Tag Archives: demographics

Is the United States Still the “Land of Opportunity”?

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Friends of mine have lost their jobs in the economic downturn that has hit the United States. And that some of them are having a hard time finding new jobs makes me wonder what has happened to America as the “land of opportunity.”

Experts at the Brookings Institution are analyzing preliminary data from the 2010 U.S. national census and are finding that if current trends continue, Americans could find themselves living in a far less equitable society.

According to Bruce Katz, vice president and director of the Metropolitan Policy Program of the Brookings Institution and Judith Rodin, president of The Rockefeller Foundation, a comprehensive study found that currently whites and Asians are more than twice as likely to hold a bachelor’s degree as blacks and Latinos. In addition, the hourly earnings of low-wage American workers declined by 8 percent this decade while high-wage workers saw their pay rise by 3 percent.

With the United States fast becoming a majority-minority society, these educational and economic disparities could become polarizing, but Katz and Rodin say U.S. competitors “in Europe and Asia are either growing slowly, as in Japan and China; or actually declining, as in Germany and Russia. In a fiercely competitive world, demographic transformation may be America’s ace in the hole.”

Participants at a naturalization ceremony in Phoenix

Phoenix-area residents celebrate after being declared new U.S. citizens during a naturalization ceremony.

While this probably won’t cheer up my unemployed friends, the United States remains the “land of opportunity” for many. Millions of foreigners come here each year, and many chose to become U.S. citizens. In 2009 alone, more than 700,000 people became U.S. citizens, according to a recent report (PDF, 320KB) by the Office of Immigration Statistics for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Even for the billions of people in the world who have no interest in leaving home to pursue opportunity in the United States, there is the worry that any malaise in the United States will eventually affect their countries as well. The Obama administration, too, has linked democracy and human rights to the freedom “to seize the opportunities of a full life.”

Do you think the United States is living up to its old image as the “land of opportunity”?

How Will the World View the "New Face" of America?

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Multi-lingual signs in mainstream national stores around the United States testify to America's increasing diversity.

When I was a child, the “face” of the United States was largely white. Today experts are analyzing the initial returns for the 2010 national U.S. census, and they are finding that the face of the United States is looking very different.

By 2025, the United States will be older, more diverse and more urban, according to Bruce Katz, vice president and director of the Metropolitan Policy Program of the Brookings Institution and Judith Rodin, president of The Rockefeller Foundation.

Racial and ethnic minorities, they say in a recent report, accounted for 83 percent of the U.S. population growth in the last decade, and the United States is well on the way to becoming a majority-minority society.

In the 1990s, I remember arguments about whether people of various cultures could adopt democracy. But it seems not to be a problem for the millions of people from all over the world who seek to make the United States their home.

Diversity and the many fruitful ideas it can bring are what helped make U.S. democracy strong. It’s a good thing, I think, that the democratic values the United States represents are shared by people from all ethnic and racial backgrounds. When people from around the world look at the United States, they will be able to see a face that may look very much like their own.

Do you think a majority-minority American society will change the way the world regards the United States?