About the Film

For the first time in America’s 244-year history, the dream of a better, rich, fuller life for all – the so-called American Dream – seems out of reach for many people, regardless of color, creed or politics. The post-war economic boom collapsed in the 1980s under the weight of trickle-down economics, deregulation and privatization, offshoring of jobs and a shift in the importance of shareholder value over the value of labor. And then, Covid-19 laid bare a structural hollowness in the U.S. economy that few realized had gotten so bad.

Out of Reach: The Struggle for the American Dream is an account of this collapse and a probing look at what lies ahead though the stories of hardworking Americans from different backgrounds, races and party affiliations in Milwaukee, WI. We go up close and personal, taking a deep dive into their daily lives. We focus on their travails and victories in their quest to succeed in a country riven by partisan politics, pandemic, racial and economic inequality and look at what an unsettled future could hold for them.

In their stories, the brokenness of the system is evident. Half-trillion-dollar companies pay no U.S. taxes. The U.S.’s for-profit healthcare system is often an unaffordable luxury and remains strangely tied to our employment. A fragmented educational system turns out high school graduates not qualified to do anything but go into debt for expensive tertiary or vocational education or risk becoming a permanent underclass. Heads of family are expected to support a family on a full-time $15-an-hour job with minimal benefits.

Solutions are less obvious, but, as the aspiration in the hearts of our characters shows, the dream has not died of making the United States of America a place where the rewards for hard work and discipline are a longer, safer and healthier life, workers’ rights and protections, home ownership and entry into the coveted middle class for people of all races and nations.