r/politics • u/SnoozeDoggyDog • 15h ago
Possible Paywall Zohran Mamdani says ‘you have to luck out in some big way’ to achieve the American Dream now—and many people see better odds of winning the lottery
https://fortune.com/2026/10/03/zohran-mamdani-luck-american-dream-lottery-affordability-crisis-housing/2.3k
u/OldYellersLastHandy Texas 15h ago
AOC said at the DNC convention that “there’s no shame in working for a living.” That’s the message dems must embrace.
If you’re a normal person working a normal job in our fabulously wealthy nation, you should not be terrified of losing everything you have if you or your kid gets sick.
You are not a loser for being a bartender or a garbage collector or a teacher. You are a contributing member of society, and the people telling you that you fucked up seek to oppress you.
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u/Ouibeaux 15h ago
Garbage collectors are incredibly important. Not much changes when most unions strike, but everyone feels a sanitation strike on the first missed pick-up day. There's no shame in working a regular job, but working people shouldn't have to choose between health care and homeownership.
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u/OldYellersLastHandy Texas 15h ago
Yup. There’s a reason the mob ran garbage routes. If your trash stops going away, you have a huge problem.
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u/i_am_a_real_boy__ 13h ago
That, and it was easy to create no-show union possitions.
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u/trumphadababykilled 12h ago
Well, I wouldn't put it past the mob to be a bunch of corrupt assholes.
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u/Hungry_Culture 15h ago
between health care and homeownership.
Nowadays a lot of people are choosing between food and rent. Healthcare isn't even an option. A shit ton of jobs don't even offer a health insurance plan.
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u/Ouibeaux 14h ago edited 14h ago
Oh, I know. I've been there. I used to have car insurance only for a month of every year, just long enough to renew my tags, but then I stopped paying it for the other 11 months because I needed food and rent, didn't have any kind of health insurance until I was in my mid-30's, and even now that I have shitty health insurance, I still don't use it because I've gotten used to health care basically being unavailable to me. A big part of me would rather just die from cancer than participate in their profit schemes. I mostly keep the insurance in case I break a bone or something.
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u/082426grateful 14h ago
Thank you for sharing your experience.
I might normally expecting such decision-making from a person who has made some mistakes or had aome unfortunate bad-luck come his or her way.
Nah.
Now, a person may have put together an outstanding personal life and working history, present for all the big events of life. And effectively just get priced-out of life, all at once.
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u/Ouibeaux 14h ago edited 42m ago
The profit motive is taking over the purpose motive in basically every industry. The health industry has forgotten that their purpose is to provide care to people, not to maximize value for shareholders. And it's in every aspect of everything. Facebook is a vessel for advertising and lifestyle shaping, not a place to connect with people you know and care about. Food is just some artificially colored and flavored nutritional goo laced with industrial waste. We no longer strive to build and make and do the best things, only to have the widest margins. Steady incline in profit motive means steady decline in quality of goods/services/overall life for the rest of us.
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u/Rico_Sonnenfeldt 9h ago
Damn I hate when the UNdeserving poor have to experience the same things as the deserving poor :(
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u/ForanAffairs 12h ago
As a Canadian with our “socialist/communist” healthcare, these stories absolutely terrify me. My wife and I started having children right before Covid happened, when we found out that my wife has a genetic autoimmune disorder. So for the next…. 5 years, anytime one of our kids came home from daycare or school sick, I was front and center and got sick SO many times, and had to take a ton of sick leave from work (I fortunately had a lot saved up). So these situations for you guys are just baffling for me to comprehend.
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u/civildisobedient 13h ago
I mostly keep the insurance in case I break a bone or something.
I've been seeing a lot of people just say fuck it with health insurance because deductibles are so high you might as well just save your money for when you actually do need it and then pay for it yourself. A lot of times you'll actually get a much better price just because the hospital doesn't have to deal with an insurance company. Unfortunately for chronic or life-long conditions that strategy might not work as well.
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u/Nayre_Trawe 12h ago
We have insurance but it's basically just for major health disasters so the expense is capped to our out of pocket max, which is still ridiculously high. So we pay about $13,000 a year just for that privilege. It's crazy.
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u/redwoodtree 10h ago
My understanding is that increasingly the insurance companies are forcing provisions on health care providers to make charging less for out-of-pocket patients a contract violation.
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u/Geedeepee91 11h ago
Small businesses are not required to, also if they did buy a plan for their employees it would probably be so bad it wouldn't be worth it
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u/Zealousideal-Film982 13h ago
I had a psychiatrist that was talking to me about finding work that would be fulfilling for me. He asked me - what’s a job that you see as being vital to society. Without hesitation I said “garbage man”. He acted all flustered. He wanted me to say something more lofty than that. But there’s not many jobs more important than picking up our garbage. I go years without seeing doctors. But it would be a nightmare if we had to go a month without garbage men.
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u/LongLiveAnalogue 13h ago
This is parallel imo to the John Lennon quote:
“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down 'happy'. They told me I didn't understand the assignment, and I told them they didn't understand life."15
u/wellillseeyoulater 10h ago
I’ve always found it weird when people ask “what are you” or “what do you do”. I’m a full person and I am and do a lot of things. The underlying question is “how do you get money?”. I wish people would just phrase it that way
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u/Solderlocks 10h ago
That's why I have shifted to asking people what they like to do. I get much more interesting and insightful answers to that question
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u/ReverendDizzle 7h ago
Society would outright collapse without sanitation workers at every level (janitors, garbage collection, water sanitation, etc.)
They are the line between baseline health and constantly fighting off flesh eating/blood shitting levels of infection and disease.
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u/P1xelHunter78 Michigan 13h ago
There’s also industries that aren’t allowed to strike because they’re “too important” Airline and Railroad workers come to mind. When I worked for the airlines it was evident the airline knew this. Railroad workers are treated like crap too because they can’t strike.
