Well I think luck plays a huge role in life. I'd wager that kids born to crack hos in ghettos have higher rates of all those poverty factors I mentioned than kids born to billionaires in the nice parts of Manhattan. Anyone can become sick, mentally ill, or disabled overnight. You can't choose your parents. Learning ability is also entirely based on luck. Some people are genetically prone to addictions and addictive behaviour etc. So overall I'd say luck plays a huge role in poverty.
Luck does not play that big a role in people's lives. I think Angrycat said it best, It's people who believe that some force out of their control, like luck, is the source of all their problems who fail. (Just like the traders who blame the market makers/brokers/PPT for chasing their stops or blame some other person for their losses) You can sit around crying about how unlucky you are all your life or you can get off your ass and do something about it. Being genetically prone to something does not mean that you have to succumb to it. You still have free will. You make the choices that feed your problem or work around it. I agree something like becoming disabled, either mentally or physically, is based on luck. But that is the extreme bad luck side of it. If you can walk and you have a functioning brain you can learn skills that will allow you to make a decent living. Maybe you can't be a rocket scientist, but you can take yourself out of poverty. And if you do that, your children will have a better chance of taking it to the next level. Maybe you can't change your luck, but you can make it more likely that luck will be on your side. Sitting and feeling sorry for yourself all your life is going to result in a minimal chance of making it out of poverty. If you work hard, you have a much better chance of getting what you want.
I believe that "luck" plays a very minor role in most people's success and I believe anyone can succeed if they want to bad enough, if they are willing to do what it takes. Here is where the problem is, "what it takes" for someone born in the poorer "ghetto" type areas is A LOT more then someone who is born into a supportive middle class family. Success, on average, is based in large part to environment. Before a baby is born in a really poor area its odds of success are already substantially less then a baby being born in a middle class area. Sure there will be some superstars who can rise above their conditions, but most won't. It's a social cycle that is going to take the collective of all Americans to break. Another words, for the impoverished to come out of their government supported life styles it is going to take a collective effort by all of us. Pointing figures, especially when those figures are being pointed from a much more fortunate environment, is arrogant and judgmental at best and shows a gross lack of understanding of how social structures work. To say nothing of just having simple respect for your fellow man. If you are born in a nice area and have nice material surroundings it is not necessary that you socialistically give monetarily or materially to those born in less fortunate environments, but you should at least afford them your understanding, patients, and support. If we are all Americans shouldn't we want everyone in America to be successful and happy?
Here is where the problem is, "what it takes" for someone born in the poorer "ghetto" type areas is A LOT more then someone who is born into a supportive middle class family. ----------------------------------------------- A LOT MORE? Seems that way doesn't it? Ummm, I think we should start with a father, a male role model, a man with some time on his hands to spend with the children. If you can't offer money, you'd better make the time. Kids may not listen but they are watching and will end up doing what you do, it's the example.
So simple and effective that it's not obvious for many people in poverty. At least in countries with opportunities. i.e. not somalia, cuba, venezuela, etc.
You are right for most middle and upper middle class Americans in what you say. But for the poorest and least educated luck of birth makes it harder and less likely to succeed. And if your luck puts you born in Africa in a desert or in a poverty village in a third world country your chance of success in minuscule.
the more powerful government the less the upward mobility. that is why the US is losing its competitiveness.
There's more upward mobility, or at least more chances of upward mobility, than in any other free, prosperous country. This is a plain fact