American Dream Thesis Statement

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What’s up with the American Dream
The American Dream is a widespread term used in describing the American Way of Life on the whole, but it is not that simple at all. For many Americans, The American Dream means to become rich and being able to attain everything that one desires only if one works hard enough for it; that is, from rags to riches. To other people however, The American Dream is much more and in fact goes beyond material things: it is, to them, the dream of leading a fulfilling, contented and simple life and the vital features being equality and faith (Cohen-Marks and Stout 825). In addition, The American Dream is about freedom and the United States being the nation of limitless and boundless opportunities. This persuasive essay argues for the view that because of such things as poverty, growing inequality and wealth gap in the country, The American Dream has slipped away and no longer exists: today, attaining it is impossible for most Americans. Thesis statement: The American Dream has become unattainable for many Americans today due to circumstances that are beyond their control.
The belief in America as the land of opportunity, in The American Dream, was well and alive during the 1860s following the publication of the book From Rags to Riches by Horatio Alger which featured a poor man named Ragged Dick who managed to successfully work very hard and move from poverty to opulence and a respectable position. For generations, the aspirations and hopes of American people has been powered by The American Dream. It commenced as a revolutionary but simple idea: every individual has the right to pursue his or her own happiness in life, and the liberty to do his/her best for a better life through fair ambition and hard work (Lallas 166). Over time however, the dream has come to be a symbol of various expectations with regard to making money and possessing material things. In the past decade, a lot of American adults have doubted whether this dream could actually be realized (Mseka 8). These days, the dream is in fact beyond the reach of the working poor in America who have to work 2 jobs in order to insure the survival of their families. The story of rags-to-riches is a lot more common in Hollywood than it is really is on the Main Street. Just six percent of kids who are born to poor parents manage to shift to the very top of the economic ladder (Mseka 9).
If The American Dream denotes a realistic rate of income growth for those who are employed, then many working people cannot expect to attain it. Wright (196) observed that the middle class in the United States has not seen its earnings increase over the past fifteen years. The percentage of families considered as middle-class is in fact declining. Since the economic crisis of the year 2007/08, median income of households has been falling, whereas the earnings for the richest have gone up (Wright 197). This means that The American Dream is becoming more and more impossible to realize for most American people.
In the year 2013, Robert Putman, a political scientist, pointed out that his hometown of Port Clinton, Ohio embodied The American Dream about 50 years ago: it was a place which provided decent opportuni...