How was it possible, then, for millions of immigrants to come to this country with absolutely nothing and in many cases escape poverty, or at least set up their children for decent, middle class lives? They had no multigenerational wealth to speak of. Also, studies show that 70% of multigenerational wealth is gone by the second generation and 90% is gone by the third generation. There has been at least 7 generations since the ending of slavery.

EDIT - I would also like to point out that a fundamental point of this article was that the economist discovered it was basically more fair and easier to escape poverty prior to 1970.