America has always been known as the land of the free, living in America you’re always taught on the idea of living the “American Dream”. That means the chance of being whoever you want to become, deciding the route you want to go in life to live. To most that also means to have a family to take care of and also to have a stable career, own a house, car and more. The part of the dream they don't stress you about enough is that it's not easy to achieve. It takes a lot of hard work in which a lot of people don't achieve unfortunately. In the song and music video “Love Yourz” by J.Cole it shows how the situations in your household can affect the way you grow up and can determine your future. Raising a family is never an easy thing to do, as children …show more content…
Both the Neumann's and Stanley's raised their families in the city of Milwaukee during bad and great economical times in our country. In the beginning of the documentary “Two American Families” the very first words said by Terry and Tony Neumann was “I want my kids to grow up to be good kids.”. Thats what its all about for most people, their family is the most important thing to them. Everything they do is for them, to take care of your spouse and children and raise them to be better. We live in the inevitable, sometimes things are good for the moment then it can all change in a blink of an eye. Both families made life changing decisions when things were going good for them at that time, but it would all soon change for the …show more content…
Again in the documentary Bill Moyers comes and visits the families after everyone is all grown up, he gets to see what their daily jobs are and their new families. Only one child out of both families made it through college and received a degree. Even with a degree none of the children were successful and were all going through the same struggle their parents faced while raising them. Its all a cycle until someone becomes financially successful to break the chain and from there comes positive results. If you come from a family that is financially stable you are more likely to be financially stable as well. Based on data from “The Equality of Opportunity Project” it states that “children's prospects of earning more than their parents have fallen from 90% to 50% over the past half
... residence, quality childcare and a better quality school (Blanden, 2004). However it’s important to note that this is not the case for the whole population, as a child could live in a much lower income family and still gain the same levels of support and guidance from their parents. Given this however, over the past few decades even though participation in high levels of education has increased for someone from a more disadvantaged family background, the level of participation is still much less than those who have been brought up in a stable, above average annual wage household.
With a lack of quality education how can one go on to make an income of American Dream standards? Recent by the Institution on Assets and Social Policy found that the wealth gap between white families and African-Americans has tripled between 1984 and 2009. While African Americans make up only 12% of the U.S they represent 45 percent of the homeless and in 2004, had the highest poverty rate at 24.3%. Unemployment is also particularly high among African-Americans as they account for 22% of the unemployed and 28% of the long term unemployed. Jobless rates for Whites, however are roughly half that of Blacks. This is a result of both explicit discrimination and occupational segregation. Occupational segregation is also a driving force behind the disparity of income rates. African Americans tend to live in neighbourhoods where the median income is only 70 percent that of Whites. While there are integrated communities the harsh reality is that, “the black middle class overall remains as segregated from Whites as the black poor.” Decades of housing segregation have trapped blacks in jobless areas with understaffed schools which is a common generator of the economic slope of African Americans. In the top income bracket, far
The Frontline documentary “Two American Families” produced by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), portrays the life of two typical middle class families living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Frontline Video, 2013). This follows the life of the Neumann family and the Stanley family as they pursue the ideal type of life, The American Dream, from 1991 through 2011 (Frontline Video, 2013). However, the pursuit of their fantasy quickly turned into a fight for economic struggle (Frontline Video, 2013). These struggles were all brought about by the new shaping economy (Frontline Video, 2013). At the beginning of the documentary, the Neumann family seemed well put together (Frontline Video, 2013).
In today’s world what mostly limits children’s opportunities lies on their parents income. According to 2011 research study by Stanford sociologist Sean Reardon, the test score gap between the children of the poor and the children of the wealthy has expanded by as much of 40 percent and is now more than 50 percent larger than the black-white achievement gap. According
Essentially, Americans would have equal opportunity to prosper through education and hard work. However, in a study published by the National Center for Education Statistics, Americans were shown to have less equal opportunity than any other country elsewhere in the West (Krugman 567). Ultimately, the results of the study revealed that, “it would be closer to the truth, though not the whole truth, to say that in modern America, class—inherited class—usually trumps talent” (Krugman 566). Consequently, the effects of low upward social mobility, or the ability for individuals to move upward in social status, can be detrimental. Specifically, American children born to low-income families are more likely to have health problems that derail their life chances due to lack of insurance (Krugman
Wetzel, JR. N.p.: n.p., n.d. American Families: 75 Years of Change. 1990. Web. 7 Mar. 2014.
Two American Families is a documentary detailing the story of two families’ struggles to survive in America in poor, working class conditions. The film follows the Neumann’s and the Stanley’s over the course of about two decades, documenting the financial efforts and struggles that many Americans have or are facing today. The struggles faced include class, upward mobility, downward mobility, gendered stigma, and racial stigma.
