[evanpw]

I agree that savings and restraint in spending are not the main issue. But on the other hand, if you:

1) Graduate high school,

2) Wait until age 21 to get married, and wait until marriage to have children; and

3) Have a full time job (any full time job),

then you have a 2% chance of living in poverty, and a 75% chance to be middle class. So in order to argue that bad choices don't matter, you need to make the case that one of these three steps is impossible for most people who are poor. I think your best bet is #3.

[1] http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2013/03/13-join-m...

[tomp]

It's not clear from the article if those percentages include all of the society or just those that started out poor. If it's the former, it might be just correlation, not causation.

[evanpw]

I'm pretty sure it's the former. I don't find it plausible that these three things wouldn't have a causal effect on income, but it's a fair point that it would be more useful to see those percentages broken down by starting income level.