American dream still burns bright for many – but results vary
Men in their 30s earn about $5,000 less in real terms than their fathers' generation did, according to a new study.
from the July 3, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 4
Single-earner families see fall in pay
Income figures show that the days are gone when a single, stable income, typically earned by the father, was enough to launch the next generation to greater prosperity, according to a Pew report on economic mobility released this spring.
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Today, men in their 30s earn about $5,000 less in real terms than did their fathers' generation, according to Pew.
That fits with Brockman's experience. Neither he, nor his father, graduated from college. Nor did his grandmother, but she worked her way up from a secretarial position to the executive ranks at GE.
"I couldn't get the job my dad had at [age] 30 without a degree, or waiting in line for years," he says.
However, overall family income is a different story. Families with men in their 30s today have about $4,000 more in annual income than did their parents' generation.
"The main reason that family incomes have risen is that more women have gone to work, buttressing the incomes of men by adding a second earner," notes the Pew economic mobility report.
Katy Curtis, a real estate agent in north Scottsdale, Ariz., did not work when she was in the family-rearing stage of life. "And we survived quite well," she says.
But her two daughters, now in that thirty-something cohort, are finding life economically more difficult, she says.
They see new cars and plasma TVs and other accoutrements everywhere, and they want them, too. "I think there are more demands made upon them materialistically, and it's harder," says Ms. Curtis. "Things have gone up in price, and I don't think salaries are commensurate with that."
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