Poor people become rich all the time, we just generally don't notice because it's usually some poor immigrant with good parents who value hard work who skyrockets in wealth, which cuts quite hard against the notion that there's no upward mobility in america. The elephant in the room is that immigrants, born into far worse circumstances than the poorest trailer parks in america, often come to america and prosper. The fact that not *all* of them do is hardly an indictment of america with regard to upward mobility.
Please see: that recent video of the starbucks dude sputtering and breaking down and losing all composure because there are.... customers. At starbucks. During his totally standard 8 hour shift. You think he'd be bitching about that if he escaped some other hellhole country before working at starbucks? Not likely.
We're too comfortable and happy and completely ignorant of the attitudes that enabled our predecessors to build the society that we all now gleefully spit on.
TLDR: Bootstraps still work, and are still usually the right answer.
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