Room for Debate: Is the Modern American Dream Attainable?

What the Numbers Show

Erin Currier, Pew Charitable Trusts

Forty-three percent of those raised in the bottom fifth of the income ladder remain there a generation later, and 40 percent of those raised at the top stay there.

Progressive Policies Can Help

Stephanie Coontz, Council on Contemporary Families

If we want to revive and achieve the American Dream, we need to change a situation in which the people whose hard work makes this country run cannot earn a living wage.

More Than Money Is at Stake

Robin Fretwell Wilson, law professor

President Obama has gotten flack for My Brother's Keeper, but he was right to focus on men, because for men, marriage and work go together.

It's Even Harder for People of Color

Steven W. Bender, author, "Tierra y Libertad"

The 2007 case of the hard-working Mexican immigrant couple in Oregon shows how difficult it is to have the modest home and the white picket fence.

For Blacks, There Is Another Dream

Lester Spence, political scientist

The dream rooted in beliefs about racial equality, particularly along political and economic lines, is under siege. The wealth gap between blacks and whites keeps growing.

The American Dream Is Alive

Daniel J. Mitchell, Cato Institute

And if we can restrain the size and scope of government, there's every reason to believe that the America Dream will be strong for the rest of the 21st century.