The Rule of 100

Take a hundred people at random.

All economic and racial strata.

Select them carefully so that no particular strata is over represented.

25% Very well to do - RICH
25% Doing OK - Middle Class
25% Just getting by - Working Poor
25% In desperate poverty - Welfare State

Take these people and drop them from a helicopter into a place where no one knows any of them and where they only have the clothes on their backs. 

What will be the outcome of these folks in a year?

Take all these people and give them all $100,000.  Where will they be financially in one year?

Take all these people and place them in various minimum wage jobs in the economy.  What will be the outcome after a year? 

You know in your heart the answer to these things, but the image of "Trading Places" comes up.  It's not like that.  Those who succeed will always rise to the top and those who are stuck in a poverty mentality will always end up back there.

It's the mind.  It's what we think that matters.

I submit that all these people will end up as they started...except for a few who manage to have a mind shift.  They will move up.  

IF we are doing what we should be we must help people get over the mindsets that have condemned them to the poverty they choose by default. 

PS: This experiment has been tried.... and the results are exactly as I have suggested.