What Happened to the American Dream? Changing Earning Opportunities and Prospects of Middle-Class Californians, 1967-1987

Abstract

immigrants to California, a stream that shows no signs of abating. The exact character of that dream is nowhere precisely defined, though the image of its modern variant was presented with great effect by Hollywood television shows from the 1950s and 1960s as Ozzie and Harriet. Any adequate definition of the middle-class ideal would have to be a continually revised definition that reflects the development of new ways of life, new goods and services, as well as relative changes in the prices of goods and services consumed within a middle standard of living. At the present time, we could say roughly in quantitative terms, that this standard includes such material goods as a single-family home, one or two cars (including a new one), a washing machine and dryer, a dish washer, a color TV, raising and educating chil dren, [and the provision for] a lengthy period of retirement.1