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u/IrrawaddyWoman 12h ago
There are states where teachers can’t strike too. It’s not a coincidence that the pay and conditions are usually far worse in those states.
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u/AVeryHeavyBurtation 6h ago
"One day our society will come to respect the sanitation worker if it is to survive, for the person who picks up our garbage, in the final analysis, is as significant as the physician, for if he doesn't do his job, diseases are rampant. All labor has dignity."
Dr. MLK Jr.
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u/Brief_Accountant_881 12h ago
It’s sad because so many little kids grow up wanting to be a garbage collector then they get older and get taught that that’s the worst fate in life to be a garbage collector.
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u/averagecounselor 11h ago
I mean if you grew up in the 80s but now most people consider garbage collecting to be highly lucrative. (As long as they are unionized)
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u/ProfessorGumble 7h ago
I’m not sure I’d go that far. If you’re unionized it’s a decent paying job, enough to modestly support a family (as it should be), but it’s a job that’s still hard on the body over time especially as you near the last leg of your career, you smell like crap everyday, and there’s still a general social stigma towards it being deemed as a low skill, non-technical job, more so than other blue collar jobs like mechanics, plumbers, and electricians.
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u/sillyhillsofnz 15h ago
Denzel Washington was a garbage collector and postman before making it big.
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u/ChicagoThrowaway422 11h ago
And in Chicagoland, garbage collectors make north of $100k. It's not a bad job.
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u/zffjk 14h ago
It’s funny that garbage collectors and teachers are looked down upon in America when they’re the foundation of our consumerist economy. We can’t work if my kids aren’t watched during work hours. We can’t buy endless disposable shit if there isn’t someone to haul it away.
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u/stasi_a 12h ago
Like all essential workers during Covid -paid a pittance while risking their lives
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u/THElaytox 9h ago
Yeah for real, minimum wage jobs are "not real jobs that only high schoolers should work" until all of a sudden the economy is at risk and they're deemed essential and we basically told them you're not worth making a living wage but you do have to go risk your life in a pandemic to go work
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u/I_pee_in_shower 11h ago
The teacher thing is fucked up because one of the reasons so many people don't reach further is because of bad teachers and bad education compounding over time. We need better teachers and to pay them more simply to have the foundation our society needs.
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u/SpeaksSouthern 12h ago
Truck drivers are seen as lesser than yet they provide one of the single largest benefits to the economy since the invention of the economy
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u/super_sayanything 12h ago
Teacher for 15 years, by far and above the most difficult job I've ever had. And I loved it and was good at it. Amazing the disrespect when everyone also says "oh i could never do that"
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u/SnoozeDoggyDog 14h ago
You are not a loser for being a bartender or a garbage collector or a teacher. You are a contributing member of society, and the people telling you that you fucked up seek to oppress you.
Ironically, the same people saying this to you and looking down on you are the same people attacking and waging a culture war against higher education and the higher education institutions that would allow for better jobs and social mobility.
Makes you wonder where the "bootstraps" are even supposed to come from....
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u/averagecounselor 11h ago
Eh to be fair I’ve spent plenty of time in elitist circles and minus the teachers they tend to look down on blue collar society.
Working in Congress was such a trip as most staffers couldn’t fathom having a first name relationship with the baristas from the coffee shop down stairs, the dry cleaners in the building or the barbers. I worked for a dem office ffs.
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u/Sinfire_Titan Indigenous 9h ago
minus the teachers they tend to look down on blue collar society.
Speaking from a social circle closely tied to teachers, the upper class 100% looks down on teachers too. They expect their students to be top-grade earners even when they know their kid has an IQ fighting to break room temperature, and the minute those parents get evidence to the contrary they lash out at the teachers.
My grandmother and her colleagues have decades worth of stories of parents being sacks of shit, and it was very rare for the anger to come from the poverty line. How she was willing to endure 40+ years of that is beyond me.
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u/averagecounselor 8h ago
I worked in education for many years and that’s a solid assessment. The difference being I worked at low income schools and it’s nice to see that upper class parents are just as exhausting and dismissive as their lower/middle class counterparts.
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u/busted_up_chiffarobe 10h ago
Republicans I know simply say condescendingly "Get a better job."
and "nobody's stopping you."
or "You made your decisions."
or "Maybe stop getting tattoos and expensive cell phones."
Now all stupidity aside, the redders I've argued with can't grasp one simple fact:
There isn't an infinite number of six figure jobs that any average person can just "go get."
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u/eric23456 8h ago
I don't see the problem. You should just ask your parents for a $1m loan so that you can start your own business.
/s
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u/KickDesperate5318 12h ago
I just want to point out that higher education alone is not enough. Jobs don't get created just because educated people are graduating who can perform those jobs; jobs are created when business owners/executives decide to create them.
There is no correlation between an increase in available skilled workers and an increase in available positions. The number of positions available are driven by profit and growth based equations. An increase in the labor supply usually leads to wage suppression and a lack of job security.
That said, education is really fucking valuable. We just shouldn't treat universities like job training factories.
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u/Party-Dirt-7178 8h ago
It really depends. The argument for everyone going to school and getting educated was conceived at a time when american tax dollars and corporate tax dollars actually got invested back into creating valuable jobs. There was a logic for it. But after Reagan, Jack Welch, and many other factors those investments shrunk and the demand for those jobs disappeared. Imagine the missing demand just in the solar industry, if American had heavily committed to investment in the Carter 80s or Gore 00s and now dominated the worldwide industry
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u/Defiant_Wolf5934 8h ago
I think there needs to be a little bit of clarity. Jobs get created when demand necessitates them. And good jobs get created when government institutes policy measures that forces business owners and executives to treat their employees with dignity and pay them fair wages and benefits. Education ensures that workers have the right skills for the job and can think critically. But it is demand, not supply (i.e., business owners and executives) that creates jobs.
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u/KickDesperate5318 8h ago
Jobs get created when demand necessitates them.
