Sharma: American optimism about out-earning parents dropped from 80% to 30%
Ruchir Sharma · India vs. China vs. US: Who Wins the Next Decade? | WTF is Finance | Ep 1 ft. Ruchir Sharma · Nikhil Kamath · Sep 3, 2025 · at 18:54
Investor Ruchir Sharma compares contemporary American survey data on intergenerational mobility to historical sentiment in the 1950s and 1960s.
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“Only about 30 to 40% of Americans today feel that they can have a better life than their parents. But back in the fifties and sixties, when the American dream was really shining, every American thought, virtually 70 to 80% of Americans thought that they, you know, they could have a better life than their parents.”
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