American Dream
Sticker Shock
What the American Dream costs today, and how families can still get it.
How much money do you have? Here’s one that’s even more personal: do you have enough?
Enough for what? What are we all striving for in this country? To live the American Dream. Will you and your family miss out because you won’t have enough money to live the life you’ve always wanted, give your children the future they deserve, or make the difference you’ve always imagined?
Be warned: the price tag may be shocking. But before you decide the Dream is impossible, read all the way to the end. We’re going to add up, line by line, what it costs to live the American Dream. Then we’re going to show you how families pay it.
A dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.
The American Dream according to Americans themselves
When Gallup asked Americans what comes to mind when they think of the American Dream, the answers came back in three big themes. Four out of five define the Dream by freedom, security, or the chance to move up. Fewer than one in eight describe it as fading or gone.
Nearly 8 in 10 Americans say the Dream is worth striving for. Fewer than half believe everyone gets a shot at it. The gap between those two numbers is the gap this page is about.
Stability for your family. Opportunity for our future.
Ask a family what the Dream is really about and you’ll hear one of two answers. Stability: supporting your family with a job and a safe place to live. Opportunity: improving the quality of life for you and your family through education, better work and other resources. Gallup asked, and the answer depends on how long your family has been here.
First-generation Americans choose opportunity almost three to one. Families who have been here for generations lean toward stability. Both answers are right, and both have a price. The receipt ahead adds up the stability. Everything after it is about the opportunity.
The price tag of the American Dream
One hypothetical family: two parents, two children in grade school, one home, one car, a plan for college and a plan for retirement. Every line on their receipt comes from a public source. Keep scrolling and watch it print.
Home Ownership
It’s at the heart of the American Dream. Start with the median price of a new house in America at $393,800. Put 10% down and finance the rest with a 30-year mortgage at 6.71%, the going rate when this price tag was updated. Add yearly maintenance at 1% of the purchase price.
Utilities & Apparel
The federal government tracks what American households actually spend. Electricity and natural gas come to $2,326 a year, and clothing for the family adds $2,001.
Groceries
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s moderate-cost food plan for a family of four with two grade-school children: $1,388.60 a month. That’s food at home. Eating out comes later.
Transportation
Owning a mid-size SUV that comfortably fits a family of four, according to AAA. Depreciation, fuel, insurance, maintenance, finance charges and registration, all in.
Medical & Health
Employer coverage pays most of the bill for a family’s health care. The family’s own share, payroll deductions plus out-of-pocket costs, based on the Milliman Medical Index for a family of four.
Leisure
If you don’t make time for a little rest and relaxation, you certainly aren’t living the American Dream. A family vacation runs $3,940. Entertainment adds $3,609, eating out $3,945, phone service $1,460, and personal care and miscellaneous expenses $2,196.
Taxes
Every dollar above is spent after the government takes its share. A household at this earning level can expect to pay about 30% of its taxable income in federal, state and local taxes. Income, property, sales and payroll taxes are all in that number. The biggest single line on the receipt.
Education
Four years of tuition and fees at a public university now runs about $48,000 per child, before housing and food. Saving toward it takes $2,500 a year per child, set aside before taxes. Add $5,500 a year in school-year expenses for two children.
Retirement
Knowing that one day you may not want to, or be able to, hold a job, it’s critical to save for retirement. A worker under 50 can put up to $24,500 a year into a 401(k) before taxes. That’s about 14% of this family’s income, right at the level many financial professionals recommend.
$0
That’s the cost to live the American Dream as defined by Americans themselves, added up line by line from public data. How many people do you know who make that much in a year? If ‘enough’ is about $175,000 a year, can you afford the American Dream? Even if you can now, what about in retirement?
The key word is ‘yet.’
The price tag keeps climbing
When the first edition of this book added up the Dream, the receipt came to $130,357 a year. This edition: $174,529. Four lines did most of the climbing, and two of them, a home and health care, did almost all of it.
The price tag had increased by $44,172 a year in just one decade.
Every line on this receipt is a public number that moves: the price of a house, the interest rate on the mortgage, the cost of a doctor’s visit, the limit on a 401(k). The receipt carries a date because prices move. Everything else here stays true. Wages moved too, and they moved slower than the two lines that matter most. The Dream stayed roughly as far away as it was, and the families chasing it have been running the whole time.