But there are only two demands anymore: profit and growth.
A more enlightened and civilized approach would be to work towards a needs-driven economy. But modern day America is actively hostile towards that concept.
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u/Brave-Eye168 11h ago
AOC said at the DNC convention that “there’s no shame in working for a living.”
And you should be able to afford a house working for a living. My parents were able to buy every house we lived in in the 90s and they worked as a house cleaner and my dad in pizzerias. If my parents tried buying the house they live in today it would be impossible. We've all been priced out of owning a house. Hell even renting an apartment on your own is astronomical - you need dual income just to rent.
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u/Stupidstuff1001 13h ago
Japan has this mentally. Every job is needed for society to function. Thats why everyone takes pride in their work too. America has this shitty upper middle class and upper class that treat so many people beneath them because of their profession
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u/Defiant_Wolf5934 8h ago
Look at our culture. We have a culture of selfishness and lack of community. How many people in neighborhoods know their neighbors? During times of hardship, how many people come together and pool their resources for the common good? Instead, we idolize tech billionaires and the hoarding of wealth.
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u/the2belo American Expat 4h ago
Japan has this mentally.
Japan here. That mentality has been dying a slow death for years. This country is suffering under the same late-stage capitalism issues: a drastically low birth rate and an aversion to low-paying service and physical labor jobs, which have been increasingly been given to foreigners, causing a huge increase in immigration, causing hand-wringing and anger by people who are terrified their precious culture is "dying" under the pressure of foreign "invasion", causing more vocal right-wing sentiment... Sound familiar?
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u/DrMobius0 13h ago
I think there's another side to employment though: the indignity employers inflict on their workers. Work is not shameful, but it sure can be made undignified.
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u/FlatLandSasquatch 12h ago
I've been called a loser for my job a lot of times by people of lots of generations and backgrounds. I am a dishwasher in a mom and pop cafe.
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u/TheGreatElChubbo 11h ago
I work at a title I school and I love teaching. I also frequently wonder if I would have been better off at a job I don’t like with a better income. I’ve been looking into getting my CDL to drive tractor trailers lately. If things keep going the way they are, my husband (also a teacher) and I won’t be able to afford our mortgage. We have no children. I have a part time job after school and on weekends so that I can afford to work as a teacher. This is not what I was raised to believe a college education of any kind would get me. I feel scammed.
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u/redwoodtree 10h ago
We've all been scammed. Anytime I do anything in commerce I'm looking for the scam. From the grocery store to cell phone providers, you name it, there's a scam. And that's just the legal scams. Then there's all the other scams. I'm shocked when I have to deal with something and there's no scam.
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u/lyons4231 11h ago
I'm sorry, that sucks all around. Are there options that would allow you to stay on the field maybe tangentially? What about private school teacher positions or university roles? Maybe principal or admin side?
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u/Z0mbiejay 14h ago
I started rewatching Mindhunter with my wife, takes place in the late 70s. In one of the episodes they go to interview a guy who's fiancee was found dead. They're talking about how he's 26 working as a bagger at a grocery store. They pull up to his first floor duplex. My immediate thought was "damn, people could afford a place on a bagger salary, we've been robbed"
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u/OldYellersLastHandy Texas 13h ago
Yeah, my “rich” grandparents raised 5 kids and put them through college. He sold industrial plumbing supplies, which is a serious job for sure, but he never went to college. He didn’t own the business. She worked the counter at Sears when the kids were old enough to not need constant care because she was “bored.”
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u/FellowHumanNo404 13h ago
Yeah, my “rich” grandparents raised 5 kids and put them through college. He sold industrial plumbing supplies, which is a serious job for sure, but he never went to college.
Yeah. My mother raised two kids alone-- one of whom is a college graduate-- and she had never finished grammar school. That would be beyond impossible today.
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u/suppmello 12h ago
I think the only shame regarding being a teacher or garbage worker is the value we ascribe to those roles via $. They are criminally underpaid considering the importance of those roles to society.
As an ex-corpo millennial that now bartends… the only shame I I feel is for society. It is far more lucrative to bartend/serve at a decent restaurant than to be a teacher, social worker, waste worker, etc. Hell it’s more lucrative than any corporate job I’ve had, with less hours and stress. I find that to be a good example of how our priorities and pay structures are simply nonsensical.
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u/Brs76 14h ago
and the people telling you that you fucked up seek to oppress you."
These people saying that want you to feel demoralized with your head down and ....NOT Voting. The ultra rich win when average folks fail to vote
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u/BackToWorkEdward 6h ago
AOC said at the DNC convention that “there’s no shame in working for a living.” That’s the message dems must embrace.
If you’re a normal person working a normal job in our fabulously wealthy nation, you should not be terrified of losing everything you have if you or your kid gets sick.
The second half(terror) has nothing to do with shame. None of this should be about shame.
If you literally can't afford to pay the bills because your career doesn't pay enough, somebody telling you "There's no shame in that." "You are not a loser" isn't going to fucking help. The dems must embrace the message of "corporations need to pay people more and charge less".
Otherwise this is starting to sound an awful lot like the campaign to tell people "Remember to take care of your mental health. We need to end the stigma against seeking help" while countless people are desperately trying to get professional treatment and being turned away by years-long wait times and completely-unaffordable therapists. The stigma and the shame are not the fucking issue here; people not getting the actual resources they need is.
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u/hypercosm_dot_net 13h ago
“there’s no shame in working for a living.”
Which most of us want to do. A major problem, is that so many of these jobs are being offshored or otherwise outsourced.
How are Americans expected to compete, when there's entire populations willing to do the jobs for 1/5th of the pay?
There's no stability in the American job market, especially with 'at will' employment.
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u/FellowHumanNo404 12h ago
How are Americans expected to compete, when there's entire populations willing to do the jobs for 1/5th of the pay?
Unionization.
