American Dreams Read Online Free PDF

compete in the modern workforce. We’re only average in literacy and problem-solving skills compared with most of the countries we compete with. And when it comes to math skills—the skill most prized in today’s new economy—we’re bringing up the rear. Only Italy’s and Spain’s workers performed worse than ours in math. And worse yet, while other countries seem to be racing to catch up, our skills gap is deepening. While younger workers in other countries consistently scored higher on skills tests than the generations that came before them, our thirty-year-olds actually scored lower on literacy in 2012 than thirty-year-olds in 1994 did. 7
    Big government is failing Americans because, instead of promoting transformational reforms to our education system, our leaders just want to spend more money on the status quo. This is true in higher education, where instead of creating the space for innovative and affordable higher education programs, the system seeks to shield itself from competition and innovation.
    It’s especially true in primary and secondary education. When Democratic politicians at all levels of government actively oppose strengthening our schools through competition and parental choice, they are hurting the very people they claim to care about most—and at a time when education is more important to achieving the American Dream than ever before.
    In New York City, for example, Mayor Bill de Blasio has declared open season on publicly funded charter schools. Rich families can afford to send their children to virtually any school they choose. But by forcing poor families to send their children to failing and stagnant schools, Mayor De Blasio is making those who need the most help less able to compete for the middle-class jobs of the future. The fact that these are the very same politicians who spend their time decrying income inequality only adds insult to the injury they are inflicting on Americans.

    There is one more reason why the American Dream is slipping out of the reach of so many families. It is perhaps the hardest one for us to solve through government and yet one that we simply cannot ignore. And that is the decline of the family itself.
    The American economy isn’t the only thing that has changed since my parents came to this country. Since the 1950s, marriage has declined and the number of babies born to single mothers has soared. We can no longer afford to ignore the connection between the health of families and the health of the American Dream.
    It’s not even controversial: Social scientists, economists, think tanks from the left-leaning Brookings Institution to the right-leaning Heritage Foundation—everyone except too many politicians—agree that the health of the family is key to upward mobility. Brad Wilcox of the University of Virginia studies marriage and its effects on income and well-being. He has found that young people are 44 percent more likely to graduate from college if they are raised by their married parents. Children from intact families are also about 40 percent less likely to have a child outside of marriage. 8
    These are the two things—getting an education and avoiding having children until marriage—that are increasingly key to achieving the American Dream. They are two critical parts of what social scientists call the “success sequence”: First get an education, then get a job, and don’t have children until you are married. Studies of census data show that if all Americans first finished high school, worked full-time at whatever job their education qualified them for, and then married at the same rate that Americans got married in 1970, the poverty rate would fall by an astonishing 70 percent. 9 Young Americans who follow the success sequence have only a 2 percent chance of falling into poverty and a 75 percent chance of making it to the middle class. 10
    Big government fails now more than ever because it