[Wool2662]

Social mobility is literally only about money today, not too many opportunities to become a noble anymore. And no you cannot "readily increase your earnings." The best indicator for a person's future earnings are still the parents wealth. There are outliers but basically social and economic success are largely inherited.

The people that don't realise this are nearly always the ones that grew up with a silver spoon and feel like they "worked hard" for what they have, when in reality most of their opportunities were open to them because of their social circle.