5 ms·

Yeah, that's kind of how this country markets itself. Being able to afford a home and a family on a regular worker's pay is literally part of "The American Drea

Yeah, that's kind of how this country markets itself. Being able to afford a home and a family on a regular worker's pay is literally part of "The American Dream."

aerosmile 4y ago
The American Dream is not about getting more for less, as in "most luxury for the least amount of effort." It's about having a shot at owning a business without the financial backing of a rich family [0], which is more like "most luxury for an insane amount of effort." [0] A lot of recent discussion centers on how many of the most successful US entrepreneurs come from privileged backgrounds, but you should not lose sight of the fact that literally every other country in the world will fare a lot worse in this regard. Many things are broken in the US, but no other place on Earth has lower barriers to starting your own LLC and hiring your first employee.
- diordiderot 4y ago
  > literally every other country in the world will fare a lot worse in this regard US is 27th place on economic mobility index soooo....
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - pempem 4y ago
    @Aerosmile I dont know that you need to look at Austria. You can just look at America over time. Mobility is getting harder and there's no real need to pretend it isn't
- tcptomato 4y ago
  This is r/shitamericanssay material.
- hodgesrm 4y ago
  The US is not a capitalist paradise. We moved a software company from the UK to a US Delaware Corp 2 years ago and it was a major headache involving substantial legal fees, accounting, employee benefits, and taxes. Texas interestingly has been the hardest to deal with--probably our biggest single accounting expense due to what seems to be antiquated tax management on their end. It was a lot easier doing business in the UK. We had relatively low accounting overhead, the laws were not hard to follow, and we didn't have to deal with having employees and customers sprinkled over a dozen state jurisdictions. We're fortunate to work in a growing and lucrative market, but it's not all peaches and cream.
  - aerosmile 4y ago
    You're confusing accounting expenses and the cost of running a business. Even personal taxes are a pain the US. So, yes, doing your own corporate taxes in the US is likely not a good idea, especially if you hire people across several states. But the cost of an accountant is a minuscule cost compared to paying X% more across your entire payroll (not to mention other aspects).
mepiethree 4y ago
A home, yeah, not a home in downtown metros. My uncle is a teacher and owns two houses in rural Ohio with his wife, kid, and two dogs. Living the American dream.
- diordiderot 4y ago
  How many hours did he work to buy the house. How many will a new teacher have to work.
- refurb 4y ago
  Pretty much. Not realistic to assume someone comes to the US with nothing and then buy a home in say San Francisco. The American Dream is typically "come to the US with nothing and build a comfortable life, no matter who you are". I still think that's possible. Guaranteed? Of course not.
  - nradov 4y ago
    A high percentage of homes in San Francisco are literally owned by first-generation immigrants. You can obviously see this just walking around and talking to people.
- iamdbtoo 4y ago
  Why not downtown metros? Would you prefer to have a poorer group of people who can't live near where they work?
pempem 4y ago
I've thought a lot about this, esp as someone who was born here and whose parents immigrated here for the American Dream. They've done great. We lived in a rural area. It was possible because one of them came highly skilled and solicited to immigrate. That being said I shudder when I hear "just move to rural blah blah blah". My life was horrible there. I was considered black, egytian, non-english speaking, to come from a family of savages or royalty or witchcraft depending on the speaker. This whole "move to a rural place" really doesn't seem open to the non-white growing majority. Its certainly nothing like the Californian life I live now where I still cannot afford a home but can enjoy Mexican, Indian, Ethiopian, Korean, and american culture in a form of acceptance that was fully closed to me growing up.
- gurumeditations 4y ago
  Same with gays especially, you have to live in a city or live in hiding in most places.
  - pempem 4y ago
    Fully agreed ^
- bigthymer 4y ago
  Care to expound some more on the differences between living in rural places vs. the Californian life? I've spent most of my time in the suburbs of coastal cities.
throwaway4aday 4y ago
That's a very different version of the American Dream than what I've always considered it to be. Even as portrayed in movies through rose tinted glasses it's always seemed to be the conjecture that even if you start with nothing, through a lot of hard work, thrift, frugality and determination you can work your way up through the ranks and eventually achieve a good living. They generally make a big deal out of the protagonist living a hard scrabble life while they're working towards their big break. Seeing it as being guaranteed a home and family on an average workers pay is completely detached from that narrative.
lazide 4y ago
Uh no. The American Dream has been about the ability to work hard to better oneself, and work UP TO that after education or doing something unique (like making their own business work and be profitable). Not that anyone could move here and just get it everything by doing the minimum.
- pempem 4y ago
  What is the 'minimum' when every single corporation is working to de-skill jobs so that they can cut wages, limit onboarding etc. We all work on or adjacent to embedded software for robots to replace people in these jobs so that they can go on to be 'free' to have a higher skill job doing....no one ever seems to know what. Except maintaining said robots.
  - lazide 4y ago
    It's literally always been that way. Every business tries to cut costs, or they become unprofitable. Every organization tries to mechanize/create repetitive process where they can to minimize the amount of skilled workers they need as part of it. Every organization tries to skrimp where it can. I literally never worked for a company with an onboarding or training process until I got to a FAANG. At that point I had been in industry full time for ~ 13 years, and worked at everything from startups to established 200+ employee companies. Everyone has been worried about 'automation' nuking the jobs since I was born, and outsourcing killing all industry too. First it was Japan that was going to own the world though. Then Outsourcing to India. Then China. And they had impacts. But somehow, everyone who is useful keeps working, and everyone actually seems better off. Hell, the 'maintain the robots as the only jobs left' was a 90's thing with worries about car manufacturing automation. Back then, a lot of jobs were things like secretaries, gophers (task runners)/delivery workers, retail shopping workers, postal workers, etc. Now people use email and write their own documents, uber or ubereats what they want, have things shipped to their door. Quality of life is dramatically higher in every objective way I can see. And if anything, there are waaaaay more jobs now, and people seem to be doing better everywhere. But they seem to hate everything and everyone way more, and FEEL poorer.
spacemanmatt 4y ago
I don't know when that idea got started, but it seems like my grandparents' generation (The Greatest Generation) enjoyed the greatest benefits of it, then my parents' generation benefited but also inherited their parents' wealth. As a GenX person, I watched my cohort struggle well more than their boomer parents' cohort. The American dream was effectively denied to my generation and it's only gotten worse for subsequent generations.
thedailymail 4y ago
Completely anecdotal, but my maternal grandfather was a first-generation immigrant at the turn of the 20th century, speaking no English, no family, no job - the whole cliché. He did various jobs - fireman, train conductor, court stenographer - none of which would be particularly high-income or high-prestige today. But by the 1960s he had managed to raise 12 children with my grandmother, a stay-at-home mother, and to pay off both a 10-room home in the suburbs of NYC and an 80-acre vacation place in the Catskills. The heroic labor of immigrants notwithstanding, I strongly doubt that would be possible for a fresh-off-the-boater today. I told my 20-something kids about it and they just laughed, like hearing about someone who stumbled across a pot of gold or a magic goose in a fairytale. I can't say I blame them.

