The American Dream has become just that...a dream...for most Americans. A USA Today report examined the cost of the typical American Dream---a family of four in a median-priced home with a median-priced vehicle and standard health care coverage---and found it is now more than $150,000 per year, a 36% increase from ten years ago. During that time, overall costs in the U.S. have risen by 32%.
The biggest drivers of this cost-of-living increase are housing and food. The median home price has doubled in most major cities over the past decade, while food prices are up by nearly 36% in that same period. "Prices have risen so much faster than earnings growth, that people literally just can't keep up," says EJ Antoni, economist with the Heritage Foundation. "We're talking about things like housing and food---these are necessities. It's not as if vacations just got more expensive and we can just take fewer trips, this is a cost-of-living crisis."
According to the Census Bureau, only about 1 in 8 households earn enough to afford the American Dream. Antoni says this is not sustainable for a stable society. "This is actually the first time where an entire generation of Americans, on average, think they will have a lower standard of living than the generation that came before them," he tells KTRH. "We haven't seen that since the Great Depression."
Photo: Moment RF