Most Americans are far off
Regardless of how big and beautiful their dreams may be, most U.S. families fall painfully shy of $175,000 in annual income. The typical American household earns $81,604 a year. There’s not a single state in the country where the median household earns even two-thirds of the price tag.
Only about 1 in 5 U.S. households earns $175,000 a year
If $175,000 a year is required to live the American Dream, but the typical American household earns $81,604, what’s the real-world outcome? A lot of people have had to put their dreams on hold or forget them altogether. We now have an explanation for why so many families are struggling financially, surviving paycheck to paycheck, and working long hours at jobs they don’t enjoy.
Aside from hitting the lottery, how will the average American close the gap between the $70,000s or $80,000s and $175,000? And even if they pulled it off by clocking 70 or 80 hours a week, would they have any time left to enjoy the good life? How do we close such a giant income gap?
The American Dream costs more than twice the amount the average American household earns annually.
To me, the American dream is being able to follow your own personal calling. To be able to do what you want to do is incredible freedom.
What most people do with a dream they can’t afford
Here’s what happens to most people when they see this number. They shrink the dream. Quietly, over the years, they trim it until it fits the size of their paycheck, or the size of the opportunity they believe they have. The bigger house becomes the house they already own. The better school becomes whatever is in the district. The trip becomes someday. The business becomes a story about what they almost did.
There’s another response, and it’s the way this country was built. Think about how your family pays for almost every big thing it will ever own. Nobody writes one check for the entire house. Big goals require a plan, a vehicle, and money committed over time.
America found a vehicle to build this nation. That’s all your dreams need: a vehicle.
Dreams need a way to pay for them
Here is the same receipt, reprinted with one line changed. Financing a dream means a plan, a vehicle, and payments made in effort, with no loan anywhere in the picture. The plan is the decision to go after the number. The vehicle is a business that can grow past a salary. The payments are the daily work of building it.
This is a football
Vince Lombardi opened training camp every year by holding up a ball in front of professional players and saying, “Gentlemen, this is a football.” John Wooden began every season at UCLA, national champions included, by teaching his players how to put on their socks. Fundamentals first. Here are ours.
The average savings account in America pays 0.38%. At that rate, money takes about 190 years to double. The average credit card charges more than 20%. At 24%, a balance doubles every 3 years. Trillions of dollars sit in those savings accounts. $1.26 trillion sits on credit cards.
One doubling. About 190 years.
Four doublings. Twelve years.
You can’t live the American Dream when your money doubles every 190 years and your debt doubles every 3 years. That’s where we come in.
Save for centuries or build for years
If you read the $175,000 a year receipt and realize your paycheck can’t close the gap, you have two options: save your way there or build your way there. The first takes millions in savings. The second takes entrepreneurship: find a problem people need solved and build a profitable business around the solution.
To fund the American Dream from savings alone at a hypothetical 5% annual return, a family would need $3.5 million. Starting from zero and saving $10,000 a year, about 12% of the median household income, takes generations to reach.
Wealth equivalency: what $175,000 a year is actually worth.
The American Dream income gap is a massive problem. The need is the problem. Teaching people how money works, and showing them how to take action, is the business. Your next three steps:
- Read the book. Pull one of the ideas above and read it in less than 2 hours.
- Run your own numbers. Start with TheMoneyBooks Common Sense Calculator, which you can open at howmoneyworks.com.
- Ask about the business. Someone gave you this page, and the next step is a conversation.
The math and the need never lie. Somebody has to teach America how money works. Why not you?
There’s a bridge to span the gap
WealthWave is a team of top-performing leaders with World Financial Group (WFG), a world-class business platform at the vanguard of today’s financial industry. WealthWave helps Americans master financial concepts and access the products and services they need to become more financially secure. And if you have an income gap, you can decide to become an independent financial professional with our company.
At WealthWave we know it’s possible to bridge the gap to $175,000 and beyond, because we watch it happen on our team every day. From every earning and experience level, age, background and nationality, everyday Americans are crossing from a place of limitation to a position of possibility.
There’s no ‘dream’ license
You need a license to offer financial products. But you need no license to introduce someone to this business. Most people want to get licensed before they talk to anybody, because they feel unqualified. Then they introduce a friend, the friend wants to become a client, and suddenly the doubts are gone, the questions are answered, and the license gets done.
You can start today.
WealthWave: What We Do
The idea at the heart of the American Dream is simple: no matter who you are or where you come from, you deserve a fair shot at a better life. We believe that shot begins with understanding money. We focus on four commitments.
