{"id":1141649,"date":"2026-08-10T13:48:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T13:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1141649\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T13:48:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T13:48:24","slug":"jamie-dimon-genz-is-wrong-to-give-up-on-the-american-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1141649\/","title":{"rendered":"Jamie Dimon: GenZ is wrong to give up on the American Dream"},"content":{"rendered":"

Between house prices, the cost of living, and the threat AI poses to the labor market, Gen Z could be forgiven for giving up on the American Dream. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase<\/a>, understands why\u2014but says they\u2019re wrong anyway.<\/p>\n

The American Dream\u2014the idea that anyone from anywhere can achieve success as long as they work hard\u2014remains \u201ctotally achievable\u201d for the majority, the Wall Street veteran insisted. It is the bottom 20% that has been left behind, he adds, which is driving polarization between the American social classes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the American Dream, the middle class has gotten bigger, most have gotten wealthier. The country is clearly wealthier, and the rich have gotten richer,\u201d Dimon told PBS<\/a>. \u201cBut the real issue is the bottom 20%. Their incomes have not gone up for 20 years\u2014maybe longer than that. They\u2019re the ones who drive home to more crime-ridden neighborhoods. They\u2019re the ones whose kids are going to schools [that] are not getting the best possible education to give them the opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo yeah, I think it\u2019s true, for them it\u2019s slipping.\u201d <\/p>\n

Dimon\u2019s own family is an example of the American Dream: The banker\u2019s grandparents immigrated to the U.S. from Greece without high school diplomas, but instilled in their children and grandchildren the need to find a purpose in life and pursue it diligently.<\/p>\n

Dimon now leads the biggest bank in the U.S. and is leveraging its might to increase opportunities across the country: J.P. Morgan\u2019s multi-year American Dream Initiative (ADI) focuses on six areas\u2014including support for small businesses and access to skills-based training\u2014to boost economic growth and help people live better lives.<\/p>\n

The plan has some way to go if young Americans are to be convinced the historic ideal can be achieved. Only a fifth of adults aged 18 to 29 believe in the possibility of the American Dream, according to a report from AP-NORC<\/a>, published in June.<\/p>\n

While Dimon argues \u201cI\u2019m not a big fan of polls, and most of those people will be wrong,\u201d he added he \u201ccompletely understands\u201d the anger felt by those at the low end of the wealth scale, and said policymakers from either side of the political divide should be working hard to fix policy that has allowed inequality.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether you\u2019re a Democrat or Republican, acknowledge the problem and then start to say, \u2018How can you fix it?\u2019 \u2026 That\u2019s what we should be working on, solutions to that problem,\u201d Dimon said. \u201cI think it causes a lot of the polarization today, some of the anger today, that people see that some people are doing very well and they\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd even the people who aren\u2019t, by the way, good-hearted Americans, they\u2019re not happy with that either. They don\u2019t like to see their fellow citizens suffering at all. And they want to see that fixed, too.\u201d <\/p>\n

Dimon\u2019s capitalist philosophy<\/p>\n

Other private market voices have suggested that skepticism about capitalism is also driving societal divides. In his 2026 letter to shareholders, for example, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink wrote<\/a> that \u201cthis is where much of today\u2019s economic anxiety comes from: a deeper feeling that capitalism is working\u2014just not for enough people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rise of democratic socialists<\/a> such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u00a0lends itself to this theory, and even Dimon (a self-described \u201cfull-throated, red-blooded, patriotic, unwoke, capitalist CEO\u201d<\/a>) says capitalism has its flaws. <\/p>\n

However, the banker added that there should be a distinction between imperfect systems and their less desirable alternatives. He explained: \u201cEvery system has flaws. There\u2019s never been a system that\u2019s perfect \u2026. The other thing is some of it\u2019s just bad people. There are bad people in capitalist societies. There are bad people in communist societies \u2026 And when you listen to people talk about capitalism, they\u2019re confusing all these things at once. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut I totally agree. It has left behind certain people.\u201d <\/p>\n

Fortune Daily<\/strong> breaks the traditional barrier between audience and newsroom. The show transforms Fortune\u2019s trusted reporting into actionable, conversational, and entertaining insights for an emerging class of business leaders. Watch here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Between house prices, the cost of living, and the threat AI poses to the labor market, Gen Z…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1141650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3090],"tags":[26598,17648,150290,51,1700,6781,3621,16,15],"class_list":["post-1141649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-affordability","tag-affordable-housing","tag-american-dream","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-gen-z","tag-jamie-dimon","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117071531791898818","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1141649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1141650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1141649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1141649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1141649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}