Yeah, that's kind of how this country markets itself. Being able to afford a home and a family on a regular worker's pay is literally part of "The American Dream."

aerosmile 4y ago

The American Dream is not about getting more for less, as in "most luxury for the least amount of effort." It's about having a shot at owning a business without the financial backing of a rich family [0], which is more like "most luxury for an insane amount of effort." [0] A lot of recent discussion centers on how many of the most successful US entrepreneurs come from privileged backgrounds, but you should not lose sight of the fact that literally every other country in the world will fare a lot worse in this regard. Many things are broken in the US, but no other place on Earth has lower barriers to starting your own LLC and hiring your first employee.

diordiderot 4y ago
> literally every other country in the world will fare a lot worse in this regard US is 27th place on economic mobility index soooo....
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pempem 4y ago
  @Aerosmile I dont know that you need to look at Austria. You can just look at America over time. Mobility is getting harder and there's no real need to pretend it isn't
tcptomato 4y ago
This is r/shitamericanssay material.
hodgesrm 4y ago
The US is not a capitalist paradise. We moved a software company from the UK to a US Delaware Corp 2 years ago and it was a major headache involving substantial legal fees, accounting, employee benefits, and taxes. Texas interestingly has been the hardest to deal with--probably our biggest single accounting expense due to what seems to be antiquated tax management on their end. It was a lot easier doing business in the UK. We had relatively low accounting overhead, the laws were not hard to follow, and we didn't have to deal with having employees and customers sprinkled over a dozen state jurisdictions. We're fortunate to work in a growing and lucrative market, but it's not all peaches and cream.
- aerosmile 4y ago
  You're confusing accounting expenses and the cost of running a business. Even personal taxes are a pain the US. So, yes, doing your own corporate taxes in the US is likely not a good idea, especially if you hire people across several states. But the cost of an accountant is a minuscule cost compared to paying X% more across your entire payroll (not to mention other aspects).

mepiethree 4y ago

A home, yeah, not a home in downtown metros. My uncle is a teacher and owns two houses in rural Ohio with his wife, kid, and two dogs. Living the American dream.

