Does the "American Dream" now cost more than $5 million (over a lifetime)?

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I followed the article that you linked because I was curious about how it defined the American Dream. In the first article, it lists the ability to pay for these items as signs of having achieved the American Dream (costing more than 5 million dollars).

    1. Retirement
    2. Healthcare
    3. Owning a home
    4. Raising two children and paying for college
    5. Purchasing new cars
    6. An annual vacation
    7. Owning pets
    8. Paying for a wedding

However, I tend to think of the American Dream not as the accumulation of those specific 8 items, but something closer to the definition used in another Investopedia article (which was linked to the first)

DEFINITION

The American Dream is the belief that anyone can achieve success through hard work in a society where upward mobility is possible for everyone.

In particular, I always thought of the American Dream as generational: the belief that you could have nothing (or immigrate to this country with nothing) and that your children and grandchildren will have a chance at more success and a better life than you had in your home country or even you had in the U.S.. So the social mobility is not so much for yourself but for your children. Now, I don’t really believe that even that more generational definition of the American Dream is attainable for many people. I think inequality can leave many families mired in poverty for multiple generations, still the more expansive definition doesn’t hinge upon whether of not I have those 8 items; instead it hinges upon whether my children have opportunities and freedoms that I did not.

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