By Tim Mak | Politico | Jun. 4, 2012
A majority of Americans, 58 percent, are dissatisfied with the opportunity of the next generation to reach the American dream of having a better life than their parents, according to a Gallup Poll Monday.
Those over the age of 55 are particularly unhappy with the prospects of the next generation: 62 percent said they were dissatisfied, while 34 percent said they were satisfied.
However, Americans were still confident with some other elements of the American dream. Half of all respondents said that they were satisfied with “the opportunity for a poor person to get ahead by working hard,” and 52 percent were satisfied with “Americans’ willingness to work hard to better themselves.”
Democrats were more optimistic than Republicans on whether the next generation would be better off, and whether Americans were willing to work hard to better themselves.
Republicans, on the other hand, were more optimistic that there remained in America the opportunity for poor people to get ahead by working hard.
“Republicans’ greater satisfaction, relative to Democrats’, with the possibility of pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps aligns with their more conservative political credo,” suggested Gallup.
The Gallup Poll was conducted May 10-13, with a sample of 1,012 adults and a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.