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u/hypercosm_dot_net 12h ago
There are tons of jobs that don't have unions. I'm a web dev/software engineer, and there's no solidarity in this profession. I'm sure there's countless other office jobs - marketers, data analysts, sys admin, designers - that don't have unions.
I don't know the solution, some kind of regulation that if you're doing business in the US, especially if you're based here, then a certain amount of staff must be employed here.
It has to be fixed. So many people get laid off, and their job goes overseas.
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u/TheTeenageOldman 8h ago
AOC said at the DNC convention that “there’s no shame in working for a living.” That’s the message dems must embrace.
Agreed. Not only should they say there's no shame it, but they should push the message that there's honor in working for a living, and Republicans are dishonoring people by tanking the economy.
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u/nekomeowohio 10h ago
Society would not function without the jobs that maga types love to degrade and made fun of
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u/DryRelationship1330 6h ago
agree. if you're working 40 hours, living within means, then you should not be terrified of losing everything. however, you shouldn't delude yourself into thinking you're going to be rich.
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u/DoesntMatterBrian Texas 5h ago
Reminds me of a funny story. Libertarians took over a town in New Hampshire and cut the budget drastically. One of the things that went was sanitation pickup.
Black bear encounters skyrocketed.
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u/kehakas 10h ago
As I've moved farther left, I've stopped thinking about the American dream in terms of money, and more in terms of things you either want or need, but don't feel like doing, and want to pay wage slaves to do them for you. People dream about amassing a bunch of money that allows them to live the rest of their life on a boat and ensures that their kids will "never have to work a day." This to me is very perverse. You wanna basically remove yourself from being a contributing member of society (don't sell me the line about how inventing the next popular widget is a meaningful contribution) and pay people to build your home, cook your food, raise your kids, hang your 100-inch TV, maintain your yard, meet your every need and desire on vacation, etc etc. And what Zohran is doing here is reminding people how rare it is that any of us will achieve this level. But frankly, even people in the upper middle class who just go to their (sometimes stressful) jobs, make a healthy six figures, and pay everyone to do everything else for them, deserve some of this shame. To say nothing of how our lives are better in the Western world because we're extracting resources from the global South (yeah yeah, I'm sounding like one of those people. Please put on your empathy hat and listen to a Jason Hickel interview.) Consider all the undesirable jobs that also make shit money: trash collection, caring for disabled people, teaching, some types of construction. Vocations which, if we somehow deported every undocumented person, the remaining workers wouldn't be chomping at the bit to perform. We're very good at rationalizing why "someone else should have to do that job instead of me" because we've sold the myth of meritocracy, which totally ignores, like, every historical data point about anyone who isn't a white man being systemically prevented from building wealth. It PAYS to maintain an underclass that serves our needs, and it PAYS to keep them fighting amongst themselves.
If you've read this far and somehow fall in the Venn diagram of thinking I'm up my own ass, but you're also intrigued, I'd suggest easing into these ideas of true empathy for the impoverished by listening to podcast interviews with Matthew Desmond, and then if that leads you to accepting that American poverty is everyone's responsibility (as opposed to some moral failure) then also check out Jason Hickel interviews. And I would highly recommend the Citations Needed podcast as a general eye-opener.
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u/Lathael 13h ago
My personal stance: The lowest paid worker at the lowest paying company in the country should still be able to live a comfortable, even fairly luxurious life. What kind of luxuries? Being able to go to a good restaurant to eat out at least once a week. Being able to own an affordable luxury car. Not rent, not lease, own. Being able to maintain a hobby for every individual in your family. Being able to own some form of house, be it a true house, or something like a condominium, and to have a comfortable life for their family in that house.
Things like food, water, health, and telecommunications aren't luxuries, they're securities.
Some of these can be solved by wealth inequality fixes. Others need us to destroy suburbia and change zoning laws to fix (E.G. why do we no longer have low density row houses within meaningful walking distance of services like schools, grocery stores, etc?) Low density housing like suburbia just cannot be fixed in any meaningful way that provides essential services without first recognizing that suburbia puts a massive tax burden on cities and the density of suburbia is too low to cover that burden.
We as a people keep rewarding the ultra rich over making sure that the lowest worker can have a good, comfortable life. Hell, the lowest non-worker should have a good, comfortable life. Including access to housing and even luxuries. People don't get to choose to be disabled. Very few people choose to be homeless.
But, you know, screw all that, the billionaires need a 27th house.
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u/rtc9 13h ago
What is an affordable luxury car and why would anyone need that? Regular non luxury cars are quite nice and comfortable now and the concept of luxury is partly defined specifically by its not being readily affordable. If everyone owned one, it wouldn't be considered a luxury.
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u/Chicago1871 11h ago
A teacher is the opposite of a loser
Its one of the most important jobs in society. Up there with doctors or garbage collectors.
Whenever teachers go on strike in chicago, everyone notices.
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u/Comfortable-Bread249 10h ago
This is a great response and really gets to the heart (or lack of heart) of the bootstrap fantasy. It’s a tool to oppress.
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u/busted_up_chiffarobe 10h ago
Now how can you convince these folks that trans kids and athletes are not a threat to their prosperity and way of life?
And that losing everything if you or your kid gets sick IS NOT THE ONLY OPTION IN A FREE NATION?
I honestly don't know how to do it.
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u/CatCatchingABird Oregon 7h ago
To add to that, if you are currently unemployed and have been having a hard time finding a job in this economy, you are also not a loser.
The recent job number revisions show that there is a serious problem.
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u/latswipe 6h ago
You are a contributing member of society, until society no longer needs you. Democrats have adopted the foolhardy "actually these workers will just shift to where their labor is needed" infinite mental cuckhold
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u/motophotodojo 15h ago
Back in the 80s, Republicans swore that if we gave the "job creators" all the wealth, it would trickle down. Since then, there are 100x more billionaires with 100x more wealth, so why aren't the jobs 100x better?
