Do workplace woes signal end of the American Dream?

Many believe the American Dream is in danger. Far from facing the future with their usual optimism, they have grown uneasy about what lies ahead. They seem to be less certain that hard work and the other traditional rules will be rewarded with a better life and are increasingly skeptical, even cynical, about their prospects and about the country in general. Many believe their children will have futures that are worse. not better, than theirs.

In an ongoing series of studies, the public opinion organization, Roper Starch Worldwide, has been following this shift in mood. Responses show that, as global competition and successive waves of downsizing have reshaped offices and factories into "lean, mean machines," to borrow a favored term of the 1990s, Americans have grown less satisfied with their hours, benefits, pay. chances for advancement, job security, interactions with their bosses, camaraderie in the workplace, and their jobs in general. More individuals say they feel more loyalty to their job than think their employers feel loyalty toward them.

Like a stone cast into a pond, the disillusionment that Americans are experiencing in the workplace appears to be rippling out, tempering their confidence in the economy and reshaping their perceptions of the world around them. This sense of limits appears to be coming to define this era in the same way that the long economic expansion of the Reagan years set off a revolution of rising (and, in retrospect, not entirely realistic) expectations in the 1 980s.

Roper research on the workplace shows that the turbulence of the 1990s has affected everyone from the factory floor to middle management to the executive suite. While "Generation X" has gotten a reputation as the age group most frustrated, with a perception of being confined to "McJobs" and being hemmed in by the baby boomers, the sense of diminished expectations runs across all generations.

Americans have grown uneasy. Their jobs might not offer a steady, upward increase in rewards and opportunities; the company might downsize, get sold, or go out of business; the jobs might go away, as many have over the past two decades.

Moreover, Americans' levels of satisfaction with specific aspects of their employment have declined. Those who say they completely are satisfied with hours, the sense of camaraderie in the workplace, and chances to move up in the organization all have...