The Great Divergence

[kandrathe]

My question would be... What are they doing differently then? Did they go to college, and if so, what degree did they get? Did they get married, and at what age? Did they have kids, how many, and how young? Did they save their money, or max out their credit cards? Did they inherit their wealth, or position, or did they "pull themselves up by their own bootstraps"? Answering what the 1% does differently would reveal whether the bottom 99% have a chance at "wealth", or whether they are trapped at the bottom.

I'm sure there's a package of advantages that might suffice. Some are just smarter and harder working than others. Some inherited wealth. Most were born of well-educated, successful parents, even if outside the 1%. Others got lucky. Some have a knack for business, or simply sacrificed everything else in their life to pursue income at all costs. Some knew the right people at the right time.

I'd be quite surprised if there were any near-universal answers, but I'd be equally surprised if all of those things were not highly correlated with being in the 1%.

Some of those things are structural inequality problems. Others are just the results of meritocracy in action. I suspect the wealthiest of the wealthy tend to have both - Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are both phenomenally richer than their parents, but they also both come from fairly well-off backgrounds.

Generally, this is my feeling too. There are some mechanisms that allow inherited privilege, such as having your parents alumni status grant increased consideration. Or, 529 accounts which parents can use to offset most of the costs of private and post-secondary education (and shield any amount of money without taxation).

Generally, I think most of the top 1% did something unique to get there, and stay there. I doubt Bill Gates would have had much time to be a normal Dad, while he was earning his billions. His marriage, and fatherhood later in life was the sacrifice he made to be able to focus on his corporation. When you start being a father at age 41, you risk not being their for your kids young college years, and early adulthood, which is often when family stability is most important.