The point of the parent is not to say "you can't do anything to improve" but that, in general, starting conditions are the major factor deciding how much you can improve. Someone born in a poor family with hard access to education will need to work much more than others born in rich families to reach the same point. Maybe instead of saying "just work hard" to everyone we should also focus on those inequalities so people have the same opportunities to work hard and improve themselves.

Most immigrants come to America desiring to improve their circumstances from what they dealt with in their home countries. This means they're coming in at a much lower standard than people who've been in the US their whole life. This would explain why they have a higher rate of poverty. It has nothing to do with America being uniquely bad at helping immigrants improve their lives. You don't immediately achieve a higher standard of living just by showing up somewhere. It takes time and work. In a few generations they will improve their circumstances. This is what has happened with every large immigrant population that has entered America (Italians, Jews, Irish, etc.)

Exactly what are immigrants not allowed that citizens born in the US are? I'm having a hard time understanding what opportunities they would need.

At some point in the past every one of those rich families had an individual who did something to achieve more than the average person. So, if you don't like it then it would seem that you're suggesting we just allow immigrants (or low class) people to skip that by giving them things? Now, that would mean that everyone gets raised up to a similar level again and we're back in the same position where all the average people feel they're not being treated fairly because they don't have what upper class people have. Eventually you end up in a scenario where the only way to even it out is to bring down the people that are outliers and have mad their way into the upper echelon of society.

My point is not regarding that, just that the amount of business owners does not help too much in seeing whether they do harder work than others or not.

> Exactly what are immigrants not allowed that citizens born in the US are?

Citizenship? Permanent residence? Seems like a pretty big deal to me.

> At some point in the past every one of those rich families had an individual who did something to achieve more than the average person.

That something could be anything, from working really hard to just being lucky. Not to mention that a lot of individuals probably did the same personal effort but circumstances were not optimal for that effort to do something.

> So, if you don't like it then it would seem that you're suggesting we just allow immigrants (or low class) people to skip that by giving them things?

Yes. Education, healthcare, the basics so that they live and work without worrying constantly about survival.

> Now, that would mean that everyone gets raised up to a similar level again and we're back in the same position where all the average people feel they're not being treated fairly because they don't have what upper class people have.

This is a very simplistic take of wealth redistribution. The purpose of redistributive policies is not to take everything (houses, money, material things), put it in a pile and then give to everyone the same thing. There will always be people better and worse off. The idea of redistribution is to reduce the distance between those groups, so that

- People that are worse off have a minimum life quality. Even from an utilitarian point of view it makes sense: a homeless person, or someone who's starving, is not going to contribute as much to society as if they had a home.

- People that are better off still need to contribute to society and don't have power over it. Meaning worker protections, and also heavier taxes on non-productive capitalistic activities.

Many take risks to start businesses, make big purchases, pursue a novel career and so on. These are often fairly large financial risks, many with bankruptcy as an option, and I often ask what their backup plan is should their risky endeavor fail. I often hear some quick poorly thought out plan and after a few more questions, the real backup plan emerges: or I'll just go back home.

If you're not fleeing dire conditions, many immigrants come to the US to gamble for an opportunity to great success. If they succeed, they stay, if they fail, they go home. I had several immigrant friends that did just this. The vast majority now live back in their home countries and based on their social media, they seem to be doing quite well there. The few who have stayed are doing markedly better than they did in their home countries, jumping several socioeconomic brakets.

Immigrants also make up a disproportionate portion of poverty population.

They did not. They self-selected from largely good opportunities at home which they leveraged into good opportunities in the US.

Successful indian-americans are not generally dalit. In fact relatively few indian americans originate from lower-caste families.

And there are too many different kinds of american poor to average them. Who is the "average poor american"? A black american? A native american? A resource or industry-cursed white? An invalid vet? The opportunities, or lack thereof, are different for all of them.

2) Even in the less-dysfunctional countries like India or Russia, an average person makes much less money and receives far less assistance from the state than an average US poor, especially as far as "opportunities" go. Look up the numbers; for a nice example my family made less money per year than the yearly govt spending on an average public school student in the US.

There are some types of poverty in the US that could be explained by bad luck, like being disabled, sure. The other ones using hardship as an excuse just make me laugh. Like, as far as I recall, Nigerian Americans are one of the best educated immigrant groups, far above US-born whites. You cannot seriously claim they face less racism than US-born African-Americans, or that they experienced less hardship in Nigeria; on top of that they also have the difficulties that immigrants face. Sure, they may self-select - but that's exactly my point - any advantage these self-selecting individuals have, they deserve - probably twice over.

Most American poor are vastly more "privileged" (I don't like the word, but it fits) than almost anyone else in the world. But they waste the opportunity, for whatever reason.

If you get into a job at the right level due to educational or social advantage, you can get by working a lot less hard doing the same thing than someone who comes in as an intermediately-skilled contractor.

Working smart, taking risks (eg selling something illegal), and grifting are well-trodden paths that pay off despite reduced day to day effort.

I am curious what exactly do you mean by this? Adopting philosophy of Epicurus, in my view, can be very beneficial to a person.