Poor people work hard. Rich people work smart.
This is the difference of human capital. Anyone can push a broom or make change in a cash register. The number of people who can do what I do is significantly lower.
This is the general trend. I am sure, since you are supreme in intellect, that trends have outliers. The point that I am trying to convey is there are men and women out there that do everything right and are forced to work jobs that under-pays them in order to put food on the table.
I will give you two examples.
My father has an Engineering Mechanics degree from Virginia Tech as well as a MBA from Washington University. He does not have a PhD, however it would be alright to consider him educated no? Through both of his degrees, he created business plans that were approved and were sent twenty five years ago to the government. The government have programs that supposively funds humanitarian projects. Humanitarian is defined by a certain number of jobs that the project creates. If you create a project that fits this definition, you are then able to by law to receive funding from the federal government. This was twenty five years ago.
Of course, my father had to do something else after a certain point because he was not getting paid for his work. And so, he even worked as head of the marketing department for a small business where I live. Once it was feared that he would be a better CEO than the current CEO (which he could of easily done) he was fired for something very stupid. Eventually, he had to go back to loading and unloading trucks to make sure I had food when I got home from school.
Why wasn't my father paid? George Busch Junior said something like, "We can't have these trailer trash get all this money!" So apparently someone with an undergraduate degree and a masters degree is trailer trash. It's funny though, the project is moving forward since this recession because the government is desperate for jobs.
I will now go to my second father.
My best friend's father lost his job due to this horrible economy, and he has been a graphical artist for over thirty five years. When he was looking for a job, he wasn't even considered because of his age. Companies figured the cheaper health care premiums was worth the less experience. He was finally able to get a job, but he had to alter his resume to show less experience than he had so he would get the interview, and currently he is making about a third that he is worth, even though he has been doing graphical art longer than the lives of some of his co-workers.
The reason why I am sharing this, is there are people that do everything society ask them to do. They are law abiding and they get an education like everyone else. My father had to resign NASA because he was doing his job so well! He got a promotion where he was the boss of men who have been in the agency twenty some odd years longer than him. When I was a NOC technician at a datacenter, since I was the favorite to get a promotion, my co-workers made it known that they did not want me there. It would increase the probability of their promotion if I was gone!
And so if you were to define the American dream as you go to school and work hard you become successful, there are millions of Americans that goes against this ideal. Which means, the dream is dead and has been dead for a long long time.