American Dream generations split on money, success and hope
CNBC Make It spoke with six voices across four generations about how money, work, family and resilience are reshaping the American Dream.
By Jordan Bell · Startups & Deals Reporter
· 4 min read
American Dream generations are no longer describing one shared finish line, according to CNBC Make It. Across six voices from four age groups, the idea now stretches from financial stability and family to creative work, second careers and doubts about whether opportunity is still broadly available.
For everyday investors and workers, that shift matters because the American Dream has long shaped how people think about earning, saving, buying homes and building a life. CNBC Make It’s conversations, published as part of its “The Next Dream” series tied to the country’s 250th year, show a more personal and less uniform definition of success.
CNBC Make It framed the project around a basic tension: many Americans still connect the dream with security and happiness, while younger people are more likely to question whether the old path still works. A CNBC survey cited in the series found that 51% of U.S. adults say the American Dream is out of reach for most people right now.
What does the American Dream mean now?
The American Dream now means different things depending on age, money pressures and life experience. CNBC Make It reported that some people still see it as the chance to build stability and define success for themselves, while others are trying to create a new path because housing, inflation and the labor market have made older milestones harder to reach.
Vivian Tu, the 32-year-old former Wall Street trader behind the financial education brand Your Rich BFF, told CNBC Make It that her early career was focused on visible markers of achievement. She described once asking what she could do to become conventionally successful, including as a response to people who doubted her. Tu now measures success more through meaningful work and honoring the sacrifices her parents made for her, according to CNBC Make It.
Gail Rudnick, 84, offered a different version of ambition. CNBC Make It reported that Rudnick sees herself as living a second round of dreams after first building a close family and now starting a new chapter as a content creator and podcast co-host with her granddaughter, Kim Murstein, 30.
Sylvia Kwan, 62, chief executive of Ellevest, described her dream as rewriting the expected scripts of her life and pursuing goals she once did not think were possible, CNBC Make It reported. Ellevest is a women-centered financial planning and wealth management platform, a business category focused on helping clients plan, invest and manage assets.
Why are younger Americans more skeptical?
CNBC Make It reported that younger generations face a stack of pressures older Americans did not experience in the same way. Gen Z, defined in the report as people currently ages 14 to 29, had parts of its education and social development disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Those who have finished high school or college have also entered a volatile job market while dealing with expensive housing and inflation.
Kahlil Greene, 26, a history newsletter writer and social media creator who was elected Yale’s first Black student body president in 2019, told CNBC Make It he is not optimistic about the future of the United States. Greene said he worries the country is moving on a “downward trajectory” and that the odds of fixing problems can feel insurmountable, though he said he would like to try.
Robert Reich, 80, a University of California, Berkeley professor and former U.S. labor secretary, took the other side of that generational mood. “I’m optimistic because of our resilience,” Reich told Greene, according to CNBC Make It.
Reich said he has lived long enough to see the country recover from depressions, wars and other crises. He argued that hope matters because cynicism can cause people to stop trying to improve the country, CNBC Make It reported.
The thread across the conversations is that the American Dream has become less about checking off one national list and more about negotiating trade-offs. Money still matters, especially when housing and inflation raise the cost of stability, but CNBC Make It’s interviews show that work, family, purpose and belief in the future are now part of the calculation too.
This story draws on original reporting from CNBC.
