I'm very against judging people.
That being said, we do a disservice to our youth if we overemphasize the role of luck in being in poverty or not. There are strong correlations between poverty and lifestyle choices people typically do have control over.
- Starting your career before having children. In many cases, this implies finishing a certain amount of school and/or training.
- Marrying a responsible person and staying married
- Avoiding substance abuse
- Planning your pregnancies [1]
- Avoiding a criminal record [2]
And then there are risk mitigation strategies to avoid catastrophe:
- Establishing an emergency fund
- Living within your means
- Getting insurance and keeping up with payments
- Avoiding high risk investments and career moves [3]
I guess I feel that people who have figured out the basics are hesitant to preach what they practice. All of the above seems like a given to people who are comfortably middle class. But if you didn't have wise parents and nobody says anything out of an overemphasis on empathy, you could make any of those mistakes easily and then get treated like a fool.
[1] Tragically, some people are raped and become pregnant against their will, which is why we shouldn't judge folks, but the mass majority of pregnancies do not happen for this reason. Considering the abortion rate for married women, it seems that accidental pregnancy is actually very common.
[2] Again, don't judge. People are falsely convicted of crimes. People have criminal family members. People make dumb choices and learn their lessons. But being violent over beefs or going for joy rides in stolen cars is just setting yourself up to struggle financially.
[3] If it's too good to be true, it probably is.