© 2025 All Rights reserved WUSF
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Our daily newsletter, delivered first thing weekdays, keeps you connected to your community with news, culture, national NPR headlines, and more.

Can you pull yourself up by your own bootstraps?: 'Bootstrapped' debunks American dream myth

An American flag waves. (Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
An American flag waves. (Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

How realistic is the image and the American myth of pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps? And what policies would actually help promote social mobility at a time when the wealth gap is widening and the middle class is shrinking?

Here & Now‘s Scott Tong talks with Alissa Quart, author of the book “Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream.” Quart is a journalist and the executive director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Tags
Thanks to you, WUSF is here — delivering fact-based news and stories that reflect our community.⁠ Your support powers everything we do.