The Vanishing American Dream: A Frank Look at the Economic Realities Facing Middle- And Lower-Income Americans PDF Download

Author: Gene Ludwig
Publisher: Disruption Books
ISBN: 9781633310636
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
As America struggles to point its way out of the COVID-19 pandemic, we can't lose sight of the economic problems that existed before the crisis. Even when the unemployment rate was near record lows and the stock market near record highs, the gap between low- and moderate-income Americans and their wealthier counterparts had become unconscionably wide. A future economic recovery presents an opportunity to address this deeper, troubling challenge and to rectify the economic injustice that threatens so many Americans.In 2019, founder and CEO of Promontory Financial Group Gene Ludwig gathered a bipartisan group of the nation's foremost economic thinkers -- academics and politicians, CEOs and former presidential advisors -- to break with convention and candidly discuss that widening gap. The Vanishing American Dream: A Frank Look at the Economic Realities Facing Middle- and Lower-Income Americans comes from their insights.The opportunity to rebuild our economy should inspire the most important conversations and ideas of our time. The dialogue captured in this book provides broad and experienced perspectives on inequality and policy shortcomings, along with examples of ideas that have successfully narrowed the wealth gap, from government investment to the role of the private sector. As we remap our economy, we have an opportunity to rebuild the American Dream for the long-term.Combining expertise with optimism, The Vanishing American Dream invites readers to take a seat at the table for a bracing look at the road back to widespread opportunity, security, and prosperity.With Contributions By: Sarah Bloom Raskin, Glenn Hubbard, Deval Patrick, Robert Shiller, Larry Summers, Luke Bronin, Daryl Byrd, Oren Cass, Jacob Hacker Heather Gerken, Susan Krause Bell, Andrea Levere, Zachary Liscow, Jonathan Macey, Daniel Markovits, Mary Miller, Michael Moskow, David Newville, Steven Pearlstein, Isabel Sawhill, Jay Shambaugh, Anika Singh Lemar, and Andrew Tisch.

Author: Virginia Deane Abernethy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351295500
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
The United States has gone off track, allowing domestic and foreign aid policies to be co-opted by a government—abetted by mass media—that serves special interests rather than the greater national good. Americans' tendencies to trust, play fair, and help have been abused and require replacement by a realistic outlook. The Vanishing American Dream posits solutions to get America back on the right track. Abernethy sees population growth driven by mass immigration as a major cause of economic and cultural changes that have been detrimental to most Americans. The environment has been degraded by over-crowding and increasing demands on natural resources. Work is cheapened by explosive growth in the labour force creating a buyer's market. One salary or wage no longer supports a family and educates children. Women working outside the home is a necessity, not a choice, for most American families. Furthermore, feminism, aimed originally at balanced gender roles, has been turned viciously against males of all ages and ultimately against females through degrading their traditional and valuable contributions. Abernethy proposes that Americans need time to regroup, untroubled by a continuing influx of foreign peoples. The family, small business, and responsive local government are centres around which a solvent and confident citizenry can prosper again.

Author: Gene Ludwig
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781633310445
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
The American Dream is perhaps our nation's single common belief. It represents the opportunity to improve our economic standing generation upon generation, whether from poverty to comfort or beyond. From Horatio Alger to Oprah Winfrey, the Dream gives us collective hope. The prevailing economic analysis for 2019 portrays a humming economy, one that should be able to support a path to prosperity for anyone willing to do their part. But in reality, traditional economic measures like the unemployment rate and GDP are masking a crisis for millions of lower- and middle-income families. For them, economic injustice has never been greater. They struggle to afford health care, housing, and education as they work jobs that cannot provide the chances they need to reverse this downward slide. It's easy enough to offer prosaic explanations for the decline of opportunity: Factories closed. Globalization pushed corporations to send the jobs overseas. Racism abounds. But for those who really want to understand what's going on, those more answers only prompt more thoughtful questions. To begin to answer those questions, Gene Ludwig invited some of the most sophisticated minds from across the political spectrum to gather in a closed setting at Yale Law School in the spring of 2019. They included policy makers, journalists, academics, and business leaders--without media or scripts. No matter their affiliation, the participants all agreed: What had once been the American dream has become an elusive myth. But how can the economy report positive growth while so many suffer? And how do we reverse their trajectory? The Vanishing American Dream documents this rare, candid conversation and offers a forum on solutions to revive the Dream for all Americans. With Contributions By: Sarah Bloom Raskin, Glenn Hubbard, Deval Patrick, Robert Shiller, Larry Summers, Luke Bronin, Daryl Byrd, Oren Cass, Jacob Hacker Heather Gerken, Susan Krause Bell, Andrea Levere, Zachary Liscow, Jonathan Macey, Daniel Markovits, Mary Miller, Michael Moskow, David Newville, Steven Pearlstein, Isabel Sawhill, Jay Shambaugh, Anika Singh Lemar, and Andrew Tisch.

