We *can* rebuild itโbut not with the same trickle-down playbook that broke it.
As we enter the next 250 years, the question isn't whether the Dream is achievable. It's whether we'll finally make the policy choices necessary to create an economy that works for everyone.
Middle-out economics works.
None of this happened by accident. 50 years of policy choices funneled wealth upward while wages flatlined. Tax cuts for the rich. Deregulation. Gutting worker protections.
The American Dream wasn't lost. It was dismantled piece by piece by the people who benefited from its destruction.
When an economy transfers wealth upward, even freedom collapses. In 2007, 87% of Americans felt free to choose their own path.
By 2024? Just 72%. For women, it's worseโdown from 85% to 66%. When you're trapped just trying to afford rent & food, "freedom" is just a word.
The numbers don't lie:
โฐ Median wages have flatlined since 1973
โฐ Housing, healthcare, childcare & education costs exploded
โฐ Upward mobility for lower-wage working people has slowed *dramatically*
โฐ 70% now believe the Dream "no longer holds true or never did"
The system was deliberately rigged.
๐บ๐ธ The American Dream was supposed to mean 3 things:
โ๏ธ Work hard? Economic security will be within reach
โ๏ธ Each generation doing better than the last
โ๏ธ Freedom & ability to reach your full potential
Since the 1970s, neoliberal policies have systematically dismantled all three.
As America turns 250, here's what we need to face: the American Dream has been breaking down for 50 years. For the first time ever, younger generations will earn less than their parents. This is the result of decades of rigged policy choices. ๐งต
Funny how we'll debate poverty solutions until we're blue in the face, but suggesting we address extreme wealth inequality? Suddenly thatโs โgoing too far.โ
This isn't about efficiency. It's about:
โ Weakening workersโ ability to organize
โ Making it harder to afford basics
โ Dismantling government that serves working people
โ Enriching corporate backers
The playbook is clear: suppress wages, strip protections, eliminate accountability. Read more โ
Then he fired 250,000+ federal workers, gutted OSHA protections, and delayed the silica rule โ which would prevent 1,000+ deaths from black lung disease. Entirely preventable. Federally abandoned. Trump also fired the BLS Commissioner when accurate economic data conflicted with his narrative.
Trump just became the biggest union buster in American history.
He stripped collective bargaining rights from over 1 MILLION federal workersโthe people who run Social Security, veterans services, food safety inspections, disaster response.
epi.org put it plainly: "Every $ denied to workers ends up as higher income for business owners and corporate managers." That's not a bug in the system. That's the feature.
Trump's admin didn't stumble into making life harder for working ppl. They built it this way.
And through mass deportations, they've destabilized entire labor sectors - construction, caregiving, agriculture; destroying jobs & suppressing wages for workers across the board. This isn't a side effect. When workers have less bargaining power, that money doesn't disappear โ it flows upward.
Start w/ wages. In the past year, the Trump administration has:
โ Stripped bargaining rights from 1M+ federal workers
โ Cut 400K federal contractors' wages from $17.75 to $7.25/hr
โ Slashed farmworker wages by $4.4โ5.4B (a 10โ12% pay cut)
โ Denied 2M home care workers minimum wage & OT protections
Everyone's talking about how unaffordable life has become. Here's something important that gets lost in that conversation: affordability isn't just about prices. It's a race between what things cost and what you earn. And a new EPI report shows Trump is making us lose on both sides.
Trump's budget is the largest upward wealth transfer in U.S. history. The bottom 40% lose income while top 0.1% get windfalls. It slashes Medicaid, ACA, & food aid to fund billionaire tax cuts. This isn't fiscal policyโit's systematic looting disguised as governance.
Your grocery bill didn't go up 30% since 2020 because you started buying fancier cheese. A typical family of four now spends over $1,000/month at the store. This is what happens when we let corporations set the rules.
This is in large part why we saw union membership in the U.S. climb to more than 460,000 last year, bringing the total to 16.5Mโwhich is the highest it's been since 2009.
"The only effective answer to organized greed is organized labor."
When the rules squeeze workers, workers organizeโbecause the economy only grows when paychecks grow.
The stock market is up. Corporate profits are strong. And 108,000 people just lost their jobs in January aloneโthe worst start to a year since 2009.
Maybe it's time to ask: when we say "the economy is doing well," *who* exactly are we talking about?
And ๐ต๐ฉ๐ช๐ด is what โmiddle-outโ really means: rebuilding an economy that works for all of us, not just the top 1%. Want to learn more? Visit www.middleoutcenter.org
Itโs paved with living wages, affordable healthcare, good schools & policies that make it possible for everyone to participate and prosper. When working Americans have money to spend, they create demand, businesses grow, and jobs follow. Prosperity flows outward & upward, not just down from the top.
Trickle-down economics says: โGive the rich more, and hope they share.โ [Spoiler: THEY DON'T]
Middle-out economics says: โBuild from the middle, and everyone rises.โ
Itโs not just fairerโitโs smarter.
The path to a strong economy isnโt paved with tax cuts for billionaires.
A reminder to us all that ๐๐ซ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ฉ'๐ฌ ๐ฉ๐๐ฌ๐ฌ๐๐ ๐๐ฎ๐๐ ๐๐ญ ๐ข๐ฌ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฅ๐๐ซ๐ ๐๐ฌ๐ญ ๐ฎ๐ฉ๐ฐ๐๐ซ๐ ๐ฐ๐๐๐ฅ๐ญ๐ก ๐ญ๐ซ๐๐ง๐ฌ๐๐๐ซ ๐ข๐ง ๐.๐. ๐ก๐ข๐ฌ๐ญ๐จ๐ซ๐ฒ. The bottom 40% lose income while top 0.1% get windfalls. It slashes Medicaid, ACA & food aid to fund billionaire tax cuts. This isn't fiscal policyโit's systematic looting disguised as governance.
We don't have too little wealth. We have $79 trillion that got transferred upward while working people got left behind.
That was a choice. We can make different ones. #EconSky
For 50 years we've been told investors and CEOs are the real job creators. So we built an economy that works for them. And yetโwages stayed flat, costs exploded, and now 7 in 10 people can't afford what used to be called middle class.
Older voters locked in before these changes hit. Younger voters never had a chance.
When you're told the economy is "strong" but you're choosing between rent and groceries, you are not failing. The system is failing you.
Younger generations inherited 50 years of trickle-down:
* Wages decoupled from productivity
* Financialized housing
* Gutted labor power
* Retirement risk shifted onto individuals
Older generations:
* Bought homes before Wall Street turned housing into an investment vehicle
* Had unions strong enough to bargain for real wage growth
* Retired with actual pensions, not the 401(k) experiment
* Got Medicare at 65
And the generational divide is structural, not attitudinal.
Voters over 65:
๐ต 70% already own the home they want
๐ต 63% can afford the life they feel they should
๐ต 24% say they worry about affording "nothing"
Under 30:
๐ต 54% say homeownership is out of reach
๐ต 75% can't afford the life they should
What those polled deemed UNAFFORDABLE:
Education: 58% | Housing: 54% | Healthcare: 47% | Having a family: 44%
75% of voters under 65 can't afford retirement or feel insecure about it
