America is home to the incredibly fortunate, those just getting by, and the tragically
forgotten—the haves, the have-somes, and the have-nots. In a perfect world, these distinctions might not exist, or at the very least be less defined. But, we don’t live in a perfect world. America has always been painted as the ultimate land of opportunity, where upward mobility is not only a possibility, but a birthright as an American citizen: the American Dream. But, it has never been that simple, nor realistically attainable by all Americans, especially in recent decades. There will always be those who ascend to the utmost peak of the socioeconomic ladder, those stuck hanging on in the middle, and those who struggle to begin the climb. We do, however, live in a world where it is entirely possible for societies to make it easier for all involved to pursue opportunity and climb out of generational poverty. It just takes the collective will to repair the lowest rungs and mend the gaps cursing the middle. In the United States, the middle class is evaporating, leaving increasingly divided extremes at either end, which in turn feeds the
mounting momentum of systemic marginalization of middle and lower class Americans.
There was once a fabled time and place where middle and lower Americans could comfortably envision and perceivably obtain what they pictured was a good and prosperous life fit for them. Though, much like the details of a fuzzy dream, so too has the American dream been lost. But fear not.
It’s not dead—it’s just lost somewhere deep in the recesses of our institutions.
Because of widening socioeconomic division, Americans of different economic brackets are subject to increasingly different experiences of life in America. Some students come into adulthood encumbered with insurmountable debt, while others skate through college thanks to their celebrity parents and their six and seven figure donations. Some families require three or four jobs across adults and teenagers to survive, while others thrive off of large portfolios. Some Americans live in fear of going to the doctors, not necessarily for fear of dying to illness but of being crippled by debt, while some don’t have to think twice for a check-up or procedure. Having the opportunity to live an advantaged and comfortable life is not an evil thing, nor does it by default nullify any past, current, or future hardships. But nonetheless, for a growing list of reasons, these advantaged experiences have become progressively exclusive to those comfortably positioned atop the socioeconomic ladder, which impedes and disenfranchises entire populations of Americans from achieving their own American Dream.
As is the case with many of the systems both theoretical and concrete in America, education knows its fair share of lopsided treatment. In a perfect world, the societal construct of education would utilize its power to lift any one person out of their disadvantageous position in life, and give them the tools and resources to build a more prosperous future. As was once said by Horace Mann, one of our country’s strongest proponents for quality public education in the nineteenth century, “Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is a great equalizer of the conditions of men—the balance wheel of the social machinery” (1957). Theoretically, it is an equalizer in the potential opportunities it creates for any number of people of any perceivable background, allowing even those at the bottom of the ladder to ascend.
Within this role, the construct of education can lift Americans out of disadvantageous positions, and propel them into a prosperous life, allowing them the power and knowledge to create their own version of the American Dream. Therefore, to better prepare the populace to achieve and thrive in America, funding public education is a necessity so that it has the resources to provide its students sufficiently. In American government, responsibility rests upon the states to fund the majority share of education, which allows for varied levels of funding across state and county lines. Much of the Northeast, for example, spends at least $13,000 per student on public school funding, whereas much of the Southwest and Deep South spend below the $10,000 mark (US Census Bureau, 2020). More specifically at the top of the scale, the states of New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia all spent from $20,021 to $24,040 per student, while the states of Alabama, Texas, New Mexico, Tennessee, Nevada, North Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Arizona, Idaho, and Utah all spent from $7,628 to $9,696 per student (US Census Bureau, 2020). Those dollars are put to use through staff salaries, support programs, and administrative duties. With such a discrepancy from top to bottom, students are given wildly different educations. As has been shown throughout human history, a properly educated populace can usher in prosperity for future generations.
The inequitable treatment and funding of education, a pillar of society, fosters the divide between the haves and have-nots. When the educational experience is lopsided from the get, those on the lower rungs start the climb with an incredible disadvantage. Education as an equalizer is not quite working out as originally planned—with such a disparity across the country, the picture of American inequality becomes clear. When entire portions of a population are at such a systemic disadvantage because of lack
of educational opportunities available to them from the beginning, future prosperity is that much more difficult to achieve. Regions that do not put as much of an emphasis on education, either for lack of general funds or poor allocation of said funds, are marginalizing their very own citizens by not sufficiently providing them the tools to build their own version of the American Dream, furthering the divide between the haves, have-somes, and have-nots.
Unfortunately, this trend does not stop with education. The traditional path of life
within the United States is as follows: primary education, secondary education, post-secondary education, all of which then leads into employment. This isn’t the path all Americans take, but it is the general guide for many. With that traditional path in mind, it is natural that a rocky foundation progresses into concrete struggles further down the line, leading all the way into career prospects and future retirement.
Education levels play a vital role in salary, which then determines where along the socioeconomic ladder one might land. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “full-time workers age 25 and over without a high school diploma had median weekly earnings of $608, compared with $781 for high school graduates and $1,421 for those
holding at least a bachelor’s degree” (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021). Those numbers translate to $31,616, $40,612, and $73,892 per year, respectively. And the average salary needed to purchase a median-priced home in the 50 largest metro areas is just over $60,000 (The salary you must earn to buy a home in the 50 largest metros, 2021). Americans have been taught for generations that the utmost achievement as an American citizen is home ownership, yet so many Americans are left stranded. For a country to boast about being the ultimate land of opportunity, while simultaneously allowing many of its citizens to flounder in generational struggles to achieve the patented Dream, is disingenuous. It is an experience that is becoming increasingly
reserved for the White and wealthy.
