I lived in poverty for years after dropping out of college, sometimes with roommates that were way beyond toxic, worked multiple jobs 70 hours a week just to pay rent and food and still ended up middle class with a job I love; I've been through hell to find heaven. What I learned on the way I now use every day, its made me a stronger and better person and I can now help others do the same.
If someone had given me what I have today, just for the sake of equality, I would not have learned responsibility, discipline, I would hardly have developed most of the skills I now have and probably would've lost all of it by now. I would basically still be an angsty teen in an adult's body, which is what kept me poor in the first place.