Four years into an economic recovery in which most of the benefits have flowed to the top earners, a majority believes that the American Dream is becoming markedly more elusive, according to the results of a Washington Post-Miller Center poll exploring Americans' changing definition of success and their confidence in the country's future.
While most Americans still think hard work and education breed opportunity, their faith in a brighter tomorrow has been eroded by intensifying struggles on the job and at home that have led some to conclude that the United States has emerged from the Great Recession a fundamentally changed nation.
Among the poll's findings: