Chasing the American Dream
Understanding What Shapes Our Fortunes
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Narrated by:
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Tristan Morris
About this listen
The United States has been epitomized as a land of opportunity, where hard work and skill can bring personal success and economic well-being. The American Dream has captured the imagination of people from all walks of life, and to many, it represents the heart and soul of the country. But there is another, darker side to the bargain that America strikes with its people - it is the price we pay for our individual pursuit of the American Dream. That price can be found in the economic hardship present in the lives of millions of Americans. In Chasing the American Dream, leading social scientists Mark Robert Rank, Thomas A. Hirschl, and Kirk A. Foster provide a new and innovative look into a curious dynamic - the tension between the promise of economic opportunities and rewards and the amount of turmoil that Americans encounter in their quest for those rewards. The authors explore questions such as:
- What percentage of Americans achieve affluence, and how much income mobility do we actually have?
- Are most Americans able to own a home, and at what age?
- How is it that nearly 80 percent of us will experience significant economic insecurity at some point between ages 25 and 60?
- How can access to the American Dream be increased?
Combining personal interviews with dozens of Americans and a longitudinal study covering 40 years of income data, the authors tell the story of the American Dream and reveal a number of surprises. The risk of economic vulnerability has increased substantially over the past four decades, and the American Dream is becoming harder to reach and harder to keep. Yet for most Americans, the Dream lies not in wealth, but in economic security, pursuing one's passions, and looking toward the future. Chasing the American Dream provides us with a new understanding into the dynamics that shape our fortunes and a deeper insight into the importance of the American Dream for the future of the country.
Download the accompanying reference guide.©2014, Oxford University Press (P)2014 Audible Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Equal Is Unfair
- America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality
- By: Don Watkins, Yaron Brook
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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We've all heard that the American Dream is vanishing, and that the cause is rising income inequality. The rich are getting richer by rigging the system in their favor, leaving the rest of us to struggle just to keep our heads above water. To save the American Dream, we're told that we need to fight inequality through tax hikes, wealth redistribution schemes, and a far higher minimum wage.
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While I agree with most of this book,...
- By Wayne on 12-30-16
By: Don Watkins, and others
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American Dreams
- Restoring Economic Opportunity for Everyone
- By: Marco Rubio
- Narrated by: Ricardo Suri
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Marco Rubio's parents came to the United States in 1956. The country they found was truly a land of opportunity, where hardworking people with grade school educations could afford a home, a car, and college for their kids. A country where maids and bartenders could raise doctors, lawyers, small-business owners, and maybe even a US senator. That was the American Dream - our country's central promise to its people.
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Comprehensive and compelling path for renewal.
- By gary on 06-03-15
By: Marco Rubio
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Excellent Sheep
- The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life
- By: William Deresiewicz
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Excellent Sheep takes a sharp look at the high-pressure conveyor belt that begins with parents and counselors who demand perfect grades and culminates in the skewed applications Deresiewicz saw firsthand as a member of Yale's admissions committee. As schools shift focus from the humanities to "practical" subjects like economics and computer science, students are losing the ability to think in innovative ways.
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skip the book read the essay
- By Amazon Customer on 05-07-15
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The 9.9 Percent
- The New Aristocracy That Is Entrenching Inequality and Warping Our Culture
- By: Matthew Stewart
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In 21st century America, the top 0.1 percent of the wealth distribution have walked away with the big prizes even while the bottom 90 percent have lost ground. What’s left of the American Dream has taken refuge in the 9.9 percent that lies just below the tip of extreme wealth. Collectively, the members of this group control more than half of the wealth in the country - and they are doing whatever it takes to hang on to their piece of the action in an increasingly unjust system.
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Fantastic
- By Davena on 01-05-23
By: Matthew Stewart
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Disintegration
- The Splintering of Black America
- By: Eugene Robinson
- Narrated by: Alan Bomar Jones
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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The African American population in the United States has always been seen as a single entity: a "Black America" with unified interests and needs. In his groundbreaking book Disintegration, longtime Washington Post journalist Eugene Robinson argues that, through decades of desegregation, affirmative action, and immigration, the concept of Black America has shattered.
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Written for Popular Consumption
- By Catherine S. Read on 06-03-11
By: Eugene Robinson
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Losing Ground
- American Social Policy, 1950 - 1980
- By: Charles Murray
- Narrated by: Robert Morris
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Beginning in the 1950s, America entered a period of unprecedented social reform. This remarkable book demonstrates how the social programs of the 1960s and ’70s had the unintended and perverse effect of slowing and even reversing earlier progress in reducing poverty, crime, ignorance, and discrimination. Using widely understood and accepted data, it conclusively demonstrates that the amalgam of reforms from 1965 to 1970 actually made matters worse.
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A great book ruined by a terrible recording
- By Michael on 04-05-13
By: Charles Murray
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Springboard
- Launching Your Personal Search for Success
- By: G. Richard Shell
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Everyone knows that you are supposed to "follow your dream". But where is the road map to help you discover what that dream is? You have just found it. In Springboard, award-winning author and teacher G. Richard Shell helps you find your future. His advice: Take an honest look inside and then answer two questions: What, for me, is success? How will I achieve it? You will begin by assessing your current beliefs about success, including the hidden influences of family, media, and culture. These are where the pressures to live "someone else's life" come from.
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Great book and fascinating perspective on success
- By Austin on 01-07-15
By: G. Richard Shell
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Generation Me
- Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled - and More Miserable Than Ever Before
- By: Jean M. Twenge PhD
- Narrated by: Randye Kaye
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In this provocative new book, psychologist and social commentator Dr. Jean Twenge documents the self-focus of what she calls "Generation Me" - people born in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Dr. Twenge explores why her generation is tolerant, confident, open-minded, and ambitious but also cynical, depressed, lonely, and anxious. Dr. Twenge reveals how profoundly different today's young adults are - and makes controversial predictions about what the future holds for them and society as a whole.
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I mostly agree
- By David Hill on 05-25-20
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Dear White America
- Letter to a New Minority
- By: Tim Wise
- Narrated by: Tim Wise
- Length: 3 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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White Americans have long been comfortable in the assumption that they are the cultural norm. Now that notion is being challenged, as white people wrestle with what it means to be part of a fast-changing, truly multicultural nation. Facing chronic economic insecurity, a popular culture that reflects the nation's diverse cultural reality, and a future in which they will no longer constitute the majority of the population, and with a black president in the White House, whites are growing anxious.
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A Primer on Racism for White People
- By Susie on 07-11-16
By: Tim Wise
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Ghetto
- The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea
- By: Mitchell Duneier
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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On March 29, 1516, the city council of Venice issued a decree forcing Jews to live in il geto - a closed quarter named for the copper foundry that once occupied the area. The term stuck. In this sweeping and original interpretation, Mitchell Duneier traces the idea of the ghetto from its beginnings in the 16th century and its revival by the Nazis to the present. As Duneier shows, we cannot understand the entanglements of race, poverty, and place in America today without recalling the history of the ghetto in Europe, as well as later efforts to understand the problems of the American city.
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Impressive
- By Jean on 12-10-16
By: Mitchell Duneier