AKinesha Wilson
May 2, 2013
Social Ethics: Final Paper

What is the American Dream? When asking Google this is what I got: The traditional social ideals of the United States, such as equality, democracy, and material prosperity. The American way of life has changed dramatically over the centuries. If you were to ask someone from the 1950’s what their American dream was they probably would tell you something like: having a family, house with its white picket fence and maybe a pet of some sort. The American dream back then might of consisted of just having a blue collared job enough to have the ability to have the family to be able to live comfortably. In todays society the American dream is no longer one definition. If you were to ask ten random individuals what their definition of the American dream was you would most likely get very different answers. The American dream to me has become an ideal and not a reality. I personally feel the American dream has become exactly as termed a “dream.” The government, society, population, and problems in the United States have changed become a crisis. Unfortunately I also feel that there is no such thing as equal opportunity in the United States. I will say that we do have opportunities for advancement but no they are not all equal. I feel one of our biggest problems our country faces is the distribution of wealth among our people. Not only is there an unequal distribution this will never get better due to the support of government the rich will continue to get rich and the poor continue to stay poor. The unfortunate part is that not only is this a vicious cycle it seems to become an extremely huge gap between social classes. The underclass and lower class consist of about ninty percent of our population however these same amounts of people only hold about ten percent of the wealth. With this being sad it is no wonder the equal is not really equal. Things such as health care, military, welfare problems lack the major focus and nowadays are primarily all about MONEY! Health care is not focused on helping. Our military funding continues to be cut due to budget cuts. Our welfare programs continue to be questioned and relinquished. Yet our Senators politics and other wealthy individuals have not experienced any problems. America use to be a place of refugee somewhere where people would come to with hope and prosperity but America is no longer “We the people”. I feel there is no easy solution but one solution is giving America back to its people. The major corporations and government control our country and is no longer a democracy. Yes we vote but this has become a questionable process. In summary I feel there are some major changes that need to be made to