Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do About It - Softcover

Reeves Author Of President Kennedy: Profile Of Power, Richard V.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0815734484 ISBN 13: 9780815734482

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press, 2018

Synopsis

Dream Hoarders sparked a national conversation on the dangerous separation between the upper middle class and everyone else. Now in paperback and newly updated for the age of Trump, Brookings Institution senior fellow Richard Reeves is continuing to challenge the class system in America.

In America, everyone knows that the top 1 percent are the villains. The rest of us, the 99 percent―we are the good guys. Not so, argues Reeves. The real class divide is not between the upper class and the upper middle class: it is between the upper middle class and everyone else.

The separation of the upper middle class from everyone else is both economic and social, and the practice of “opportunity hoarding”―gaining exclusive access to scarce resources―is especially prevalent among parents who want to perpetuate privilege to the benefit of their children. While many families believe this is just good parenting, it is actually hurting others by reducing their chances of securing these opportunities. There is a glass floor created for each affluent child helped by his or her wealthy, stable family. That glass floor is a glass ceiling for another child.

Throughout Dream Hoarders, Reeves explores the creation and perpetuation of opportunity hoarding, and what should be done to stop it, including controversial solutions such as ending legacy admissions to school. He offers specific steps toward reducing inequality and asks the upper middle class to pay for it.

Convinced of their merit, members of the upper middle class believes they are entitled to those tax breaks and hoarded opportunities. After all, they aren’t the 1 percent. The national obsession with the super rich allows the upper middle class to convince themselves that they are just like the rest of America. In Dream Hoarders, Reeves argues that in many ways, they are worse, and that changes in policy and social conscience are the only way to fix the broken system.

About this title

From the Author

This book seems to have hit a nerve. Even when people don't agree with me (and a lot of people do not) I feel good if the conversation about inequality becomes a bit more personal, and a bit less focused on the super-rich. Very pleased it made it onto the Economist list of Books of the Year 2017.

From the Inside Flap

America is becoming a class-based society America prides itself on being a classless society, where hard work and talent get you ahead. A place where status is earned, not inherited. At least, that’s the idea. In fact, the United States is marked by a deepening class divide. Debates about inequality focus on the wealth of “super-rich,” or the top 1 percent. But as Richard Reeves shows, the most important and consequential gap in American society is the one between the upper middle class―broadly, the top fifth―and everyone else. The separation of the upper middle class can be seen in the income distribution, but also in family structure, neighborhoods, attitudes, and lifestyle. This is not just an economic divide but a fracturing of American society along class lines. Reeves shows how high-income parents are now passing on their class status to their children, threatening American ideals of equal opportunity and social mobility. Upper-middle-class children become upper-middle-class adults; class separation becomes class perpetuation. “For Americans,” Reeves writes, “this should set alarm bells ringing.” The upper middle class succeeds by accumulating skills and qualifications, but also by engaging in various forms of “ opportunity hoarding,” which make it harder for others to rise up to the top. These unfair mechanisms include zoning laws, college admissions procedures, and the allocation of internships. The result is a less competitive economy, Reeves argues, as well as a less open society. Inequality is natural, even desirable, when it results from fair competition. Class gaps that result from unfair advantage, however, generate legitimate resentment from those who are excluded. It is not too late to close the gap, however. Reeves outlines practical steps toward restoring opportunity and weakening class distinctions. This fascinating book shows how American society has become the very class-defined society that earlier Americans rebelled against―and what can be done to restore a more equitable social order.

About this edition

• Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0815734484
• ISBN 13: 9780815734482
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 206