Part of the issue seems to be that in America people simply don't understand inequality. I've had a fair amount of conversations with coworkers that simply didn

Part of the issue seems to be that in America people simply don't understand inequality. I've had a fair amount of conversations with coworkers that simply didn't 'get' being poor or living in poverty because they never had that experience. At the same time they had a strong belief that they earned everything and that we live in a meritocracy. As you said it essentially comes down to 'they should've made better choices and got a better career path!' while having everything handed to them at birth. It's the sort of thing that really made it apparent how different my upbringing was from my coworkers because I experienced that sort of deep poverty.