"Our ambition and aspiration should be baseline, and we should aspire and have the ambition and plan to do more … I want Americans and families to not just get by but to be able to get ahead." United States Vice President Kamala Harris, outlining her plan to build an "opportunity economy" in a recent speech.
Author
Scott Schieman
Professor of Sociology and Canada Research Chair, University of Toronto
As a sociologist who studies how people think and talk about getting ahead in life, I've been struck by the tsunami of anti-ambition rhetoric in recent years that seems at odds with Harris's messaging.
A prominent 2022 feature in The New York Times Magazine's Future of Work issue, for example, proclaimed a new "Age of Anti-Ambition."
While many joined the "ambition is out" chorus, a softer refrain suggested that ambition had merely become quiet as Fortune magazine reported people were "no longer chasing achievement for achievements' sake."
Given all the anti-ambition rhetoric, it's reasonable to ask: is Harris's message about ambition resonating with voters with less than a month until the presidential election? Does anyone still believe ambition is important for getting ahead?
Shifts in sentiment
Let's look at some data. The General Social Survey (GSS) - the gold standard for tracking American attitudes and beliefs since the 1970s - asks a set of questions about the importance that people give to different ways of getting ahead in life.
The list includes "ambition," "hard work," "a good education," "coming from a wealthy family," "knowing the right people," etc. For each, respondents select from these response options: "essential," "very important," "fairly important," "not very important" and "not at all important."
In 1987, the first time the GSS presented these questions, 43 per cent of American workers said that ambition was "essential" to getting ahead; 44 per cent said it was "very important;" 11 per cent said it was "fairly important;" and only two per cent said "not very/not at all important."
I didn't believe that Americans had ditched ambition since then, but I needed data to test my hunch, so I solicited the research firm YouGov in 2023 and 2024 for two national surveys of 7,500 American workers. I call my study the MESSI (Measuring Employment Sentiments and Social Inequality).
My 2024 survey finds that most American workers still believe in the importance of ambition, but sentiments have shifted.
The share who now say ambition is "essential" dropped nine percentage points from 1987 to 34 per cent. While the share who said ambition was "very important" dipped by two points (now 42 per cent), the percentage who felt ambition was "fairly important" or "unimportant" increased by 11 points.
This softening is noteworthy. But, then again, if we are truly in an anti-ambition era, would three-quarters of American workers still see ambition as very important or essential?
Message falling flat?
In her stump speeches, Harris often mentions the "dignity of work" and the power of "hard work." But after years of anti-work rhetoric mixed with new anti-ambition language like "quiet quitting," a message celebrating the importance of hard work to get ahead might fall flat.
Let's return to the 1987 GSS. Back then, 91 per cent of working Americans said hard work was "very important" or "essential" to getting ahead.
That dipped slightly to 89 per cent in 2021 and then dropped to 77 per cent by 2024.
On one hand, an 11-point plunge might be seen as a concern. On the other hand, we could interpret the fact that almost eight in 10 American workers say that they still value hard work as a sign of its resilience - especially given the cultural onslaught against work's reputation and the persistent narrative about employees being miserable in their jobs since 2021.
Willing to work harder
According to a viral video on TikTok, quiet quitting is when you "quit the idea of going above and beyond."
Given quiet quitting's popularity among anti-ambition/anti-work narratives, I wondered how Americans would respond to a GSS question that asks the extent of agreement or disagreement with the following: "I am willing to work harder than I have to in order to help the firm or organization I work for succeed."
If quiet quitting has truly reached astronomical levels, wouldn't it make sense that most Americans would strongly disagree with that statement?
Two GSS data points in 2006 and 2016, well before the COVID-19 pandemic, show that eight in 10 American workers said they were willing to work harder than necessary. In my 2023 and 2024 MESSI surveys, I found that dropped to six in 10. Now, a greater share neither endorses nor rejects giving a little extra. Ambivalence is a bit more of a standard response.
'Hard work is good work'
What's the takeaway? Sweeping sociological claims that we're living in an age of anti-ambition and that most people are quiet quitting simply aren't justified.
Yes, sentiments about the importance of ambition and hard work - and going above and beyond - have shifted. And even though that shift is quieter than media discourse would have you believe, economic pessimism remains entrenched despite objective evidence to the contrary.
Harris may therefore have her work cut out for her in selling an "opportunity economy" message as election day draws closer. But as she has said: "Hard work is good work."
Scott Schieman receives funding from Social Science and Humanities Research Council.