Author: Gerald F. Davis
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
ISBN: 1626562806
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
It may be hard to believe in an era of Walmart, Citizens United, and the Koch brothers, but corporations are on the decline. The number of American companies listed on the stock market dropped by half between 1996 and 2012. In recent years we've seen some of the most storied corporations go bankrupt (General Motors, Chrysler, Eastman Kodak) or disappear entirely (Bethlehem Steel, Lehman Brothers, Borders). Gerald Davis argues this is a root cause of the income inequality and social instability we face today. Corporations were once an integral part of building the middle class. He points out that in their heyday they offered millions of people lifetime employment, a stable career path, health insurance, and retirement pensions. They were like small private welfare states. The businesses that are replacing them will not fill the same role. For one thing, they employ far fewer people—the combined global workforces of Facebook, Yelp, Zynga, LinkedIn, Zillow, Tableau, Zulily, and Box are smaller than the number of people who lost their jobs when Circuit City was liquidated in 2009. And in the “sharing economy,” companies have no obligation to most of the people who work for them—at the end of 2014 Uber had over 160,000 “driver-partners” in the United States but recognized only about 2,000 people as actual employees. Davis tracks the rise of the large American corporation and the economic, social, and technological developments that have led to its decline. The future could see either increasing economic polarization, as careers turn into jobs and jobs turn into tasks, or a more democratic economy built from the grass roots. It's up to us.

Author: Peter Temin
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262535297
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Why the United States has developed an economy divided between rich and poor and how racism helped bring this about. The United States is becoming a nation of rich and poor, with few families in the middle. In this book, MIT economist Peter Temin offers an illuminating way to look at the vanishing middle class. Temin argues that American history and politics, particularly slavery and its aftermath, play an important part in the widening gap between rich and poor. Temin employs a well-known, simple model of a dual economy to examine the dynamics of the rich/poor divide in America, and outlines ways to work toward greater equality so that America will no longer have one economy for the rich and one for the poor. Many poorer Americans live in conditions resembling those of a developing country—substandard education, dilapidated housing, and few stable employment opportunities. And although almost half of black Americans are poor, most poor people are not black. Conservative white politicians still appeal to the racism of poor white voters to get support for policies that harm low-income people as a whole, casting recipients of social programs as the Other—black, Latino, not like "us." Politicians also use mass incarceration as a tool to keep black and Latino Americans from participating fully in society. Money goes to a vast entrenched prison system rather than to education. In the dual justice system, the rich pay fines and the poor go to jail.

Author: Ben Sasse
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN: 1250114411
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In an era of safe spaces, trigger warnings, and an unprecedented election, the country's youth are in crisis. Senator Ben Sasse warns the nation about the existential threat to America's future. Raised by well-meaning but overprotective parents and coddled by well-meaning but misbegotten government programs, America's youth are ill-equipped to survive in our highly-competitive global economy. Many of the coming-of-age rituals that have defined the American experience since the Founding: learning the value of working with your hands, leaving home to start a family, becoming economically self-reliant—are being delayed or skipped altogether. The statistics are daunting: 30% of college students drop out after the first year, and only 4 in 10 graduate. One in three 18-to-34 year-olds live with their parents. From these disparate phenomena: Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse who as president of a Midwestern college observed the trials of this generation up close, sees an existential threat to the American way of life. In The Vanishing American Adult, Sasse diagnoses the causes of a generation that can't grow up and offers a path for raising children to become active and engaged citizens. He identifies core formative experiences that all young people should pursue: hard work to appreciate the benefits of labor, travel to understand deprivation and want, the power of reading, the importance of nurturing your body—and explains how parents can encourage them. Our democracy depends on responsible, contributing adults to function properly—without them America falls prey to populist demagogues. A call to arms, The Vanishing American Adult will ignite a much-needed debate about the link between the way we're raising our children and the future of our country.

Author: Alan M. Dershowitz
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684848988
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description
Explores the meaning of Jewishness in light of the increasing assimilation of America's Jews and suggests ways to preserve Jewish identity.

Author: John Edwards
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
A collection of original essays designed to put the issue of poverty back on the political map in the US, offering a plan to eliminate poverty in 30 years. With contributions on job creation, schools, housing, rural and family life, this forward-thinking selection brings together liberals and conservatives to address one of the great moral and societal issues of modern life.

Author: Arianna Huffington
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 0007437331
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Features updated material and a special foreword from Arianna for the UK audience It’s not an exaggeration to say that the hard-working, average citizen on an average income is an endangered species and that the American Dream of a secure, comfortable standard of living has become outdated. The USA is in danger of becoming a Third World nation.

Author: Don Watkins
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250084458
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
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. But what if that narrative is wrong? What if the real threat to the American Dream isn’t rising income inequality—but an all-out war on success? In Equal is Unfair, a timely and thought-provoking work, Don Watkins and Yaron Brook reveal that almost everything we’ve been taught about inequality is wrong. You’ll discover: • why successful CEOs make so much money—and deserve to • how the minimum wage hurts the very people it claims to help • why middle-class stagnation is a myth • how the little-known history of Sweden reveals the dangers of forced equality • the disturbing philosophy behind Obama’s economic agenda. The critics of inequality are right about one thing: the American Dream is under attack. But instead of fighting to make America a place where anyone can achieve success, they are fighting to tear down those who already have. The real key to making America a freer, fairer, more prosperous nation is to protect and celebrate the pursuit of success—not pull down the high fliers in the name of equality.