Each new generation has a harder time overcoming the wealth of their parents

Maybe it's a US thing.

In countries with a better social safety net, it's not necessarily the case. I was the first kid in my family to ever get to college, and I had to win arguments in the family to do so. Leave school and 'Get a job' was the general thing to do in my Northern-England city.

My dad was a docker, my mum a part-timer working in travel-agents, building-societys etc. We lived in a terraced house, 2-up, 2-down, all 5 of us. I bought them a house a few years back, one of their choice close to where their friends lived, because it meant that their state pension went a lot further when they didn't have to pay rent.

I got my college pretty much paid for, being from a low income family, ran up a bill of a couple of thousand pounds per year because London, which was workable-off during the summer holidays. Once I started a PhD, I was paid ~£18k/year by the government, and then later by the MOD. I actually took a pay cut to move to a salaried sw dev position, when my conscience finally drove me away from indirectly killing people.

Both my younger siblings went to college too - once the door was opened, it was easier to walk through, although student loans were a thing for them, it's nothing like the loans over here in the USA that my wife incurred. Both of them are doing pretty well these days (certainly compared to our parents lives), though I was fortunate to get the breaks in life - Apple bought my small company after a half-decade of trade-show demos and meetings. Part of the deal was moving to CA... Shame... :)

So if this docker's brat and his siblings can do it in the UK, I'm fairly certain that others can too. Perhaps it's just another sign of the beginnings of the end of the US-style of capitalistic hegemony, rather than a general thing.

Which kinda means the American dream is dead or never really existed.