[imtringued]

I won't get into detail but this is not true at all.

The US is a buyer market for labor. If you get ahead through hard work you just kick someone else down the ranking.

Given a seller market for labor capitalism can absorb an infite amount of poor, lazy, dumb, bad decision making, slacking people and pay them good wages in the process. The stronger the seller market the easier it is to exploit people upwards the economic ladder.

Considering the paradox of competition it is entirely possible that once every person is making "good financial decisions" everyone is worse off in the end.