diordiderot 4y ago
How many hours did he work to buy the house. How many will a new teacher have to work.
refurb 4y ago
Pretty much. Not realistic to assume someone comes to the US with nothing and then buy a home in say San Francisco. The American Dream is typically "come to the US with nothing and build a comfortable life, no matter who you are". I still think that's possible. Guaranteed? Of course not.
- nradov 4y ago
  A high percentage of homes in San Francisco are literally owned by first-generation immigrants. You can obviously see this just walking around and talking to people.
iamdbtoo 4y ago
Why not downtown metros? Would you prefer to have a poorer group of people who can't live near where they work?

pempem 4y ago

I've thought a lot about this, esp as someone who was born here and whose parents immigrated here for the American Dream. They've done great. We lived in a rural area. It was possible because one of them came highly skilled and solicited to immigrate. That being said I shudder when I hear "just move to rural blah blah blah". My life was horrible there. I was considered black, egytian, non-english speaking, to come from a family of savages or royalty or witchcraft depending on the speaker. This whole "move to a rural place" really doesn't seem open to the non-white growing majority. Its certainly nothing like the Californian life I live now where I still cannot afford a home but can enjoy Mexican, Indian, Ethiopian, Korean, and american culture in a form of acceptance that was fully closed to me growing up.

gurumeditations 4y ago
Same with gays especially, you have to live in a city or live in hiding in most places.
- pempem 4y ago
  Fully agreed ^
bigthymer 4y ago
Care to expound some more on the differences between living in rural places vs. the Californian life? I've spent most of my time in the suburbs of coastal cities.

throwaway4aday 4y ago

That's a very different version of the American Dream than what I've always considered it to be. Even as portrayed in movies through rose tinted glasses it's always seemed to be the conjecture that even if you start with nothing, through a lot of hard work, thrift, frugality and determination you can work your way up through the ranks and eventually achieve a good living. They generally make a big deal out of the protagonist living a hard scrabble life while they're working towards their big break. Seeing it as being guaranteed a home and family on an average workers pay is completely detached from that narrative.

lazide 4y ago

Uh no. The American Dream has been about the ability to work hard to better oneself, and work UP TO that after education or doing something unique (like making their own business work and be profitable). Not that anyone could move here and just get it everything by doing the minimum.

pempem 4y ago
What is the 'minimum' when every single corporation is working to de-skill jobs so that they can cut wages, limit onboarding etc. We all work on or adjacent to embedded software for robots to replace people in these jobs so that they can go on to be 'free' to have a higher skill job doing....no one ever seems to know what. Except maintaining said robots.
- lazide 4y ago
  It's literally always been that way. Every business tries to cut costs, or they become unprofitable. Every organization tries to mechanize/create repetitive process where they can to minimize the amount of skilled workers they need as part of it. Every organization tries to skrimp where it can. I literally never worked for a company with an onboarding or training process until I got to a FAANG. At that point I had been in industry full time for ~ 13 years, and worked at everything from startups to established 200+ employee companies. Everyone has been worried about 'automation' nuking the jobs since I was born, and outsourcing killing all industry too. First it was Japan that was going to own the world though. Then Outsourcing to India. Then China. And they had impacts. But somehow, everyone who is useful keeps working, and everyone actually seems better off. Hell, the 'maintain the robots as the only jobs left' was a 90's thing with worries about car manufacturing automation. Back then, a lot of jobs were things like secretaries, gophers (task runners)/delivery workers, retail shopping workers, postal workers, etc. Now people use email and write their own documents, uber or ubereats what they want, have things shipped to their door. Quality of life is dramatically higher in every objective way I can see. And if anything, there are waaaaay more jobs now, and people seem to be doing better everywhere. But they seem to hate everything and everyone way more, and FEEL poorer.

spacemanmatt 4y ago

I don't know when that idea got started, but it seems like my grandparents' generation (The Greatest Generation) enjoyed the greatest benefits of it, then my parents' generation benefited but also inherited their parents' wealth. As a GenX person, I watched my cohort struggle well more than their boomer parents' cohort. The American dream was effectively denied to my generation and it's only gotten worse for subsequent generations.

thedailymail 4y ago

Completely anecdotal, but my maternal grandfather was a first-generation immigrant at the turn of the 20th century, speaking no English, no family, no job - the whole cliché. He did various jobs - fireman, train conductor, court stenographer - none of which would be particularly high-income or high-prestige today. But by the 1960s he had managed to raise 12 children with my grandmother, a stay-at-home mother, and to pay off both a 10-room home in the suburbs of NYC and an 80-acre vacation place in the Catskills. The heroic labor of immigrants notwithstanding, I strongly doubt that would be possible for a fresh-off-the-boater today. I told my 20-something kids about it and they just laughed, like hearing about someone who stumbled across a pot of gold or a magic goose in a fairytale. I can't say I blame them.