Jamie Dimon wants his bank to save the American dream at a moment when many Americans are losing faith in its economic promise.
JPMorgan announced a sweeping initiative aimed at expanding opportunities for upward mobility on Tuesday. It’s “American Dream Initiative” will focus on six key areas: small-business growth, housing affordability, financial literacy, skills-based training, healthcare, and local institutions, such as schools and hospitals.
While JPMorgan CEO Dimon, who made $43 million last year, is bullish on the American promise, Americans themselves are increasingly skeptical that capitalism, at its heart, still works. A Gallup poll in September found that a record-low 54% of Americans view capitalism favorably, down from 60% in 2021.
Small business owners are among those feeling an economic crunch — 77% of small and midsize business owners said their costs have risen over the past year, according to a November report from Bank of America — and JPMorgan is first focusing its new initiative on supporting them.
Through the American Dream Initiative, JPMorgan will work to bank 10 million small businesses, up from 7 million today. The firm outlined plans to provide nearly $80 billion in lending over the next decade, along with hiring more small business bankers and consultants. JPMorgan didn’t provide specific dollar amounts for many of the other investments — it will, according to the release, “support efforts that provide better access to healthcare” and “improve affordability for hundreds of thousands of renters” — and said the initiative will roll out over multiple years.
Dimon, who has said he salutes the flag in the lobby of his global headquarters every morning, has made other big commitments recently. In October, JPMorgan announced a $1.5 trillion Security and Resiliency Initiative to boost key US industries, focusing on defense and aerospace, “frontier” technologies, energy technologies, and supply chains. Earlier this year, the bank joined the list of companies committed to contributing to “Trump Accounts” for the kids of US-based employees, saying it would match the government’s one-time $1,000 contribution to the investment accounts for eligible newborns.
Government and corporate investments in Americans’ finances come amid something of a crisis of capitalism, especially among Democrats and younger generations. The most recent Harvard Youth Poll found that 39% of 18- to 29-year-olds surveyed support capitalism, down from 45% in 2020.
Though some Business Insider readers have told us that their belief in capitalism remains strong, others have cited rising living costs, the brutal job market, and AI as factors eroding their trust in the bedrock of America’s economy.
Even some big names on Wall Street have warned that capitalism is on potentially shaky ground. Longtime Citi banker Jay Collins, who has spent decades advising government officials through crises, recently told Business Insider that AI and robotics could challenge the capitalistic system.
“We have to tweak it, remodel it, remake it to allow for this, just like we did during the Industrial Revolution,” he said.
