The American dream is dying, according to the Times. To mark the US’s 250th anniversary, the paper commissioned YouGov to explore whether the country’s citizens still believe that if you ‘work hard and play by the rules’ you will eventually be successful.

Turns out, only 38 per cent of the respondents think this applies to all Americans, while 59 per cent think the American dream is now less attainable than it was when they were growing up. In addition, 38 per cent rated today’s quality of life as ‘excellent’ or ‘good’, compared with 60 per cent who said the same about 1976, the bicentennial year.

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No doubt flatlining real wages and the hollowing out of America’s middle class have played a part in this increasing pessimism, but it’s worth noting that the American dream has never really been grounded in reality. If you define it in terms of how many generations it takes a child from a modest background to reach the average level of income, the Nordic countries come out on top in the OECD, where it........

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