Points 1–5 can also be applied to anyone who grew up poor, but who found a way to climb out of poverty into the middle or upperclass. Especially with regards to Education, Resourcefulness, and Goal Setting.
Resourcefulness is also the key trait of the PARENTS of poor kids who would grow up to succeed, versus the kids in similarly poor families. Both families face roadblocks, but in study after study, the ones who were the most likely to stay in school, and later succeed in life, had parents that valued their children’s education, and would go above and beyond to find help for their kids (everything from remediation, community/church support, extra time spent with them on schoolwork, etc.).
So the points earlier commenters made about family money and generational wealth is true; yes, wealth doesn’t have to mean actual cash in the bank, and the cycle of poverty can be broken, BUT, the higher up your family starts on the ladder of wealth, the easier and faster it is for their kids to climb higher.
On the flipside, studies at Harvard, which followed their graduates for decades showed that the one trait that led to success (among the most successful, this being Harvard) was social intelligence, and a strong social network. No matter how smart or rich they were, the more social they were, the happier and more successful they were.
So what happens is, well-socialized white men, with generations of inherited wealth, can climb faster than others. A poor child with strong family resourcefulness, can also climb out of poverty, and faster than a neighbor that doesn’t have that same resource at home, but not as easily as a kid born into wealth to begin with.
Where two people land at the top of their game will be vastly different, even with all the same values—the poor child may grow up into the professional middleclass, or even make a million in business, whereas the white man with a wealthy family could become a multi-millionaire in just a few short years. Everyone else in the middle of that spectrum will fall somewhere in between, probability-wise.
