As the pool of college graduates has grown larger, younger workers have found themselves forced to take jobs they once would have turned down cold.
“More kids are going to college and some of them don’t have any choice,” Mr. Gimbel said. “It’s not just the Big 10, Notre Dame and the Ivies anymore.” Students from less prestigious colleges or candidates with lower grade point averages are taking jobs at call centers earning $25,000 to $30,000 a year, he said.
The American Dream Is Suffering, but Americans are Satisfied: 15 Charts
Penn Schoen Berland surveyed 2,000 respondents. Many of the results below break out responses between the general population and “broad elites,” a category defined as individuals with a college degree and a minimum income of $75,000, who are engaged with politics and technology.
The American Dream: Personal Optimists, National Pessimists
Seventy-seven percent of Millennials say they’re living the dream or believe they can; among African Americans and Asian Americans, that number rises to 82 percent. Among Latinos, it’s 83 percent.
.. First, the Millennial Generation—for all the talk about it wanting to do good in the world—shows signs of being another “Me Generation.” Respondents 30 and under were the only age group to name as the top element of their dream job: “pays a lot of money.” Whereas 22 percent of respondents 65+ and 19 percent of those 51-64 said “helping others” was most important to their personal American Dream, only 14 percent of Millennials did.
.. A second emerging insight is that Americans 51-64, especially white Americans of that age, are feeling more negative than any other age group. Only 63 percent of that group thinks they are living the dream or still will, compared to at least 73 percent for every other age group.
.. Nearly two-thirds agree with the statement “As long as I am able to provide the life I want for myself and my family, it doesn’t matter if others are substantially wealthier than [I]”—compared to only 36 percent who say, “The concentration of wealth and privilege within the top one percent of American society is a problem.”