U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley comes to campus Friday to talk about the American Dream.

Merkley will attend an event titled, "Reversing the Decline of the Middle Class: Saving the American Dream," presented by the City Club of Eugene, the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics and the League of Women Voters.

The event – free and open to the public – runs from noon to 1:30 p.m. Aug. 9 in room 175 of the Knight Law Center.

A description of the event notes, "The past few years have been tough economically for our country, but the income inequality we are seeing in today's society has been a long time coming. Productivity has risen steadily since World War II, but wages have stagnated for more than 30 years and the middle class is shrinking — along with the American Dream. If we are going to get back on track as a nation, then we've got to realize that what we've been doing the last thirty years hasn't been working. We need to measure our success by how well ordinary people are doing, not by aggregate numbers."

For more information, visit the City Club of Eugene website.