Wow this thread clearly crush "dreamers"
There are enough evidence, everywhere in the world, where people with "Poor" backgrounds, excelled in life, and made it big.
Bill Gates started in his garage {Today he is the richest man alive}
My neighbor came to our "3rd world" country with only a bag of clothes. 45 years later he pensioned a millionaire, and I am the poor bastard next door, spoiling his view. Ha ha ha.
And there are thousands of these examples of poor people making it big. {Those are the good stories, that catch the news, not the wealthy rich boy, who inherit millions}
Will the rich get richer, yes they will.. Do poor people, have no change, of making it big? No way.
Gates was hardly from a poor background. Yes he made a lot of money, but never, NEVER forget that a good part of that was because he was in the office the day Digital Research was out hang-gliding. When IBM came a-calling he was there. Was that hard work? Sure. Was that also luck? Sure.
I remember these guys from the ITS days, and when Gates was writing code for the Model 100. Luck played a bigger part than you might want to acknowledge.
And I know plenty of people who founded companies in the 90's dot.com boom and the late 90's Internet boom. Some made a lot of money, then lost it all on their next investment. Because they confused their "luck" with "skill" and "smartz".
That said, studies have shown that social mobility in the US is stagnated. It's a lot harder to drop from rich to poor, and a lot harder to move from poor to rich. Easier to fall out of middle class, harder to move from middle-rich. That's not an opinion, that's a simple flat fact.
My own story of dropping out of HS to where I am now (quite happy and comfortable) is kind of cool, but it really helped that I was sleeping on the right steam grate when the opportunity arose. I credit my skills, my friendly manner, but I *never* forget that luck played a part, along with my upbringing (son of an AT&T manager in the 70's. Got a lot of cool things to play with as a kid).