Falling behind is now a personal failing
A happiness expert explains how the American Dream has turned poverty into a moral failure.
The story
A happiness expert notes that U.S. citizens are increasingly despairing, despite economic growth, and attributes this to inequality, stigma, and a cultural emphasis on personal failure.
Source: fortune.com
Our reading
Carol Graham’s research shows that in the U.S., it’s harder to be poor in a rich country, and that the American Dream has turned falling behind into a personal failing. The data suggests that people who don’t succeed are seen as lazy, not unlucky. This is the kind of logic that would make a corporate HR department blush. It’s not just about income inequality—it’s about the mental load of being told you’re failing because you’re not working hard enough. The real kicker is that the people who are most affected are the ones not even counted in the data. Prime-age men who’ve left the labor force are ‘in very bad shape,’ but they’re not even in the numbers. That’s the kind of oversight that makes you wonder if the system is designed to ignore them.