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u/Pretty-Curve5448 13h ago
billionaires are wealth extractors, not job creators. Job creators are people like my boss at my local company making a new position. You can obviously see this as billionaire's wealth doesn't scale with job creation.
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u/mrpickles 12h ago
Bosses don't create jobs. Customers create jobs.
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u/Pretty-Curve5448 12h ago
it's def symbiotic lol
the point is my boss doesn't need 100X my wage to create a job.
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u/SpeaksSouthern 12h ago
Imagine what you would do with a billion dollars. Would anything you're dreaming about create the maximum number of jobs possible on purpose? No! You are trying to create things that have little or no human labor because why do you care? You have a billion dollars.
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u/badwolf42 12h ago
What kills me is people like my parents who are educated really bought into it in spite of having learned about the gilded age. Like, we already tried that. It didn’t work. We got the Great Depression. We had sweat shops and company towns. Just, what made you think it would turn out differently under the leadership of an actor?
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u/DesperateTransparent 11h ago edited 11h ago
I've been hearing about company towns coming back. There are supposedly jobs that will house you in a particular neighborhood. If something happens to your job...
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u/TankiesAreWeird 7h ago
They're trying to bring it back. If Republicans have enough time in office they'd bring back company stores and debt prisons.
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u/inflatablefish 13h ago
Demand creates jobs. The boss of McDonalds doesnt create jobs flipping burgers. The guy walking past wanting to buy a hamburger does.
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u/Eggheadpancake 12h ago
Exactly why the weather should be going to the people that actually drive economies. The consumers. Not the fucking ceos and owners.
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u/Legionnaire11 9h ago
It's kind of insane that the elites don't realize how much everyone would benefit if the lower classes were healthy, happy, and had disposable income. We'd be buying all kinds of thing, going on vacations, pumping all of that extra cash back into the economy. It's a system that sustains itself.
Instead they're going to milk everyone dry, end up with all of the wealth as the economy crashes and burns. The end goal doesn't make any sense.
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u/Michael_G_Bordin 9h ago
They know. It's a recipe for stable, long-term growth. But there are two factors they consider more important. First, the money going to workers to be put in motion through economic transactions could just be more wealth added to their hoard. Second, short-term growth strategies create massive instability that, for the wealthiest people, offer yet another opportunity to gather the wealth of others (when businesses sell of assets for pennies on the dollar during contractions).
It really comes down to an extreme greed that is so selfish, they'll burn the planet to ashes and turn us all poor and desperate just to see their hoard grow a little bit more. The craziest thing is, all these demands by progressives and dem-socialists aren't going to bankrupt them or take all their wealth. Even if you housed and fed every person on the planet, there's more than enough cheddar out there for the rich to remain rich. Oh no, instead of $1bn, you'll only be worth $250mn. The horror!
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u/HauntingUpstairs7014 12h ago
Thus, it’s a better time to sell super yachts than ever before! Check mate bottom 99%
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u/MoonOut_StarsInvite Ohio 15h ago
My American Dream is simply being able to live with dignity in my old age. I’ve been doing all the right things, but the economy and life has thrown up some major barriers. Getting laid off from my first job in the recession and not getting another good job until 30 drastically changed my life long attainment and I wasn’t even able to contribute to retirement for years. I’ve faced other stall outs since then, again unable to contribute. I just tell myself that I’ll figure it out and plenty of people have done so with less.
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u/hereditydrift New York 14h ago
That should be it... and not even at old age, but at any age. We shouldn't fret about food, housing, healthcare, and education, but those are the stressors that this rogue capitalist system puts in place to keep the minions working nonstop, never getting ahead, fighting amongst themselves, and suffering mentally and physically from deep systemic issues.
Covering basic needs creates a better country for everyone except the ruling class. The oligarchs and wealthy know that once we have time not to stress over basic needs, then we will turn our thoughts and eyes on the inequalities they've built into their systems and dismantle them.
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u/GIGA255 13h ago
I've come to terms with the fact that my retirement plan once I can no longer work/take care of myself will be to drive as far north as possible until the roads run out and then wander into the woods, never to be seen again.
Retirement is a statistical impossibility unless radical change occurs.
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u/Frostyrepairbug 7h ago
I too have the "Go for a nice Long walk in my favorite National Park" retirement plan.
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u/Bruno_Mart 12h ago
One of the things that really struck me, visiting the US, is just how many nice old grandmas there are working front-line customer service jobs.
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u/M4rshmall0wMan 10h ago
This is what I don’t get. If everyone is experiencing this, why don’t we vote in our fucking interests? Voting literally exists so we can create a better future for ourselves.
(Obviously I know a lot of the causes…citizens united, party blocs, lobbying, electoral college, etc. But ugh.)
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u/calvinwho 15h ago
Dude, I don't need to be a millionaire, I just want to fucking live my life and y'all are making even that untenable
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u/Trippingthru99 13h ago
Yeah there’s a million factors that go into this issue, but the latest is these AI bros telling millions of people to learn how to pivot when AI takes their jobs.
How the fuck is the entire society at large just supposed to pivot in the next decade or so.
What are we even pivoting too?? There’s only so many data centers that need to be built, and whatever new jobs that cone out of AI will never cover what we lose.
It’s just so disheartening. And even if there’s a blue wave in the midterms, I don’t believe Democrat politicians will be any better or faster at reacting to this issue.
It’s all fucked. The only way I can keep going is by focusing on my own individual life. Anytime I think about society at large, it feels fucking hopeless.
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u/thesunbeamslook 13h ago
It's not right to say "y'all'. It's the Republicans and the 1% are the ones waging war on the 99%.
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u/mustangcody 12h ago
It is y'all, since people are the ones voting for these ass hats in office, they may not publicly say who they voted for but they did vote and majority wins.
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u/heavyonthahound 13h ago
I'm sorry...the subscription "Your Life" has expired. Please remit payment within 90 days to continue your existence.
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u/cogitoergopwn 13h ago
In my lifetime, I've witnessed the Corporate Republican party steal elections, put us in crippling debt for blood money wars, create a coordinated propaganda apparatus in am radio/cable/social media/and MSM conglomerates demonizing sane policy and the rest of us, destroy the justice system, and cheat democracy. They've poisoned the well of public discourse through this bad-faith exploitation of the the rural dumb and poor. There are no longer ANY institutions or truths to believe in, because their Orwellian plan worked...and when the country really starts imploding soon (after the democrats sweep the midterms) these rats will be perfectly fine or will escape to another country/host to infect and exploit next. Garchs exploited prideful ignorance and won, and most Americans are just too fucking stupid to realize what the entire game is here.
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u/Made_Human_Music 15h ago
I’m late Gen X and a lot of older ones were able to a buy a house just before the market exploded and prices got obscene and never stopped rising
This lead to many of them buying a starter home then being able to sell it a year or two later for a significant profit. Too many of them have forgotten about that and think it was all them
And for me, I didn’t luck out on that front but I did with family. We’re not rich but my parents have always been a solid safety net which let me take some risks I may not have without them and have a place to go when I failed. I know some of my success is me but I was very lucky to have them and even today I still owe some of success to luck
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u/brycewit Texas 12h ago
Well I have my power ball ticket ready for tonight’s drawing. Anyone that replies to this comment will get $100 each of if I win… 🙏🏼😂
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u/_kinther_ 15h ago
He's not wrong. Even if you do everything "right", there's a greater chance things won't work out for you. I'm doing fairly well right now, but I don't chalk it up to my education and work ethic - it's literally I was just lucky to get the job when I did, which helped push me in the career path I followed.
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u/MatthewUnplugged America 13h ago
I've been around for almost four decades and I don't know a single person who has made it because they woke up every day and worked hard.
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u/APraxisPanda Vermont 15h ago
He is absolutely right. It's entirely about luck. "Meritocracy" only becomes relivent when fortunate people are trying to tell unfortunate people to shut up and stop complaining.
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u/Bartleby11 13h ago
I think we are all in denial that this is going to turn around. This was always the way it was going to go. Power concentrating in fewer and fewer hands until the earth is a wasteland. Look upon my works ye mighty and despair.
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u/seafoodslut1988 13h ago edited 10h ago
Just was watching a YouTube video last night of a successful business owner giving a tour of his headquarters and there was a big sign up in the office that read: "The American Dream Isnt a Hand Out"
I rolled my eyes so hard. I like the guy, but these people just don't get that the odds of the average American living a fulfilling and "comfortable" life are very very low. People dont want to be a millionaire, they want the ability to pay their bills and enjoy their families and pets and working 3 jobs and taking out loan after loan ain't where it's at.
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u/Lifeboatb 11h ago
Labor productivity has risen, but business owners are profiting at a record rate while paying their workers less than before, adjusted for inflation. I wonder how much this guy pays everyone who makes his success possible.
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u/gacsinger 12h ago
No surprise. The US is ranked 27th on the Global Social Mobility Index, right behind Lithuania. Within the G7, the US ranks second-last (Italy is last place). What the US is good at is marketing and self-promotion, so everyone hears about the "American Dream" when that dream is much easier to attain in many other countries.
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u/ElysiumSprouts 15h ago
Success has become tied far too tight to employer. Not all jobs have access to the needed tools. 401k with employer matching? Very limited privilege. Healthcare? Don't even go there, it's so messed up. ACA opened doors, but the GOP keeps their foot on the throats of self employed and contract workers. Too many jobs hold a measure of risk, what if I get sick or have a major injury?
We know the path to wealth and the statistic is miserable, so few follow it. A lifetime of income, setting some aside into retirement savings makes millionaires. 401k let's you save ~24k annual. But an IRA? Only ~7k. AND of course that assumes you've got anything to save at all!
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u/ErinFiqsette 13h ago
A job that actually keeps you reliably employed at the same place, for long enough to even begin saving any money, and plan for the future...
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u/rewardingsnark 14h ago
Work hard 6 days a week but will never own a home, have a family, have medical care or retire
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u/bobcatgoldthwait 13h ago
He's not wrong. Hard work isn't everything. Sometimes it's enough, but often times some luck is involved too.
I got my first job out of college because a guy I briefly worked with at a temp job knew someone who knew someone who got me an internship at a place that ended up being my first full-time career job. At that job, I just so happened to have had the chance to learn how to code (it was not specifically a coding gig, and my degree was not comp-sci related). I was pretty good at it, and was able to transition into a new job that was more specifically focused on software development.
I make a lot more money than I did at that first job. And even that first job paid enough for me to live at the time. If I hadn't met that one guy, if I hadn't take that temp assignment, who knows where I would have been. I recall being offered another job at the time that was sorta related to my degree but it was a lot of grunt work and a temporary assignment. If not for the job I ultimately got, I probably would have taken that one when it was offered, and I'm sure even if it did allow for growth, it would have grown in a totally different direction.
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u/starship7201u 13h ago
Mamdani's not wrong though. I live in predominately Caucasian Midwestern flyover country.
In my town, on average people earn from $35-$75K/annually. The average house price BEGINS at $335K as of August 2026. Homes under $200K are few and far between here.
The counties around us offer plenty of $200K homes, BUT fewer jobs, more crime, worse education.
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u/fountain20 15h ago
I couldn't agree more. The American dream today, unless mommy and daddy are well off is I ate. I have a roof over my head tonight, and work in the morning. Save for what future. I'm more in debt every week I survive, while the superrich need more for the sake of more. This is the endgame of monopoly. I cant wait til everyone rage quits
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u/OneSkepticalOwl 12h ago
I feel incredibly lucky to have achived the "american dream". Barely made it too, did it by sliding under that closing gate like a movie hero. Bought my first house in 2015 and broke through the $100K salary barrier 5 years later. Since then I reached the peak of my career and have everything I can ask for.
