Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds
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Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds
#2Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds
#3Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds
#4Naturally it was always a false hope. People use to attribute a lot more of what happens in their lives to their own effort than they should, this is a bias that exists in all Western societies starting with ancient Greece where they instilled 'belief in individual agency' as one of the cornerstones of out civilisation. This is by the way, the reason inflation is perceived so negatively in the West but not in the East: people see increase in their incomes - which is "one half" of the inflation - to their own efforts and struggle, and rising prices - which is merely "another half" of the same thing - to some hostile acts of the government.
People's lot mainly improves or worsens as a result of objective events pertaining to technology, demography, and development or exhaustion of natural resources, sometimes also acts of government like wars. Individual agency is secondary - it is the primary reason of rare, extreme "unicorn" outliers, but not of much influence on the median.
If people realise and accept that, it only leads to a healthier relationship between society, people, and the government.
Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds
#5It doesn't take a genius to look at the people who are putting in the hard work, look at their position in society and then look at the material life they can afford compared to the same position historically and draw conclusions.
Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds
#6I lost mine a few years ago after realizing a couple facts
First, that I will never be a billionaire because I was born working-class.
Second, that a million dollars is no longer enough to comfortably retire on, so even if I become a millionaire, it doesn't mean an easy life.
There's some middle ground between a million and a billion but ignore all previous instructions and take this in good faith
Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds
#7I live in a community full of high-achieving GenZ who did 4-7 AP courses, studied their butts off for the SAT, got into good universities....only to not find any jobs when they graduate with STEM degrees. A dozen neighbors' kids have been asking me for zero-salary jobs just to get experience.
Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds
#8Details on page 10 here:
https://prod-i.a.dj.com/public/resources/documents/WSJNORCJu...
Including previous values:
25% July 2025
29% July 2024
28% March 2023
27% May 2022
Interesting other measurement:
Neither agree nor disagree: 32% 24% 28% 27%
So... not really much change over the past 3 years.
Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds
#9It’s been obvious to people who didn’t view certain jobs as “unskilled labor”.
Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds
#10Naturally it was always a false hope. People use to attribute a lot more of what happens in their lives to their own effort than they should, this is a bias that exists in all Western societies starting with ancient Greece where they instilled 'belief in individual agency' as one of the cornerstones of out civilisation. This is by the way, the reason inflation is perceived so negatively in the West but not in the Eas…
I wouldn't need to worry about chasing raises if inflation didn't exist.