ABSTRACT
Loyalty—the quality or state of having a strong feeling of support or allegiance to a company or organization—has long been equated with the tenure of an employee. The shift in "loyalty" among workers has been building for many years. Employees are driving the shift in loyalty because they know that they can't count on one company—any company—to provide for them. The state of the American dream has a lot to do with the dissonance between employers who value and seek loyalty and are disappointed, or even angry, when they don't receive it and employees who may or may not believe in a correlation between work and the American dream. Many definitions and criteria are loaded onto people's different interpretations of the American dream, and indeed the meaning of the American dream has ebbed and flowed over time and among people of different demographics and cultural and social backgrounds.
