You don't get rich by working hard, not in America anyway

[mojowork_n]

24. Neither have you.

You've just done the arithmetic to show that there are more "rich" people
in the U.S. than just the 400 richest.

Yay.

And you've made an argument by assertion, "I am betting that hard work and
good choices...."

But if you want to show an actual correlation between hard work and
NO income growth, how about doing the arithmetic to figure out how
many poor people there are with 2 or 3 jobs, but making less than
they used to (with no benefits or insurance) when they only had one?

Another basis for comparison might be adding up incomes and
income inequality on the one hand, and "inter-generational earnings
elasticity" on the other.

You could actually find that plotted out as a graph, on Page 52 of this
week's "Bloomberg Businessweek," in the article "Poor Forever" by
Esme E. Deprez. "....Of the 34 countries that belong to the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development... ....the United States has
the highest level of disparity... with the exceptions of Chile and Mexico."

Meaning -- there is a definite correlation between income inequality
and the lack of opportunity to become upwardly mobile (however hard one
works.)