Barriers To The American Dream Essay
In order to discuss how attainable the American Dream is, we must first define it. The American Dream is the ability to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. America’s social system can both hinder you, and help you in achieving the American Dream. Barriers such as far outweigh the opportunities as far as achieving the American Dream, nevertheless, it is still possible.
Starting from the bottom and working your way up is very difficult. In order to achieve the American Dream, you must first be able to sustain a living where you currently are. One of the biggest barriers a low income family could have from moving up is not being able to support yourself in your current situation. This problem is depicted …show more content…
And for the vacuum cleaner there’s three and a half due on the fifteenth. Then the roof, you got twenty-one dollars remaining”,(Miller 13) they then ended the conversation by coming to the realization that their paycheck is now in the negatives. Willy is in a never-ending rotation of debt and he doesn’t get out of it until he decides to end his own life. This indicates that the wages of the lower class alone will never be enough to move up. Another example of this would when a journalist goes undercover as a lower-class waitress to understand what it's like to live in poverty. In the essay, “Serving Florida”, Enrenreich describes all she must do to make a deposit on a trailer park. She uses not only her paycheck but her initial apartment’s deposit and “$200 reserved for emergencies”(Enrenreich 3). She doesn’t have anything else because she spent it all on finding a place to live. This clearly indicates the struggles the lower-class must go through to have life's necessities. This point can also be seen in real life through extensive research done by an organization dedicated to ending homelessness. The organization stated, “To rent a one-bedroom FMR apartment, Jane would need to earn $15.50 per hour. This
Starting from the bottom and working your way up is very difficult. In order to achieve the American Dream, you must first be able to sustain a living where you currently are. One of the biggest barriers a low income family could have from moving up is not being able to support yourself in your current situation. This problem is depicted …show more content…
And for the vacuum cleaner there’s three and a half due on the fifteenth. Then the roof, you got twenty-one dollars remaining”,(Miller 13) they then ended the conversation by coming to the realization that their paycheck is now in the negatives. Willy is in a never-ending rotation of debt and he doesn’t get out of it until he decides to end his own life. This indicates that the wages of the lower class alone will never be enough to move up. Another example of this would when a journalist goes undercover as a lower-class waitress to understand what it's like to live in poverty. In the essay, “Serving Florida”, Enrenreich describes all she must do to make a deposit on a trailer park. She uses not only her paycheck but her initial apartment’s deposit and “$200 reserved for emergencies”(Enrenreich 3). She doesn’t have anything else because she spent it all on finding a place to live. This clearly indicates the struggles the lower-class must go through to have life's necessities. This point can also be seen in real life through extensive research done by an organization dedicated to ending homelessness. The organization stated, “To rent a one-bedroom FMR apartment, Jane would need to earn $15.50 per hour. This