An Interview with Archbridge Institute CEO Gonzalo Schwarz on the American Dream
The Archbridge Institute (my employer) recently released its annual American Dream Snapshot, a national survey exploring how Americans think about the American Dream. I was planning to write about this survey, but then it dawned on me that it would be far more interesting to interview the author of it, Gonzalo Schwarz, who is also the founder and CEO of the Archbridge Institute. I believe this will help readers gain a better understanding of not just what the public thinks about the American Dream, but also the broader conversation around this topic.
Clay: Before discussing the American Dream Snapshot, I'd love to share with readers a bit of your background, particularly your immigrant story. What drove you to move to the United States and start a think tank dedicated to lifting barriers to human flourishing?
Gonzalo: I moved to the United States 17 years ago to do a master's in economics, trying to address the poverty I saw around me when I was living in Latin America and around the world. I've lived in many countries, was part of many cultures, and learned immensely through my life and work. I was able to see that people across the world have many more things in common that unify us than things that separate us, and that they just want better lives for themselves, their families, and in many cases for society at large. As you well know, Clay, they are moved by meaning and act on their agency. And when it comes to poverty, I saw that it was many of the same issues that plagued poor and developing countries I was living in and thought that studying economics would lead me to find answers. Unfortunately, I didn't find them during my undergraduate studies, so I came to the United States in search of those answers during my master's. And I found them, albeit not so much in my graduate education, which certainly helped. I found them in the entrepreneurial spirit of the United States, the story and history of the country and its founding, and in how the country represents the search for human flourishing in action. I found the answers by seeing how the United States is the land of opportunity, which is possible because of its embrace of strong institutions, dynamic markets, and uplifting cultural narratives.
This ultimately led me to continue my life's journey of lifting barriers to human flourishing. Overcoming poverty is certainly a component, but I came to see the pursuit of human flourishing as a more holistic and uplifting endeavor than just escaping subsistence and poverty. So I set out on my own entrepreneurial journey by starting a think tank highlighting the many areas that are part of the economics, psychology, and culture of human flourishing and trying to build a human flourishing movement that can put those ideas into action.
Clay: Why is the topic of the American Dream so important to you and your work on human flourishing?
Gonzalo: When I moved to the United States, I fell in love with the national ethos of the American Dream and how it inspired millions of Americans to pursue their dreams. Having lived or worked in many places around the world, I realized that not many countries have that exceptional national ethos. It's a precious cultural narrative that has fueled the United States, which I think represents human flourishing in the American context. What I realized as I was studying economics was that trying to address and solve poverty was not the right way to think about helping people to pursue a better life. It is more about helping people fulfill their human potential and remove barriers in their way to pursue their own version of the American Dream and live better, richer, and fuller lives. A dream that is certainly universal but that has taken a significance and passion of its own in the United States.
At the same time that I became excited about it, I saw a rising sense of pessimism around the American Dream in public debates and policy conversations. As an immigrant excited to be here in search of opportunity and embracing everything about the United States and the American Dream and how different it was from other places I've lived, I was distraught by how much pessimism there was around it. So I set out to live my own American Dream, using my think tank to rekindle it and push back against the negative and pessimistic narratives around the American Dream. I believe that lifting barriers to human flourishing so that more people have more opportunities to pursue the good life and achieve their fullest human potential is a quintessential aspect of the American Dream and the story of America.
Clay: The Archbridge Institute just released the 2025 edition of the American Dream Snapshot. What are the key findings you think people should know about?
Gonzalo: The three key findings for me are:
First, most Americans (69%) believe they have achieved the American Dream or are on their way to achieving it, regardless of race, income, or education, so this is certainly the most positive thing to highlight. The American Dream is alive and well. And compared to last year, fewer people said that the American Dream is out of reach, 30% as compared to 32% in 2024.
Second, Americans are less optimistic about their fellow citizens, with only 51% believing that most Americans can achieve their American Dream. But on the positive side, across all demographics, a majority of Americans agree that most people believe in the American Dream and that Americans can be united around a shared belief in the American Dream (66% and 65%, respectively).
Third, most Americans regard living better and fuller lives, rather than simply becoming wealthy, as essential to the American Dream. "Freedom of choice in how to live" (83%) and "having a good family life" (80%) continue to be the most important achievements associated with the American Dream. In comparison, only 15% of people say becoming wealthy is essential, down from 19% last year. Other factors include retiring comfortably (72%), owning a home (52%), having a successful career (45%), and making valuable contributions to the community (34%).