Through TheMoneyBooks, the 7 Money Milestones, the Financial Literacy Quiz, the Common Sense Calculator™, live events, and a nationwide team of financial educators, we teach families how money works, show them where they stand, and give them the next step.
We teach first. We only serve when asked.
Practices can fill a calendar. Businesses can fill a stadium.
A practice is one professional serving the clients they can personally find. A business is different. You introduce people to the business. They introduce people. Between the ones you bring and the ones they bring, you’re connected to hundreds and eventually thousands of families you would never have met, could never have advertised for, and could never have hoped to run into. There’s friendship in those connections, and trust, and our books, our media and our leaders bring credibility to every one of them.
Our compensation plan offers four distinct ways to earn income and grow at every stage of your success.
Salaries get capped. Business can compound.
A salary has a ceiling, and somebody else sets it. A business has a different shape. It compounds, because every person you help build becomes a builder. There’s money in this, and it’s the byproduct of helping people.
Income is neither guaranteed nor typical, and many agents do not reach the same level of success. See the WFG earnings disclosure at worldfinancialgroup.com/legal/earnings-disclosure.
Reinvent yourself: what you’re doing now will simply be your ‘previous occupation’
When you were born, nobody stamped an occupation on you for the rest of your life. You can reinvent yourself and become a whole new person, with a whole new career. Our leaders did. They were accountants, nurses, contractors, realtors, mechanics, teachers, flight attendants and programmers, and they held just about every other job you can imagine. Most of them started right around the median. The difference that made them anything but average is that they closed the income gap and are now on their way to, or already living, their version of the American Dream.
To us, it’s predictable. Bring your passion, your effort, your hard work, and be coachable. Let us share the system with you and coach you through getting started.
What WealthWave brings
- A proven system, the Leadership Factory, that steers you step by step as you launch and grow
- A track to get on, and mentors and coaches who have run it
- Technology, tools and training, including support through licensing
- Product providers and a platform with the infrastructure already built
- A brand with books on Amazon and leaders on television, so the credibility arrives before you do
What you bring
- Passion for your family’s dream
- Effort and hard work
- Coach-ability
- A decision, and a first conversation
The problem keeps getting bigger, and it is still taught in almost no school. For a problem solver, that’s a lucky day.
You must dream and act at the same time
Our philosophy is that dreams happen with action. You must have both. Once you’ve made the decision to explore a WealthWave business, there are three ways to begin. Work with your WealthWave leader to choose the option that best fits you and your situation.
Client
Grow your financial knowledge.
Use our strategies to secure your financial future.
Part-Time
Become a licensed financial professional.
Choose your hours and build your business on your terms.
Full-Time
Build a business without limitations.
Take advantage of a wide variety of incentives.
The mission of WealthWave is to show America that the Dream is alive and well. With the support of our business platform and system, our proven track record, and our world-class team of leaders, we hope you believe as we do that it’s a reality that can be yours. Never stop dreaming. Never stop taking action.
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.
Sources
1. MCAAD-Gallup American Dream Study, January 7 to March 4, 2026, 6,381 U.S. adults. 2. Archbridge Institute with NORC at the University of Chicago, The American Dream Snapshot, April 2026. 3. U.S. Census Bureau and HUD, Monthly New Residential Sales, July 2026: median sales price of new houses sold, $393,800. 4. Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, September 3, 2026: 30-year fixed rate 6.71%. Payment assumes 10% down; maintenance at 1% of purchase price; property taxes counted in the tax line; homeowners insurance excluded. 5. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey, 2024 averages per consumer unit. 6. USDA moderate-cost food plan, family of four with two grade-school children. 7. AAA Your Driving Costs, mid-size SUV. 8. Milliman Medical Index, family of four, employee share. 9. Vacation, entertainment, dining out, phone and personal care per BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey. 11. College Board, Trends in College Pricing, public four-year in-state tuition and fees. 12. School-year expenses per family estimate. 13. IRS 401(k) elective deferral limit. 16. U.S. Census Bureau, median household income by state. 17. U.S. Census Bureau, share of households earning $175,000 or more. 19. WFG earnings disclosure at worldfinancialgroup.com/legal/earnings-disclosure.
©2026 WealthWave Media. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce, print, re-transmit, copy, distribute, publish or sell the content of this page without prior written permission. Figures on this page carry a date because prices move; the receipt was last updated September 2026.