The Dream was brought to existence because the country and the systems it once fostered helped its citizens flourish in the middle class. Stagnant wages paired with skyrocketing cost of living and the ensuing death of the middle class are just
symptoms of a long-lasting philosophy of division. Yet again, however, the buck doesn’t stop with poor wages, the symptoms are taking root within our bodies as well.
Healthcare is the final form of sorts of class division in action. Not every American has
the ability to access top-notch medical attention or sufficiently comprehensive healthcare coverage. According to TransUnion Healthcare, “68% of patients failed to fully pay off medical bill balances in 2016, up from 53% in 2015,” and “67% of Americans are either very worried or somewhat worried about unexpected medical bills” (2019). The fact of the matter is that many Americans simply can’t afford a medical bill sprung up on them. The lower classes of society are at a genuine disadvantage in terms of survival because of their inability to financially maintain their health. Many of the states that struggle to provide a quality education for their citizens also fall short in providing quality health care. Of the twelve states with college graduation rates below 50%, all but the state of Arizona fall in the bottom half of the country in terms of health care access, quality, and overall public health. Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, and
West Virginia all rank among the bottom ten (Ziegler, 2019). One of the most troubling trends in Americans’ health is that of the rampant rise of obesity. The obesity rate has skyrocketed at an alarming rate in the last decade, with poorer American’s being in the frontlines, thanks much in part to food insecurity due to economic conditions. According to the Trust for America’s Health, the obesity rate jumped a staggering 26% from about 16% in 2012 to 42.4% in 2019, with the highest rates being among Black Americans at 49.6% (2020).
Being a perpetually marginalized population of Americans, it isn’t surprising to see Black Americans taking the brunt of the damage. When socioeconomically disadvantaged people are denied genuine prosperity, they look for any enjoyment they can find. Food insecurity is a double-edged sword because when a disadvantaged person struggles to afford food, the only food they can afford often turns out to be not only the worst for their health, but also the most addictive. Cheaply made food might not be inherently addictive, but the enjoyment associated with it is because it is often packed to the brim with preservatives and sugar making it taste good despite it being “affordable,” which then of course leads to further health problems—only to be ignored because of the price tag associated with a doctor’s visit. When rich tasting and unhealthy food becomes one of the only luxuries one can indulge in, it develops into an incredibly unhealthy habit, as the numbers attest. The long-term effects of generational socioeconomic divide are becoming unmistakable, and we are finally starting to see its most devastating results in the form of our quickly deteriorating health.
The American experience for so many is becoming increasingly tragic. The utopian
frontier of America is all but lost. The evidence is mounting that the systemic division so
ingrained in American life is actively denying many of its citizens access to their birthright.
Every disadvantaged step along the way is designed as a trap to keep the marginalized ensnared in vicious cycle after vicious cycle, hindering genuine prosperity. If the marginalized manage to escape the poorly built education system, the intimidating wage gap awaits them, and lurking just around the next corner is the terrifying beast of manufactured mortality.
Except for the highest of rungs, the ladder of opportunity has been abandoned and left to die a grotesque death.
For the Dream to once again become a reality and mainstay of American society, the climb must not be an impossible feat. The ladder must be repaired, bottom to top. If the foundation is nonexistent or wildly unequal and the rungs throughout the middle decayed, the ascent is impossible. It is completely within our power to mend the divide and lift our most disadvantaged. Prosperity has to begin somewhere. It seems responsibly educating our future generations is as good a start as any, so that
Americans can once again make the climb, ascending each rung with newfound confidence.
References
Mann, H., & Cremin, L. A. (1957). The Republic and the School: Horace Mann on the Education of Free Men (Classics in Education Series).
Teachers College Press.
News Reports about a Weakening Economy Impacting How Some Patients Seek Medical
Treatment. (2019, September 17). TransUnion Healthcare.
The salary you must earn to buy a home in the 50 largest metros. (2021, February 25). HSH.
Usual weekly earnings of wage and salary workers fourth quarter 2020. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf
U.S. Census Bureau (2020). Public elementary-secondary education finance data. Retrieved from
Warren, M., Beck, S., Delgado, D. (2020). The state of obesity: better policies for a healthier
America 2020. Trust for America’s Health. Retrieved from
Ziegler, B. (2019). Healthcare Rankings. US News & World Report. Retrieved from
I would also expand to say that what we need is not a ladder to afford the least fortunate access, but an equitable field where instead of an equality of oppression, we have an equality of access.
We are the only species on the planet that willingly subjugates itself, with an idiotic smile plastered across its face.
The COVID pandemic has highlighted this, to the extreme. Even on internet "bastions of leftist ideology" like DailyKos, I see people complaining about, as landlords, "the government stepping in to say that leases just don't matter." Oh. You may have to chip in (through covering your own mortgages for a time) to help those whose lives have been decimated through no fault of their own? Here, let me buy you a fainting couch. And you call yourselves Liberals.
I, proudly, am so far left, that nothing short of a borderless world devoid of boundaries, national governments, even private property, and religious theocracies will suffice. I am anti-fascist; I am anarchist; I am Left.
George Carlin, #3 on my list of…