Having said that, the only way for me from here is down... I am in my mid 50s and if I lose my current job, it's game over. No one will hire me in my field in a similar position due to my age/salary and won't be able to get a lower position with less money due to being over qualified. If I cannot make it in my current job for anothe 9 years I am fucked
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u/DrunkAndHornyGuy 13h ago
The funny thing is American dream of the past was also mostly unattainable for the majority of people. Its always just been a bulshit myth that Americans love to pretend is or was true at some time.
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u/SuperHiyoriWalker 13h ago edited 12h ago
The white picket fence thing, sure. But until the early 2000s or so, there were a lot of off-the-radar non-shitty job and housing opportunities that took the edge off things for many if not most average Americans, and that’s not the case anymore.
ETA: If it’s not clear what I’m saying—before the current version of the Internet, finding a non-hip neighborhood in a major metro area where you could either afford a house or save significant money on rent was a real possibility, because (for instance) algorithms weren’t blasting it into people’s feeds as an “up and coming” neighborhood. Similar with retail/service jobs with regular scheduling that you could plan around rather than being scheduled “just in time.” These things still exist today, but are much rarer, and their scarcity is a major contributor to this feeling of being “bled dry” which is distinct from the normal struggle of being a working person.
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u/DesperateTransparent 11h ago edited 11h ago
Yes. Even through the 2010's, you could find a modest job in a modest area and make a very modest living. Room with a few people, do something on the side, go to work at an admittedly bad job for a bad check, but it was a living. That's it.
I don't know if social media is entirely to blame for that lifestyle's seeming disapearance these days. There aren't as many entry-level jobs though and many require too much experience, pay too little and offer sporadic, if any hours. Housing is more expensive, harder to find and get into, with too many requirements and restrictions.
Many neighborhoods have been gentrified, yes, but that doesn't account for the unaffordibility of even rural or secluded places now, where there was never enough work. Neither social media nor gentrification account for a severe lack of work that pays enough to live even that modest lifestyle.
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u/DisillusionedPatriot 13h ago
Americans are feeling what the Soviets felt in the late 80s/early 90s.
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u/Qwahlity_Koalatea 13h ago
I was literally venting to my wife about this. I make $82k a year. Can’t afford shit.
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u/evilbadgrades 11h ago
When I was younger, I lived with my grandpop (grandmother passed away and I didn't want him to be lonely). So when I began dating my (future) wife, we would rent hotel rooms every weekend because we couldn't spend time together at either family homes.
As a very young adult, I decided 'well, it's cheaper to buy a home than renting a hotel 8 nights a month, might as well buy a house'.
Crazy part is that the hotel rental prices in that college town really haven't changed over the past few decades. But the mortage on that same home these days would be nearly double the price. Which would pay for over 23 days at the same hotels we rented back then.
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u/Anal-buttsex 9h ago
The issue I have is that we never established exactly where the threshold is for obtaining “the American dream.” If you look at the definition it’s quite vague. If I’m working full time and have all my bills paid, is that considered the American dream? Because if so that’s pretty fucking lame
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u/Eject_The_Warp_Core 15h ago
winning the lottery (at least a multi-million dollar prize) is actually incredibly unlikely. youre several orders of magnitude more likely to be struck by lightning
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u/Mysterious-Action202 14h ago
The lottery is just a poverty tax that used hope as its incentive.
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u/civildisobedient 13h ago
True. A relatively cheap couple of minutes of excitement in an otherwise dreary, dead-end existence. When I waited tables it seemed like everyone in the back of the house would regularly buy scratch tickets (and I bought my share as well). There might have been a $100+ winner once a month, which just fed fuel to the fire that we were setting our money on.
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u/elephant35e 12h ago
Being struck by lightning is probably also more likely than achieving the American dream today.
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u/Continental__Drifter 12h ago
Owning a home, a car, having retirement, being able to afford a family and to provide them with education and healthcare, and having a good life - accomplishing all of these things is actually incredibly unlikely for a lot of people. I'm more likely to be struck by lightning than to get those things.
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u/Nuggyfresh 11h ago
I’ve noticed that retirement in particular has quietly gone away as a goal. Humans are extremely bad at long term planning and it’s so far away that it’s created an odd situation:
People just don’t think about retirement at all. They don’t even hold it against those in power because the concept of it is so far away for most. Which ticks me off, but we’re just not built as a species to consider decades in the future.
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u/Continental__Drifter 11h ago
I don't think the problem is a lack of planning, it's a lack of resources.
How can I "plan for retirement", when I can't afford rent now? When I have to choose between groceries, or medicine?
The problem is a systemic one, an exploitative and unjust system stripping away wealth from the working class, and painting it as individual choices is not only wrong, but is a narrative which only serves to entrench the system. It's like Shell, the oil company, telling people they should do more to recycle their plastic straws. That's not the problem.
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u/Hootinger 11h ago
We are literally the only species that thinks decades into the future and practices long term planning. People can't afford to live day to day. It isn't that retirement is a couple decades away, it's that you can't plan for the future when the crisis is right now.
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u/garbage_timeline 13h ago
He's right.
I wish the working class was educated to despise the wealthy the way the wealthy are educated to despise us.
Instead you get temporarily embarrassed billionaires showing their ass every time an election comes around 🙄
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u/ITWONTLAST999 14h ago
Every single currently successful person got there from a loan, or majorly scamming everyone on the way up. American dream? More like the con man’s paradise at this point
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u/HighPriestessSkibidi 13h ago
I don't even believe in an American Dream and haven't for a long time. I just wanna feel like this is worth living through.
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u/Isnthatneat 10h ago
This. I'm a little over four months sober, and I have never been so fucking ANGRY and depressed. Work, sobriety, none of means anything to me if it feels like I'm fucking fighting for survival.
