Jamie Dimon said the American Dream was slipping away. JPMorgan just put $40 million on the table to fix it

Jamie Dimon said the American Dream was “slipping out of reach” and he wanted to be part of the solution, so his bank put $40 million on the table. The sheriff of Wall Street laid down a marker in March with the announcement of the American Dream Initiative, saying that the idea that hard work pays off was still alive, but “slipping out of reach for too many people, and for future generations.” Not only does it slow economic growth, he added, but it also hurts communities, and prevents many people from getting ahead. In one of the most ambitious community investment programs in the bank’s 225-year history, it committed nearly $80 billion in lending to small businesses over the next decade. After Memorial Day, JPMorgan revealed more of its plan. The bank announced nearly $40 million in new philanthropic grants on Wednesday as part of National Small Business Month, the first major capital deployment under its American Dream Initiative. The firm said the money is structured to unlock more than $500 million in total capital for small businesses nationwide, a 13x return on the philanthropic investment, and to create or retain roughly 6,000 jobs. “Small and mid-sized businesses are the backbone of the economy,” said Stevie Baron, CEO of Chase for Business. “Building on our American Dream Initiative, this funding will broaden access to capital and support so more entrepreneurs can start, scale, and hire.” Where the money is going JPMorgan is routing the grants through community development financial institutions rather than writing checks directly to businesses—a model the bank has refined across more than a decade of large-scale community programs, from its landmark $200 million Detroit investment in 2013 to the $30 billion racial equity pledge it declared nearly complete in 2024. The urgency behind Dimon’s March warning is grounded in a stark data point from the JPMorganChase Institute: fewer than 10% of new bus