“Why the American Dream is a Myth” — Adam Ruins Everything, 2019, 4:44 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydca1wzlheg

Americans subscribe to the individualistic fantasy that hard work results in success, and the “American Dream” can loosely be interpreted as climbing the social ladder. Sociologists call that (upward) social mobility, a concept describing how individuals can change their socioeconomic status. While mobility is possible in open class systems, increasing structural inequalities are making this ever more difficult in the United States. We currently rank 16th out of 24 countries in terms of social mobility despite being the wealthiest country. As the upper class hordes more wealth than ever before, the lower classes find themselves stuck in a vicious cycle of financial difficulty. Tax cuts and the gutting of social services have benefitted the rich at the expense of everyone else, and 46% of Americans say they can’t afford a surprise bill of $400. Furthermore, being poor is expensive as you can't buy in bulk, face steep fees on credit and debt, and have less time for cost-saving measures like cooking your own meals. Many Americans inaccurately believe the poor are lazy, but most adults on public assistance work full time or more. The problem is not individual laziness or “poor choices”. Rather, the problem is elite greed and stagnated wages. Unfortunately, 70% of Americans believe poor people can make it out of poverty on their own. This makes us less willing to fund social programs which in turn increases inequality.

How else does individualism impact how we approach the problem of poverty? Why do we think of poor please as lazy when rich people take vacation after vacation? What could be done to restore social mobility in the United States?