Monday, March 26, 2012

Is Diversity Exempt from Recovery?


As our economy slowly churns forward and confidence seems to be growing, it appears that our views towards diversity are not moving along the same growth path.  Over the past 7 months, the American Dream Diversity Index has fallen nearly 2 full points.  That is, we have moved almost 2 percentage points away from fully achieving the Dream of Diversity.  For the ADCI, we measure diversity as the attitudes toward the assimilation of differences in one’s community.  More specifically, we look at:
·       The acceptance of diversity in one’s neighborhood
·       The acceptance of different personal and social ideates (i.e. sexual orientation and religious practice)
·       The extent of exposure to diverse cultural experiences
·       The satisfaction with the ability to vote freely and make political choices.
The good news is that the American Dream Diversity Index is the highest valued Index among all American Dream Indices.  The bad news is that all four areas of diversity are slowly degrading.  This begs the question:  Is diversity exempt from recovery?
Over the coming months, the ADCI team will be following this forming trend and report its findings. Visit the ADCI web site for more details.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

What the American Dream Means


In recent years, countries are grappling with the question of how to measure national well-being. The governments of The United Kingdom, France, and Canada, for instance, are trying to understand what aspects are relevant for measuring national well-being.  Well, the answer can be found in the American Dream Composite Index (ADCI).  The ADCI provides a comprehensive look at five broad categories – economic, personal well-being, societal, diversity, and environment.  Taken together, these five categories measure how the nation is performing taking into account all the important and relevant aspects of one’s life.  The ADCI is, in effect, the national well-being index for the U.S. So, how are we doing?  Well, the ADCI has been hovering around 63 on a scale from zero to 100.  This means that, as a nation, we are 37% away from fully realizing complete satisfaction with every aspect of our lives.

Monday, March 5, 2012

By My Bootstraps

We often hear that the American Dream is being able to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make a better life for yourself.  This idea comes from the writings of James Truslow Adams in his work The Epic of America.  In this, he writes that the American Dream is:

“that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement….a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position”

This concept still resonates today and is captured in the American Dream Composite Index as the Fruits of My Labor where it is measured as the extent to which one is rewarded fairly for efforts in life.  Interestingly, it exists as part of our overall personal well-being.  As a significant dimension of the America Dream, it exists as one of its strongest cornerstones.  For February 2012, this dimension was measure at 68.1.  That is, we are 68.1% of the way to fully reaping the benefits of the fruits of our labor, on average.   Not bad, but what’s missing?  Why are we not getting what we feel we deserve? 

Friday, March 2, 2012

Where You Live Affects Your Generational Progress

Generational progress, the feeling that one has a better life than the previous generation, is a significant component of the American Dream. This is a major goal for immigrants as they move to the United States. They want their children to live a better life with more opportunities than they had.


Studies have shown that generational mobility is affected by parental skill and earnings. But does ethnicity also play a role in upward generational mobility? Today, as well as in the past, many people immigrating to the U.S. associate themselves with a particular ethnic group.  Upon entering the country, many people choose to live with and among those with whom they share the same ethnicity or race.  Do such ethnic associations and affiliations affect generational mobility? Recent research suggests that they do.  


A critical finding indicates that the average skills of the ethnic group in the parent’s generation play a large role in the degree of generational mobility realized by children.  Generational income mobility, for instance, will depend not only on parental earnings but also on the mean earnings of the ethic group in the parent’s generation.  This finding has many important implications, not the least of which is that such “ethnic spillover effects” will likely hinder generational progress for relatively disadvantaged ethnic groups.  Although we all may dream of generational improvement for our children, this may not happen for everyone.