Do you have any sources on what percentage of wealthy that inherit their wealth? From what I've gathered it's quite small and doesn't necessarily last more than a few generations.
A short article from inequality.org [1] suggests that most of the richest people in the world (Forbes 400) were born with significant financial advantages, if they weren't already wealthy.
Since there are many more rich people than the Forbes 400, that doesn't seem too representative of the usual rich person. It's hard to find anything conclusive - there are a few research memos put out by what seem to be wealth management firms claiming that most rich people are actually self-made. There's a clear conflict of interest here, so I'm not sure we can trust those results.
It seems understudied, and will take a lot more than 10 minutes of searching for relevant results.
1. https://inequality.org/research/selfmade-myth-hallucinating-...
I wouldn’t call 22% of the richest 400 people in the world having inherited more than $1M to be evidence inheritance dominates the causes of inequity.
I mean, another way to put it is “80% of the richest people in the world DID NOT inherit their wealth.”
[1] https://ips-dc.org/the_self-made_hallucination_of_americas_r...
22% received support and inherited up to a million, and a further 40% inherited at least a million - more than a lifetime's worth of income.
People outside these categories included those whose parents ran a successful business.
What's fascinating is that most of the German name-brand companies that thrived under the Nazis are still owned by the same families.