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u/furthemor 8h ago
Can we stop pretending like there is such a thing as the american dream the term was coined in a time where you could get more in America for less. Now you can get more for less most anywhere but America. The american dream is leaving.
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u/ConditionNo9459 11h ago
George Carlin: “It's called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
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u/LankyPineapple 10h ago
My family and I are homeless and honestly I don't see a way to keep us above water. The barrier to get out is higher than what I as a disabled person can overcome and the waiting lists for any kind of help is YEARS long. I genuinely feel like I have a better chance at winning the lottery though I'd never try because any cash we have goes towards ensuring my daughter will get her next meal and towards keeping us on a couch under a roof, even if it's not our own.
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u/casuallyregarded 13h ago
Trump has ruined us. It’s gonna be very bad soon. Everyone’s going to be selling all their stuff to get by for a bit. Lots of the country will freeze to death this winter. Then there won’t be anyone to buy anything and we’re very close to the dollar collapsing and everything will have been for nothing. A ground war in Iran isn’t enough to save the economy. Even if we completely take over Iran, it’s not going to be enough.
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u/Alice6918 14h ago
My retirement plan is literally just buying a lottery ticket once a year and hoping for a miracle.
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u/angelar_ Texas 13h ago
such as having parents that gave your mental health any attention as a child, for example.
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u/eeyore134 13h ago
It's not just luck, unless you consider whose sperm and egg created you luck. It's connections and money. You need both or, yeah, extraordinary luck, to make it. With the money and connections though it's a cakewalk.
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u/yeah_i_got_it 12h ago
And then when you get yourself in a good position the government and corporations throw a wrench into the works, so you end up having to fight your way out of a hole.
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u/Kohltrain37 11h ago
In America nearly 70% of lottery winners go bankrupt. So really there’s almost no upward mobility in this country even for the smallest percentage of us.
To be fair it’s always been called the American dream and not the American plan.
Hopefully we start getting real French with our leaders.
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u/vixxie_red 11h ago
I lost my job, car had 3 major repairs over 5 months, both my cats got sick and one hospitalized (they are alive thank god, that's the only silver lining I see). I was doing okay until everything fell apart financially at once. I'm doing part time cashiering and food deliveries until I can get full time literally anywhere. Not really sure how the rest of this month is going to go but I'll deliver 7 days a week, 10 hours a day if that means being able to keep my apartment. Bulk grains and ramen. I'm jealous of the people eating delicious looking stuff when I pick up orders at restaurants, and the food always smells so damn good in the car. Seriously considering a food bank. I can't even afford the haircut I've been wanting to get. Fuck all of this.
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u/zenbowman 11h ago
He's right: wealth inequality is the number 1 issue in the world today:
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/The-1s-Share-of-US-Wealth-Site.png
Depeasantization in the global South and the entrance of 100s of millions of people into the private labor force in China have skewed the entire global market to benefit employers over labor. The only way we can restore balance is by aggressive and coordinated state action. No other private/individual strategy can fix it.
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u/l0st1nP4r4d1ce 10h ago
That's why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it. - George Carlin
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u/CharmingLocal7 10h ago
You don’t have to “luck out”, you have to scam & take advantage of everyday, hard working people.
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u/Exotic-Cobbler4111 10h ago
Yeah you have to get lucky and the most common way is to get injured or wronged because of the government's inability to follow it's own rules and then prove that in the governments accountability system.
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u/GhostJohnMcCain 9h ago
100%. The American dream is dead, and with it the expectation that hard work results in upward mobility.
Read the book and join the movement. Strike 120: Confronting American Oligarchy in the 120th U.S. Congress.
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u/imminentjogger5 9h ago
why do you think betting and prediction apps became so prolific? a lot of people see it as their only chance
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u/WordsHappenedHere 9h ago
This is why so many young people, especially young men still live with their parents and trade crypto. They go to the riskiest parts of the market because they are desperate for a big win to escape the horrible economic situation we’ve been forced into by the GOP
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u/Dunge 9h ago edited 8h ago
There's a fishy bunch of billionaire bootlickers comments in here.
"Just save up on a coffee and invest it in the stock market and with a bit of hard work you too can make it big!". Holy hell how disconnected with reality can you be. This hasn't been true for over 50 years now.
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u/Tipsy_Gypsy420 8h ago
Is he wrong?
If you are born into a working class family, you are most likely going to be working class yourself
If you are born into an elite family, you most likely will be an elitist
Winning the lottery literally or figuratively is the only way to to make that jump
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u/BlatantFalsehood 8h ago
Abdul El Sayed on the campaign trail in Michigan:
I'd rather have an economy that creates 1,000 millionaires than one that creates one billionaire.
That type of messaging may just resonate with the Republican-voting, "temporarily embarrassed" millionaires who are, like most of us, living paycheck to paycheck but still believe that if they work hard enough, they'll be rich some day.
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u/FineBumblebee8744 7h ago
Considering his background and being the mayor of a super expensive city, I suppose he'd know
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u/True-Crimes 6h ago
I was going to say, it's ironic that Mamdani, an immigrant who's only real job of running for office has earned him a lucrative six figure salary, feels the American dream is unachievable.
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u/Subject-Dealer6350 Europe 7h ago
At one point you could drop out before high school, learn a trade and work yourself to success. That doesn’t work, you need so much more to pull stuff like it off.
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u/personofshadow 5h ago
One easy step to achieving the American dream:
Be born into a rich family
Just choose better parents, forehead.
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u/Human_Local3519 4h ago
I mean Trump and his crime family achievemed the American dream by robbing, stealing and pillaging...tee hee hee hee
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u/FalstaffsGhost 4h ago
He’s not wrong. There was a guy I went to school with for example who was able to get a big job due to being willing to take an unpaid internship - cause his parents paid his rent and groceries etc.
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u/winterbird 2h ago
Lottery is literally my only chance at even a normal life anymore. One in 300 million is better odds than zero and never.
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