Brandon King: The American Dream

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Bread on the table and wine in the cup, a comfortable life has been the definition of the American Dream since our nation’s establishment. But as life changes, so do dreams. While some argue that the American Dream is as active as George Washington is today, Brandon King, author of the article “The American Dream: Dead, Alive, or on Hold?” argues that it lives to this day. The American Dream is alive and well in our modern society and is achievable by any citizen. Brandon King, in his article, “The American Dream: Dead, Alive, or on Hold?” first explains the American Dream. King explains of a survey of the New York Times that “72 percent of Americans still believed it was possible to start poor, work hard, and become rich in America” (qtd.…show more content…
He quotes Robert Reich, an economist, on the concern of the gap between the economic classes, “As long as income and wealth keep concentrating at the top, and the great divide between America’s have-mores and have-lesses continues to widen, the Great Recession won’t end…” (qtd. in Reich, 612) The rich keep acquiring more wealth as the poor make just enough to survive; continuing to expand the gap between the economic classes only harms our economy and causes people to lose faith in the dream of rising to the top. King brings up the idea enacted by the government as a solution to this problem: raising the minimum wage. However, he argues that this does not support the economy, nor does it help the citizens in the lower financial class. The idea is to bring government support to help increase the profits of the common worker; however, this mainly caused people to lose jobs and prices to raise in order to keep the business running. In agreement, raising the minimum wage mostly brings harm to our economy because of these reasons. While a pay raise may help the worker achieve the American Dream, it also puts other workers out of work, which leads to no Dream for there is no

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