The American Dream—that idea that through hard work and innovation anyone can prosper in the U.S.—is a critical component of our national fabric. But the concept appears to be under threat on multiple fronts.

Results of a similar survey conducted by New York Life Insurance Co., released in May, reflect similar pessimism.  That survey of 1,001 U.S. adults found that only 41 percent of responding parents believe their children will have a higher standard of living than their parents.

I have a hunch that these results are partially skewed by the undercurrent of negativity running through current events. Indeed, the Yahoo Finance survey found that 63 percent of respondents believe the economy is getting worse (including 72 percent of respondents over 55).

Occupy Wall Street protestors march in New York's Zuccotti Park.

The U.S. economy has been sluggish at best for going on four years now, and unemployment remains stubbornly high. As a nation we have been running huge budget deficits, adding to a an already staggering national debt, and we keep hearing that there is going to be a reckoning. To make matters worse, rather than working together to address the issues, our national elected officials have completely failed to provide leadership, choosing instead to use their positions to advance their political ideologies and prepare for the next election. The Yahoo Finance survey found that only about one-quarter of the public is confident that President Obama and Congress can fix the financial crisis.

Not exactly a rosy picture, is it? Indeed, we have been hearing for years that the economic situation in the U.S. is as bad or worse than it has been since the Great Depression. Against this backdrop, it's a wonder that the Yahoo Finance survey did not reflect even greater pessimism about the state of the American Dream.

But the U.S. has basically been hit by recessions of varying degrees near the beginning of every decade since the 1860s. While the Great Recession that began in 2008 was admittedly more severe than most (hence the name), I have a hunch that if the Yahoo Finance survey were conducted during any of these periods it would find similar levels of pessimism. Were the Yahoo Finance surveyors to go back in time and conduct the survey in, for example, early 1982, with unemployment in the neighborhood of 10 percent, my guess is it would find just as much despair about the state of the American Dream as exists today.

Flash forward to late to 2000, just before the dot com bubble deflated in earnest, when President Clinton told Congress and the American people that the state of the union was "the strongest it has ever been," and I'd venture to say you'd find a lot more people feeling pretty upbeat about the American Dream.

Still, there are other factors that put more context around the Yahoo Finance survey results. Over the past several weeks, virtually every sizeable American city has been "occupied" by throngs of disgruntled citizens who identify themselves as among the vast majority of Americans who have seen their wages stagnate over the past 30 years while the incomes of America's top 1 percent of earners have grown by an average of 275 percent.  Many of these occupations—which are not limited only to the U.S.—remain ongoing.

What exactly the occupy movement protesters want is difficult to pin down. But it's clear that they feel they've gotten a raw deal. In the immortal words of Stephen Stills, "There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear."

Judging from the comments in the EE Times Forum over the past several years, you'd think that the American Dream is a long dead concept as it applies to engineering. U.S. engineers who weigh in on various subjects frequently bemoan the movement of engineering jobs overseas, complain of feeling expendable and discriminated against based on age, and state in no uncertain terms that they do or will steer their children away from pursuing a career in engineering.

But taking the pulse of the engineering community based on the memorable Forum comments doesn't provide a complete picture. The comments of a vocal few don't necessarily represent the feelings of all EEs in the U.S. There are undoubtedly many engineers who are quite happy and prosperous and feel excited about the future prospects for engineering in America. It's possible that this position accounts for the "silent majority" of EEs in the United States.

Still, it's hard to believe that the future for engineers in this country seems brighter than it did, say, 20 years ago. Since that time, innovation has created whole new fields of technology and many exciting possibilities and opportunities. But, clearly, many of those opportunities are now found in places with lower costs and standards of living, and thus lower salary requirements.

By: DocMemory
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