Most of the 0.1% inherited their wealth or at least came from an well educated background.
Poor people in USA have both free healthcare and education. If they're willing to fill-out some forms.
Edit:
Yes, contrary to the popular belief, poor people in USA do, in fact, get free health care and education.
How does that part work in practise? Are these forms something someone from a poor uneducated background can actually realistically fill out?
The way I see it many Americans I had the chance to talk with either take a gamble on their health or they spend not unsignificant time and energy to find their ways through the system. The first choice can turn out just fine, or (in many cases) completely catastrophic. The second choice takes away time and resources that could have been spent somewhere else.
Yes, at least in the 3 states where I know anything about how the systems work. It's all the same information you fill out to get your driver's license, kid's school lunch which, contrary to the prevailing trope around here, being poor does not make you too stupid to do. It's way less arcane than reporting loan interest on your taxes or trying to register a used car last registered by a dead guy.
Likewise, any poor person can go to the local community college and tell the person at the desk that they want to enroll in some classes and they will be directed to the financial aide office where they will receive help to sign up for FAFSA [0] and Pell Grants [1].
All of these forms are printed in about 5 languages. There are people in the offices there to literally help the poor people write their own names on the forms.
The Americans you hear about on the news that don't have healthcare are people who have incomes above the eligibility threshold to qualify for Medicaid, or are too young to qualify for Medicare. It's the people in the middle who fall through the cracks in the US.
You mean the people who potentially start out with their own business to get "filthy rich"?
Aha! But at such a low income you get the ACA subsidy! But the insurance plans you can get have really high deductibles. If you're making $20,000 a year and have a $17,000 deductible... that's life ruining if you actually get sick. That's not to mention all the other oddities that go with having these higher-deductible lower premium plans like having to work around non-formulary medications, getting referrals to covered providers (you will be really lucky to have a PCP that does the homework to make sure you are referred in-network), and general insurance fuckery.
I think it's just a little bit more complex than filling out a few forms.
They have whole databases on their computers that do this for them. Maybe they refer you to someone across town, or the next town over. But they're going to try hard to keep you in-network. This is also why Canadians are constantly paying out-of-pocket to come to USA to get their knee surgeries and back surgeries.
Oops, this is the second post to say basically the same thing.
Knowledge of what's available would probably go a long way towards helping people move up. My wife grew up in a small rural area with no job options besides Wal-Mart and fast food joints, and she hated it so much that she ended up getting enough scholarships to make money earning her undergrad. She's the first person in her family to go to college, and most of the rest think college is super expensive, and don't know about scholarships to help poor people go.
So, sometimes it leads to marketable skills, sometimes it doesnt. Sometimes it leads to skills that can transition out into the civilian world, but doesn't because of license and certifications constraints.
But yea, some people do join to get out of shitty small town. I did 5 years in the Navy because in my rural North Carolina town there were 2 other options, make the meth or consume the meth.
But I can see someone with a similar financial background, but growing up in a family that didn't value education, perhaps single parent working all the time struggling much more to get ahead.
1. the American "rags to riches" story is one that the media bombards people with over and over again
2. Lots of people simply lie about the circumstances they come from