For generations, the formula for getting ahead in America seemed straightforward: Go to college, work hard, save your money, buy a home and climb the economic ladder.
Today, that formula increasingly depends on something many Americans can’t control: whether their family has the financial means to help along the way. Without that support, many Americans face mounting debt and an increasingly difficult – if not impossible – path to homeownership and wealth accumulation.
I think the point is that really hasn’t changed. You just take the family slaves and farms and you can make a fortune, kind of goes back to the nations founding. Only real change I guess is the rare exceptions of someone starting with nothing and building up an empire, are getting rarer.
They were always exceptional. The best predictor of someone having wealth is that their family was wealthy. That has remained true for as long as the data has existed.