There are many different ways of achieving the American Dream, providing for your family can help
... my family and my parents have become quite successful with a little hard work. I will strive for my children to move to an upper class bracket and I myself from middle to high one day. I understand that anything is possible, but you must first embrace where you came from, and understand that it will never stop you from going where you want.
“A typical college graduate earns an estimated $650,000 over a work life than a high school graduate” (Rosentiel). This amount of money is influential to not only the lives of the graduates, but also their children who will then be able to afford to go to college, and since it is such a financial benefit, post-secondary education should not be so expensive. Having that much more money in a lifetime helps the privileged and their children stay privileged and the unprivileged stay unprivileged, creating and sustaining a large wealth gap. “...when more men (and a few women) were going to college, many of them in preparation for their future high-earning careers, or simply because it was becoming more normal. Why, the reasoning went, shouldn’t they pay more” (Rothman)? Going to college was becoming more normal, so anyone who wanted to thrive in a competitive market had attend, but college was also becoming unaffordable because colleges raised their prices. Making college more expensive keeps many low-income people unable to become successful because they would not be able to enroll in college since they could not, at the moment, afford it. Seeing college as an essential but pricing it as a luxury perpetuates an already destructive wealth gap in American
The fact is because there is disparity in the income of people, the things society does are limited to what they can do. This disparity exists even in our educational system, the same system that is supposed to close the wealth gap in between classes by providing all an equal opportunity to all that solicit this education to make their standard of living better, but in reality all it has made the wealth gap even more noticeable. This is due to the ever growing achievement gap. According to Duncan and Murnane research on the ever growing achievement and it’s correlation to Income inequality. The research concluded that “Increasing gaps in academic achievement and educational attainments have accompanied the growth in income inequality.” The research also concluded that “children attending schools with mostly low-income classmates have lower academic achievement and graduation rates than those attending schools with more affluent student populations.” The problem, they said was the exact problem they said is the same exact problem they are trying to overcome through the education, when the paper concluded that “ … increasing income inequality jeopardizes the upward socioeconomic mobility that has long held our pluralistic democracy together.” A recent poll was taken a couple of years showing how susceptible people are to believing the notion “A country to have and soon to haves”. The poll
There is always going to be a very distinct split between those who make plentiful incomes and those who can barely pass by. Depending upon what it is that you want to be when you get it older has an awful lot to do with your pay also, separating you instantly into one class or the other. Education also plays a huge rule in how far people can and cannot go with their career. People who have a better education usually are the ones that make the better money and stay in the richer category. Christopher Jencks says, “The economic gap between rich and poor has grown dramatically in the United States over the past generation and is now considerably wider than in any other affluent nation.” Jencks knows, just as well as everyone else, that there is very obvious gap. There will not be a time where there will be no gap, I think that gap is inevitable to prevent. There are just people out there that are perfectly content with being poor, and others who can’t help it because of circumstances or
The future impacts of poverty result in reduced lifetime earnings, poorer health outcomes and limited future opportunities. The impacts on society as a result of a poorly educated population include increased health care costs, lower productivity growth and increased the rate of criminal offending (Boston, 2013). Michael & Dwyer (2008) claim that in the economy of the future there will be even fewer employment opportunities for people with limited education. Such a claim places further hardship on those suffering from poverty, especially when research indicates that those effected by poverty show an increased likelihood of leaving school with little or no academic attainment (Michael & Dwyer, 2008). Research from additional studies show that large proportions of children born into disadvantaged families do not enjoy high levels of educational success (Boston, 2013). Children suffering from the effects of poverty also have a lower prospect of achieving higher academic aspirations due to a strong belief that university studies is for those belonging to middle class families (Thrupp, 2006). Michael & Dwyer’s (2008) report concludes that the completion of education is clearly the best protector against long-term poverty. However, educational economist Helen Ladd (2012) suggests that
As family income increases, educational attainment increases (Ismat, 2000). When a parent isn’t able to provide for his or her children’s holistic growth, it would affect the child’s future entirely, and a part of that holistic growth is his or her education. Another aspect when we say vital roles is the aspect of one’s employment. One’s employment determines the standard of living, and the standard of living determines not only one’s well-being but the well-being of one’s family. And that includes one’s children, better employment results to higher income. Thus, the more education you have, the more you are worth in the job market. A graduate of higher education faces a lower risk of unemployment, and has a greater access to further training opportunities and larger average
The union of my parents stands at 37 years. My parents migrated to The United States to better themselves and their families. Their struggle to obtain the “American Dream” instilled family values, and showed my siblings and myself a direct link to education and work. During my childhood, my mother was the first woman to show me what tenacious means. She stood front and center to save her family from becoming victims of society. In order to move her family out of the ghetto, she worked three ...