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The “American Dream” and the ambitious goals that U.S. politicians—both during the confrontation with the Soviet Union and after its collapse—presented as a symbol of the country’s hegemonic status are now on a path of decline and even collapse. According to the findings of this article, factors such as the extensive support of the U.S. for the Israeli regime (with special backing from neoconservatives) and the dominance of capitalists and large corporations over the domestic economy are among the main reasons for the gradual disintegration and the difficult living conditions of ordinary American social classes. This trend has intensified and worsened with Trump’s return to power; in fact, the destructive cycle of U.S. support for Israel to strengthen it in order to inflict greater oppression on the people of Gaza has gradually created a deteriorating and weakened situation, which is particularly evident within the United States itself, and the main burden of this has fallen on the lower classes
The decline of the American Dream and the concentration of wealth in the hands of the wealthy class.
The heyday of the U.S. economy has long passed, and the idea known in the twentieth century as the “American Dream”—a dream in which a significant majority of Americans could join the middle class or even achieve substantial wealth and prosperity—has, by the second decade of the twenty-first century, almost become history.
According to a report by Moody’s Analytics in February 2024, the top ten percent of wealthy Americans (households with an annual income of at least \$250,000) accounted for half of total U.S. domestic consumption (about \$10 trillion) between September 2023 and September 2024. The fact that only 12.7 million households can spend more than the rest of the nation is a shocking reality and a sign of economic decline—a decline that, from the end of World War II for several decades, was largely built on need-based consumption and spending by American workers and the middle class.
However, perhaps the greatest surprise in the collapse of the American Dream is that, for tens of millions of Americans, it is no longer surprising. The gradual erosion of this dream and the emergence of a form of consumer capitalism that defined America from 1945 until the housing bubble burst in 2008 actually began more than half a century ago. Political leaders, by gradually implementing austerity policies on social welfare and education programs, while simultaneously enacting multiple rounds of tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations, effectively eliminated social mobility and dynamism—especially for Americans living in poverty.2
From the Fall of the Middle Class to the Fulfillment of the Wealthy’s Desires
The shift from a production-based economy to a service-based economy, alongside the mechanization of the production cycle, regional relocations, downsizing of companies, the transfer of millions of jobs abroad, and the imposition of heavy debts on millions of Americans for healthcare and higher education… all these factors have transformed the American middle class from a “working class” into a “struggling class.” Even worse, this is precisely what wealthy Americans had been waiting for for decades.3
According to most experts, the economic power of ordinary Americans peaked between 1970 and 1974. At that time, more than six out of ten Americans could consider themselves part of the middle class, and Black, Latino, and other people of color in the U.S. were increasingly entering this class.4
However, the dominant narrative is that the OPEC oil crisis—which followed U.S. support for Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War—along with the process of deindustrialization in the U.S. Midwest, crippled the country’s economy from 1973–1974 onward. The combination of high unemployment and high inflation (known as stagflation) brought an end to three decades of unbridled U.S. economic dominance and prosperity. Yet, this narrative does not tell the whole truth. In fact, since the 1970s, large corporations, the wealthy, and even the federal government have deliberately diverted resources away from goals related to eradicating poverty and strengthening the working and middle classes.5 and 6
Reagan’s Attack on Social Welfare Programs
The “War on Poverty” and “Great Society” programs, enacted by Lyndon Johnson in 1965, were the final straw that outraged the emerging neoconservatives. Irving Kristol, one of the founders of the neoconservative movement, called the “War on Poverty” a curse in his memoirs, writing that neoconservatives knew that “political radicalization was not a path for the poor to escape poverty.” He and his followers believed that only a great society could emerge through “class struggle,” and for this reason, they effectively accused Johnson’s policy designers of being “stooges of Soviet communism.”7
Neoconservatives viewed Johnson’s vision of ending poverty and allocating more tax resources for the prosperity of all Americans as a form of “dangerous communism.” With the victory of Ronald Reagan’s conservative revolution in the 1980s, not only the remnants of Johnson’s programs but even Franklin Roosevelt’s social welfare system from the 1930s (the New Deal) came under the knife of austerity and attack. In his daily notes in 1982, Reagan wrote: “The media are eager to show me destroying the New Deal. I remind them that I voted for Roosevelt four times. My target is the destruction of the Great Society.” In practice, however, he opposed any social welfare policies and social mobility initiatives. Reagan repeatedly claimed that “fascism was the real foundation of the New Deal,” and that Roosevelt’s economic planners “spoke admiringly of Mussolini’s ability to run the trains.” 8 and 9
Reagan and the Shift of the Tax System in Favor of the Wealthy
At the 1985 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Reagan declared that “since Roosevelt and the New Deal, the opposition party—especially the liberals—had dominated the political arena,” but now “they hardly have any new ideas.” He added that the new conservatives had once again “restored the relationship between economic justice and economic growth” and emphasized the necessity of establishing a fair tax system and completely overhauling the current one. From 1981 onward, with the extensive influence of large corporate lobbies and the merging of ideological views within both the Republican and Democratic parties, a new tax system for the wealthy and corporations was consolidated.
