Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1987. július-december (41. évfolyam, 26-48. szám)
1987-08-27 / 31. szám
Thursday, Aug. 27. 1987. AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZO 11. THE UNREACHABLE AMERICAN DREAM BY DAVID M. GORDON For decades, the American Dream has nourished the aspirations of millions. When President Reagan brought his campaign for an economic bill of rights to New Britain last week, indeed, he referred to the "dreams of the American people" as one of the "secrets to restoring America's greatness." Once again he was trying to tap a deep and resonant well of public and private faith in continual upward mobility. But the dream has turned to fantasy, and the American people are in for a harsh awakening. According to the latest research, the pace of upward mobility appears to have declined sharply in the United States in the past decade or more. Class divisions are growing so rigid that three-quarters of American household may have to forsake their hopes of economic advancement in the foreseeable future. Will our political system become more unstable if and when the vision of upward mobility no longer provides its integrating promise? Average real hourly earnings for production workers have not only stagnated but have declined since 1979. So has median family income. And yet, however familiar these depressing facts, we are just now beginning to appreciate their longer-term effects on the once buoyant American Dream. Progress within generations has come screeching to a halt. Economists Frank S. Levy and Richard-C. Michel report in recent articles that an "average" 30-year-old male, who was able to look forward to rapid income growth in the '50s and '60s, is now able to project only a 10 percent to 20 percent growth in income from age 30 to 40 - at the height of his potential career advancement. Older workers are now experiencing absolute declines in real earnings. In a December 1986 report for the Joint Economic Committee, economist Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison documented the extraordinary concentration of recent employment growth in low-wage jobs: From 1979 to 1984, 58 percent of net new employment was in jobs paying $7,000 or less (in 1984 dollars). The prospect for future generations looks just as bleak. Those hit hardest by the decline in real household earnings have been families with children - especially poor households and those headed by women. Levy and Michel report that, evidently as a consequence of that decline, young families in 1981 were able to save less than 1 percent of their after-tax income, compared with 4 percent for similar young families in 1973. With shrinking incomes and declining savings, a family's ability to help provide for its children's futures is eroding. One result has been that the postwar pattern of relatively stable income shares has been shattered. Inequality in annual wage-and-salary income has increased sharply since the mid-1970s. So has inequality in the distribution of personal wealth. Perhaps most strikingly, the distribution of income among families with children has become substantially more unequal, according to evidence reported last year by Sheldon Danziger and Peter Gottschalk. The share of income earned by the bottom 60 percent of such families declined by nearly 14 percent between 1967 and 1984. Moreover, this trend does not affect minority families alone; among white families with children, for example, the decline in the share of the bottom 60 percent between 1967 and 1984 was just under 13 percent. To be continued David M. Gordon teaches economics at the New School for Social Research and is co-author of "Beyond the Waste Land: Democratic Alternatives to Economic Decline." He wrote this article for the Washington Post. The Hungarian-Americans By Steven Bela Vardy The first scholarly history of Hungarian-Americans in nearly four decades has just appeared in print. Authored by Dr. S.B. Vardy, Professor of History at Duquesne University and Adjunct Professor of East European History at the University of Pittsburgh, this work carries the history of the Hungarians in America from the 16th century right up to the 1980s. The book's special merit is that for the first time in American scholarship, it summarizes the history and inner life of the post-World War II immigrants from Hungary, including the DP's, the 47-ers, the 56-ers, and those who came after them in the course of the past quarter century. It is an accurate, informative and ORDER FORM Please send me________copy of S.B. Vardy's The Hungarian-Americans. ($17.95 per copy). Name:.................................................. Address .................................................. Check or money order should be made out and sent to: Twayne Publishers,Inc. 70 Lincoln Street Boston, MA. 02111 enjoyable work that should be in the library of every American and Hungarian-American who is interested in the colorful ethnic roots and components of American society.
