You also don't get ahead if you there's a perfectly valid reason outside of your control that prevents you from 'getting ahead', or makes it extremely unlikely. Most dictionaries would call those 'excuses'. And you especially don't get ahead if those valid reasons exist but are seldom discussed by the people with the most power to solve them, and are instead often reduced to 'excuses', 'lazyness', or any other straw man, like the one you're complaining about.