically, the American Dream began to disappear with globalization, Rank said, as companies moved outside the United States and hired foreign workers, putting downward pressure on American wages. “Full-time male workers earn about the same amount today as they did in 1973, with inflation under control,” he said.

Then, around the same time the labor market embraced corporate downsizing and mass layoffs, Gen Millennials experienced a more difficult version of the same challenge as they graduated from college and the economy was rocked by the dot-com crash and the Great Recession.

“About 90 percent of children born in the 1940s had higher incomes than their parents, compared to about 50 percent of children born in the 1990s,” said Raj Chetty, an economist and professor at Harvard University.

Blanchflower said Gen Z is becoming more dissatisfied with their opportunities amid factors such as underemployment, the coronavirus pandemic, war, trade tariffs, artificial intelligence, automation and job competition. According to CNBC and SurveyMonkey’s new American Dream Pulse survey, 42% of Gen Z say the American Dream is not achievable for everyone, but only for some. Similarly, a 2026 Gallup poll found that 49% of Americans surveyed were satisfied with their opportunities to advance in the U.S. if they worked hard, down from 76% in 2001, according to data reviewed by CNBC Make It.

Gallup senior editor Jeff Jones said the decline was disproportionately driven by younger respondents, who may be frustrated that some of the traditional pathways to success for young people aren’t working. A college degree is not a clear path to a stable job, and entry-level salaries may not be enough to cover the soaring costs of basic necessities like housing and health care, let alone defuse the ballooning college debt crisis.

And while Millennials and Gen Z are ultimately poised to receive trillions of dollars in wealth transfers from their parents, some housing researchers say it will be too late for many of them to change their financial trajectory in early adulthood, when inheritances can have the greatest impact.

Instead, today’s youngest generation may do what young people do best: make the best of their circumstances, reset their goals, and make incremental progress on what they can change.

The future of social and economic mobility in America depends largely on whether people get more support from their communities and policymakers at various levels of government, all of which play a role in expanding “economic connectivity” and opportunity, Chetty said.

Chetty points to the quality of schools, neighborhoods and social networks as starting points for investment. Artificial intelligence has the potential to further reshape young people’s access to upward mobility in somewhat unpredictable ways, he added.

But hope springs eternal. Although young Americans no longer believe they have the potential for socio-economic mobility, they still largely share the very human instinct of being optimistic about a better future and core American values, Rank said. “I’ve done a lot of interviews with people, especially people who are low-income and in poverty, and I’ll tell you this: The last thing people need is hope,” Rank says.

Hope can drive people to completely redefine their definition of success. According to Pollack, many Millennials, Gen Z and even younger Gen Alphas no longer want to achieve what their parents accomplished. Rather than building our aspirations around real-life role models like family and community members, or what we see in movies and TV shows, we’re seeing “so many different ways of living and living people” online, she says.

Data shows that Americans today are likely to put off getting married, having children and buying a home even further. They can give up their career as a company employee and work for a trading company, or they can move abroad. “People who want the life their parents had won’t always be able to have it anymore,” Pollack said.

But Americans still have a chance, she added. “Maybe the American dream is to stay nimble and find what’s meaningful to you[in your career]. It’s not something that lasts forever in one job or one company.”

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