Clay: Many discussions about the American Dream focus almost exclusively on economic factors like income, wealth, purchasing power, and housing affordability. These are important issues, but as a psychologist, I really appreciate your more holistic approach to studying the American Dream. What do you think those who see the American Dream as primarily an economic or materialistic pursuit are missing in their analysis?
Gonzalo: There has always been a caricature about the American Dream that it is about pursuing material goods like a home or a car, or just about becoming wealthy. And the original definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adams refers to the dream being about seeking to find a richer, better, and fuller life regardless of where you started. So richer plays a part of that equation.
However, I personally believe that the pursuit of the American Dream is the pursuit of meaning in life. It is about the pursuit of happiness enshrined in our Declaration of Independence.
Owning property certainly is a good ideal and should be celebrated as part of the American Dream as it can lead to a better life. But the true meaning of the American Dream comes from that pursuit of a good life. The dream itself I think might be more related to the idea of the home you build with your family within the confines of that physical home, so it's a good family life that drives the American Dream, and not the material good itself.
People might see becoming wealthy as a goal, and it is a marker of success to some extent. But I believe it is not the most important marker when it comes to pursuing the American Dream. In many cases, economic success might be a byproduct of being successful at one's job because it provided you meaning. In some cases, more money does buy happiness until a certain point, but then you turn to other things in your life for that meaning, whether it be that the business you have built is addressing a crucial need in society, that with more wealth you can donate to charitable causes that are meaningful to you and are making an impact, or just taking an extra vacation that will create lifelong memories. But in those instances, wealth and material goods are not the end goal, but they are the means to achieving your American Dream through meaning.
This isn't just my personal opinion. Our survey confirms it. More people think that what is essential to the American Dream, to the tune of 8 in 10 people, is actually freedom of choice in how to live and having a good family life. Retiring comfortably, which certainly requires a certain level of wealth, is a close third, but owning a home is not rated as essential and becoming wealthy is only seen as essential for 15% of people in our sample.
Clay: You started this annual survey in 2020. Over the last six years, what trends do you find most encouraging or worrisome?
Gonzalo: Since we first started the survey six years ago, I do worry that more people think that the American Dream is out of reach. Even if people were less pessimistic this year than in 2024, it is still 3 in 10 Americans that think that the American Dream is out of reach, up from 2 in 10 Americans when we first started the survey. I worry that cultural debates, policy conversations, and public discourse are too pessimistic about the American Dream and that the pessimism could become a self-fulfilling prophecy where in the future even more people become pessimistic about it.
Even so, I remain hopeful because despite many issues and challenges we face, people still remain optimistic. One important data point in this year's survey is that when we followed up with people who said that the American Dream is out of reach and asked them why, most of them—over 50%—attributed it to economic conditions, which in my mind is more resolvable as we can remove barriers to opportunity, to economic growth, that can lead to the pursuit of more human flourishing and people achieving their American Dream. But more intractable cultural problems like a fundamental disbelief in the American Dream are more worrisome and harder to solve. Which is why I was relieved when I saw that it was only chosen by 8% of those 30% of respondents, so barely over 2% of the total sample of over 2,100 people we surveyed.
Clay: In this year's report, you added questions about how Americans think tariffs and technological advances like artificial intelligence will affect their pursuit of the American Dream. What did you discover?
Gonzalo: Yes, this year we added two extra questions on the effects of two hot topics of the day: tariffs and artificial intelligence. We asked people if federal tariff policies would affect their American Dreams. More than half (58%) of Americans said that recent tariff increases will make it more difficult for them to achieve the American Dream, and only 12% say higher tariffs will help them. Among Republicans, 24% think the administration's new trade policies will help them, while 31% see them as a barrier, and 43% say they will have no effect. So it is clearly something impactful.
When it comes to advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), most Americans are ambivalent about the effects of technology on the American Dream. Half (51%) of the respondents to our survey think AI will not affect their pursuit of the American Dream; 31% of people think it will have a negative effect, and 16% think it will have a positive effect. It is still early to ascertain how the AI revolution will affect people, but for now it's good to include that question and see how it changes over time. Luckily, we have another great project that you lead, Progress Pulse, that can provide more insights into the effects of technology and AI in society without needing to wait until next year's American Dream snapshot results.
