Two American Families: 1991-2024

FRONTLINE: Film Audio Track | PBS

FRONTLINE

Pbs, Tv & Film, Wgbh, Documentaries, Frontline

4.8 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 8 August 2024

⏱️ 117 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s a central premise of the American dream: If you’re willing to work hard, you’ll be able to make a living and build a better life for your children. But what if working hard isn’t enough to get ahead — or even to ensure your family’s basic financial stability? Two American Families: 1991-2024, a special, two-hour documentary filmed over more than 30 years, is a portrait of perseverance from FRONTLINE, Bill Moyers, and filmmakers Tom Casciato and Kathleen Hughes that raises unsettling questions about the changing nature of the American economy and the impact on people struggling to make a living. This is the saga of two families in Milwaukee, Wisconsin — one Black, the Stanleys, and one white, the Neumanns — who have spent the past 34 years battling to keep from sliding into poverty, and who refuse to give up despite the economic challenges that their stories reveal.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Thanks for listening to the Frontline Audiocast, the enhanced audio version of our documentaries.
0:07.0	We also produce a podcast, The Frontline Dispatch, available wherever you listen.
0:12.0	Check out the latest, a conversation about the documentary Two American Families 1991 to 2024.
0:20.0	Between frontline editor and chief and executive producer Rainy Aronson Roth,
0:24.8	the correspondent Bill Moyers, and filmmakers Tom Koshato and Kathy Hughes.
0:30.1	But right now, here is the audio cast of two American families, 1991 to 2024. you're We're raised to believe that each generation can and will do better than the last.
1:03.7	But is that really true?
1:06.4	In a frontline special presentation,
1:08.8	the continuation of Bill Moyer's portrait
1:11.6	of two families chasing the American dream.
1:15.0	The Stanleys...
1:17.0	It's called Rob Peter to Pay Paul, and I'm robbing Peter so much that Peter is just standing there.
1:22.0	I'm hitting 70 years old now and it's time for me to have it together. We ain't
1:27.8	gonna stop 11. We gotta keep moving, keep going. And as we get all the rich load out,
1:33.4	and in a sense of fool in ourselves, and the Newmans.
1:37.1	Having money coming in consistently
1:39.2	is more important than spending time
1:41.7	with my children all the time like I used to.
1:44.0	Money used to be a big thing.
1:46.0	Now there's so many more things that are really more important than money.
1:51.0	You can't lower my payments or my interest rates so I can stay in my house.
1:54.4	If our wages get raised then everything else goes up. There is no wiggle room for anything.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -189 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from FRONTLINE, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of FRONTLINE and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.