Americans’ optimism about their future has sunk to an all-time low, according to a recent Gallup Poll (which was conducted, we might add, before the war with Iran had begun).
Why the malaise when we have record-low unemployment and a record-high stock market?
In our view, the explanation is right in front of our eyes.
Humans have four basic needs: shelter, food, health, and safety. But other than public safety (crime rates have been at historic lows for more than two years), America is a failing society in all other respects.
The housing crisis affects Americans at almost every income level. Young people, even those with six-figure incomes, are unable to buy a home unless they either inherit it from their parents or receive a large cash gift from a family member for a downpayment.
The average age for a first-time homebuyer in the early 1980s was 28 — and that was when mortgage interest rates were in the double digits and huge numbers of Baby Boomer buyers were flooding the market.
But today, the average age of a first-time homebuyer has risen to 40 and the median age of a homeowner is almost 60. In short, the long-held American dream of homeownership is attainable only for a lucky few among the younger generation.
On the healthcare front, our national healthcare system has never been more precarious. The budget enacted by Congress last year that reduced subsidies for health insurance for low-income Americans (while giving trillions of dollars of tax breaks to billionaires) has resulted in millions of Americans losing their health insurance.
In addition, immigration policies have reduced the number of healthcare workers, including doctors, which have placed a strain on the delivery of healthcare services for all Americans, not just the poor.
The acclaimed HBO TV show The Pitt accurately portrayed the dire straits of our healthcare system, a situation that will be exacerbated with the loss of the Obamacare subsidies for health insurance.
Even for middle-class Americans with private health insurance, our healthcare system is failing. Medical debt from an unexpected illness ranks as the number one cause of personal bankruptcy filings because of high deductibles, co-pays, and uncovered services,
The budget enacted by Congress last year also significantly reduced the eligibility for the SNAP program (formerly known as Food Stamps). Government data estimated that up to 48 million Americans, including 14 million children, faced “food insecurity” (the new bureaucratic term for not having enough to eat) even before the cutbacks in the SNAP program.
But now, under the new rules, enrollment in SNAP has decreased by nearly 3.5 million people, a development that will only further exacerbate the problem of hunger in America.
As for those of us who have been fortunate enough never to need SNAP, food inflation continues to make feeding ourselves and our families a more and more expensive proposition at a time when the ultra-rich are spending $1500 (that’s not a typo) on a dinner at a restaurant in Los Angeles.
The defining characteristic of Americans (as noted by Alexis de Tocqueville in 1830) since our founding has been a boundless optimism that our future will be better. But as we approach the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, our national mood of sunny optimism has been replaced by a feeling of hopeless pessimism.