Latest ADRI
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ADRI over time
What this measures
The American Dream Reality Index (ADRI) tracks structural conditions that research links to the plausibility of the American Dream — prosperity and mobility for ordinary people. Higher scores mean conditions are more enabling; lower scores mean they are less. It does not measure individual success or guarantee outcomes.
Ten indicators across six domains: Education, Health, Prosperity, Opportunity, Civic, and Safety. Fixed-anchor 0–100 normalization so that a 5-point change means the same thing in 2028 as in 2015. The index adopts a specific definition of the American Dream (material security, educational access, health and longevity, political voice, and freedom from a punitive institutional floor) and is neutral on the cultural framings placed on top of it. See §1.1 for what this index does and does not measure, and the full Methodology for anchor values, weights, and known limitations.
How to read the score
The ADRI is bounded 0–100 by construction, but the endpoints of that range are theoretical. A score of 100 would require every indicator to simultaneously reach its most-favorable-observed value; a score of 0 would require the opposite. Neither has happened in the observation window, and neither is expected in a mixed economy where indicators trade off against each other.
Across the 2010–2024 observation window, published design-weighted ADRI values have ranged from 34.9 (2012) to 43.9 (2024). Reason from the observed range rather than from the theoretical endpoints. See §1.2.
What is moving the most-recent score
The following indicators are near either end of their own 15-year observed range in the most-recent reference year.
Pushing higher
- Bachelor's degree attainment (25+) — at its 15-year high (36.8%, 2024).
- Real median household income — at its 15-year high ($83,730, 2024).
- Prime-age employment-to-population ratio — at its 15-year high (80.7%, latest reading).
- VEP turnout (presidential) — in the upper third of its 15-year range (63.9%, 2024).
Pulling lower
- NAEP grade-8 composite — at its 15-year low (263, 2024).
- Gini household income — in the more-unequal third of its 15-year range (0.481, 2024).
- Overdose mortality — still far from its 15-year best (23.7 per 100k, 2024).
- Supplemental Poverty Measure — in the middle-lower third of its 15-year range (12.9%, 2024).
Two indicators have known freshness limitations as of this release. Life expectancy at birth stops at 2018 in the current FRED source and is being evaluated for replacement with a CDC NCHS-direct series. Prime-age EPOP admits partial-year data at the most-recent point, which makes the index more responsive at the cost of a partial reading. See §7.3.1.
Latest by domain
Read the score carefully
- The ADRI is backward-looking. Most inputs lag reality by 12–24 months.
- It is national. It does not describe any state, county, or demographic group.
- It is a model, not a probability. It does not predict what will happen to any individual.
- Weights are a design choice. The equal-weight variant is shown alongside so you can see how sensitive the composite is to that choice.
- Anchor sensitivity is bounded. A univariate perturbation of any single indicator's low or high anchor by ±10% of its span moves the published composite by at most about 1.6 points at any published year, and less than 0.6 points on average. See docs/sensitivity/ for the raw sweep and ranked leverage table.
Update cadence
Full pipeline runs once per year, in Q4 of year t+1, after ACS, income/poverty, life expectancy, and overdose figures are all available for reference year t. Between annual runs, only source revisions and biennial refreshes (NAEP, voter turnout) trigger interim updates. See §6 of the methodology.