The “American Dream” is a very broad concept with many meanings and
certainly broader than any single statistic can measure. However, when the
Economic Mobility Project (2009), supported by the Pew Charitable Trust,
conducted a nationally representative poll that asked Americans what they understood
this phrase to mean, some typical answers included: “Being free to
say or do what you want”; “Being free to accomplish almost anything you want
with hard work”; and “Being able to succeed regardless of the economic circumstances
in which you were born.” These meanings have historically not only
made the American Dream a defining metaphor of the country, they are also
likely a reason why Americans have been willing to tolerate a good deal more
inequality of outcomes than citizens of many other rich countries. Bénabou and
Ok (2001) have called this the “prospect of upward mobility” hypothesis, the
idea that those with lower incomes are not strong advocates of redistributive
policies because of the belief that they, or in the least their children, are likely
to climb the income ladder.