Does Everyone in America Have an Equal Right to Succeed?

When I was growing up, I often reflected on what my chances of success would be later on in life. I always wondered if I would have the same opportunity to make as much money as top richest 1 percent of Americans who hold 34 percent of the total national wealth.(Mantsios 284) These were the rich and successful people I had seen in movies or on television that made billions of dollars a year. I was raised in a middle class family and my parents from the beginning did everything in their power they could to provide me with an opportunity for success. My father, who came from a lower class family, dropped out of college after his sophomore year and began working in construction. When my mother became pregnant with me, my dad decided he would launch his own construction business. I have witnessed first hand how hard he works each day to make the living he does, working from dawn till dusk, 6 days a week. My father is good at what he does but in contrast to the top one percent of Americans, his annual salary (along with the other 99 percent’s) is incomparable pocket change to them. Although my father began with nothing and was able to work his way up and out of the class he began in I still wondered why he was not able to make as much, or even half, in a lifetime as some elite Americans make in a month. It seemed crazy to me that the majority of wealth in America is concentrated within a group of a few, elite Americans that make hundreds of times more than what the rest of the country’s citizens do. I began to ponder the questions: Does everyone in America have an equal opportunity to succeed?...If not, then why? Do the other 99 percent not work hard enough?. I whole-heartedly believe that the amount of effort an individual puts int...

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