In the 1950s, the top tier of wealthy Americans paid up to 91 percent in taxes on income over \$200,000. This rate had fallen to 70 percent by the 1970s. However, during Reagan’s era, taxes on high incomes dropped to 28–50 percent. Although Bill Clinton’s administration in the 1990s slightly raised these rates, investment in welfare programs effectively lagged two decades behind inflation and never improved with welfare reforms. 10 and 11 and 12 and 13 and 14
Trump and the Uproar Over the Largest Wealth Transfer in U.S. History
During Donald Trump’s presidency, corporate taxes dropped to the lowest level in history—21 percent. These policies resulted in a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class, workers, and the poor to the pockets of the wealthy and large corporations. According to research by Carter Price and Catherine Edwards at the RAND Corporation in 2020, between 1975 and 2018, tax cuts and social austerity measures transferred nearly \$50 trillion in wealth from the bottom 90 percent of society to the top 10 percent of the wealthy class. Even more alarming, this trend accelerated in the 2010s, with an average annual wealth transfer of \$2.5 trillion—all before the COVID-19 pandemic. 15 and 16
What is the real income situation for ordinary Americans?
Meanwhile, the situation for ordinary Americans in other sectors of the economy has also been bleak. The federal minimum wage has remained fixed at \$7.25 since 2009 (and in the 1980s, it also stayed unchanged for eight years). Corporate monopolization and downsizing of jobs have continued to eliminate opportunities for well-paying work, so that half of American workers earn less than \$50,000 per year, and a quarter earn less than \$25,000.17
Eugene Ludwig, former head of the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, wrote this year in Politico: “If you filter the statistics to include the unemployed, those working only part-time, or those earning wages near the poverty level (around \$25,000), the real share reaches 23.7 percent. In other words, almost one in four workers is effectively unemployed—a situation that is by no means something to be proud of.” This comes while Joe Biden, the former U.S. president, repeatedly claimed that America is in the best economic condition it has been in for decades.
The Death of the American Dream
دOverall, it can be said that by 2025, the U.S. economy has returned to the pre-Great Depression state. The difference today is that the consumption habits of the top 10 percent of the wealthy have a multiplied impact on the entire economy, while the other 300 million Americans are effectively ignored.18 and 19 and 20
Consumer capitalism only makes sense when most consumers have the ability to rent or buy a home, go on vacations, or even afford basic food and healthcare. But now, this goal has vanished, because from the very beginning, the main purpose of the wealthy was precisely this: to block ordinary people’s access to prosperity and the middle class. Today’s American Dream is nothing more than a vain illusion, as all paths leading to it have long been bombarded and destroyed.
The End of the American Order: Why and How?
Resources
The Wealthiest 10% of US Households Now Represent Nearly 50% of Consumer Spending, Nicholas Morine, 2025.
The 2008 Housing Crisis, Colin McArthur and Sarah Edelman, 2017
The State of the American Middle Class, Pewresearch.org, 2024.
The 1973 Oil Crisis: Three Crises in One—and the Lessons for Today, Daniel Yergin, 2023
Competition and the Decline of the Rust Belt, Lee E. Ohanian, 2014
Irving Kristol and the Biographical Threads of Neoconservatism, Emily Dorothea Hull, 2024.
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Reagan Still Sure Some in New Deal Espoused Fascism, Lee Lescaze, 1981.
Corporations Are Spending Millions on Lobbying to Avoid Taxes, Josephine Fonger, 2021
A Fabulous Failure: Clinton’s 1990s and the Origins of Our Times, Nelson Lichtenstein, 2018
50 years of tax cuts for the rich failed to trickle down, economics study says, Aimee Picchi, 2020.
Welfare Reform, Michael D. Tanner, 2022
Tax the Rich? We Did That Once, Sam Pizzigati, 2022
Historical US Federal Corporate Income Tax Rates & Brackets, 1909-2025, taxfoundation.org.
The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90%—And That’s Made the U.S. Less Secure, Nick Hanauer, 2020.
How federal government employees compare to the U.S. workforce in four charts and a map, Joe Murphy and JoElla Carman, 2023.
Voters Were Right About the Economy. The Data Was Wrong, Eugene Ludwig, 2025.
The Biden economy: Just how good was it? Here are the highs and lows for the 46th president, Jeffry Bartash, 2025.
The Wealthiest 10% of US Households Now Represent Nearly 50% of Consumer Spending, Nicholas
The 2008 Housing Crisis, Colin McArthur and Sarah Edelman, 2017
The State of the American Middle Class, Pewresearch.org, 2024
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The 1973 Oil Crisis: Three Crises in One—and the Lessons for Today, Daniel Yergin, 2023
Competition and the Decline of the Rust Belt, Lee E. Ohanian, 2014
Irving Kristol and the Biographical Threads of Neoconservatism, Emily Dorothea Hull, 2024. / The Cambridge Quarterly, Volume 53, Issue 1, March 2024, Pages 34–45,
Reagan Still Sure Some in New Deal Espoused Fascism, Lee Lescaze, 198
Reagan Still Sure Some in New Deal Espoused Fascism, Lee Lescaze, 198
A Fabulous Failure: Clinton’s 1990s and the Origins of Our Times, Nelson Lichtenstein, 2018
years of tax cuts for the rich failed to trickle down, economics study says, Aimee Picchi, 2020
Tax the Rich? We Did That Once, Sam Pizzigati, 2022
Conservative Transition in American Social Policy, Jerry D. Marx.
Welfare Reform, Michael D. Tanner, 2022
Historical US Federal Corporate Income Tax Rates & Brackets, 1909-2025.
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/historical-corporate-tax-rates-brackets/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90%—And That’s Made the U.S. Less
Voters Were Right About the Economy. The Data Was Wrong, Eugene Ludwig, 2025
The Biden economy: Just how good was it? Here are the highs and lows for the 46th president, Jeffry Bartash, 2025.
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