Clay: It seems popular to dump on the American Dream. When I come across media content on this topic, it's almost always pessimistic. Many declare that the American Dream is dead, out of reach, or a complete lie. This negativity spans the political spectrum. You see it on both the far left and far right. Why do you think there's such a gap between what the cultural commentators are saying and how the general public actually feels about the American Dream?
Gonzalo: I call it the Rotten Tomatoes problem of the American Dream. As most of your readers would know, Rotten Tomatoes is a movie review aggregator website. One significant advantage is that it reveals both the critic score, which certifies if the movie is "fresh" or not, and also the audience score, which is now called the Popcornmeter. What I've come to see recently, as more people are finding meaning in politics and political advocacy, is that the critics are trying to insert more of those politics and advocacy into film and don't let the movie itself just serve its purpose, which is to entertain the audience.So from time to time I like to visit the site and see what critic score a movie or TV series that does not conform to the current vibes receives and compare it to the audience score, which comes from viewers who are just looking to be entertained. And in many cases what I've seen is that there are big discrepancies and critics don't like movies that don't conform to some political stance or public debates so it gets a bad score while at the same time the audience does enjoy it and gives it a good score. I go into more detail and give some more examples here.
So when it comes to the American Dream, the critics are the elites who dominate journalism, politics, and policy. And related to this cohort, the American Dream has a “rotten tomatoes” problem. Because in this sphere we see that politicians who say the American Dream is dead want to sell you on their political platform as the only way to rekindle the American Dream. Journalists and the media are hungry for content and negative takes that will generate more clicks with their viewers. And academics and policy researchers also want to offer you their take on the American Dream so you come to them for answers. This sounds a bit cynical but in my opinion it is what we see in our public debates and culture and it seems to sell to be down on the American Dream. Just a few years ago we saw a Green Day song bashing the American Dream, or even Captain America being down on the dream. And being critical is fine but this negativity seems unwarranted. And I say that because in this case what we would refer to the audience score of the American Dream is precisely what we try to do with our survey. Go directly to Americans who are the audience and ask them what they think about the American Dream. What our survey shows is that the audience is far more positive about the American Dream than the critics.
There are definitely many more challenges we need to overcome and barriers we need to remove so that more people can live out their American Dreams and fulfill their human potential, so some constructive criticism is useful and we should try our best to improve as a nation. But for now the Rotten Tomatoes score for the American Dream shows that disconnect between the critics and the audience.
Clay: As an immigrant to the United States, is there anything about the concept of the American Dream that's been especially inspiring to you that you think some native-born Americans might not fully appreciate?
Gonzalo: What I think it mainly comes down to is that some native-born Americans don't appreciate or at least undervalue the amazing national ethos that is the American Dream. Nowhere in the world is the social fabric of a country embedded with such a hopeful, aspirational, and wholesome concept. It creates a cultural narrative that is a powerful engine for progress, self-improvement, and even as a redemptive arc. It provides for such a diverse kaleidoscope of stories that together form the story of America. When I first moved to the United States, I was struck by all the amazing stories of the American Dream. It's more of a positive-sum concept than a zero-sum idea as many people can pursue it at the same time. It seems like we could have as many as 340 million dreams, one for each American.
And in many cases, when native-born Americans are too pessimistic about the American Dream and the story of America, it is immigrants who refuel the gas tank of the American Dream, through our own stories, through the stories of countless immigrants that made this country what it is, as we were all immigrants at some point in the history of the country.
However, I also think that many immigrants should do a better job of trying to learn about the history and story of America and try to connect the dots in terms of what makes this country so special. The American Dream is not unique to America as everyone might want to live a better, richer, and fuller life, but this is ultimately the best country to pursue it, which is why so many people come here to pursue it. It is a country that allows for that pursuit of happiness and the American Dream because of specific conditions, so as immigrants we should seek to understand and embrace America's ideals and try to assimilate as much as possible so we can strengthen the American Dream even further for future generations.
Clay: Gonzalo's insights are especially timely as we celebrate Independence Day. His perspective serves as a powerful reminder of why this experiment in human flourishing is still worth celebrating.
You can learn more about the Archbridge Institute and the 2025 American Dream Snapshot here.
Have a great Fourth of July weekend!
Clay