&gt; costs don&#x27;t increase like that unless the cost of production increases to match, which only really happens with goods manufactured domestically where labor accounts for most of the cost.<p>Don&#x27;t forget about transportation costs, retailing costs, etc...  Most of the &#x27;poor&#x27; are working poor, working in warehouses, restaurants, retail stores, and other minimum wage jobs.  If you bring up the wage floor, everything gets more expensive (even stuff bought at Walmart) and that hits the poor, reducing their gains (however if it&#x27;s enough to reduce inequality, they&#x27;ll gain something, however small).<p>&gt; And you don&#x27;t really need your own monetary capital to have economic mobility - for the poor, time and expertise is the capital. Good public education increases that expertise, and is one of the best ways to provide economic mobility. Also, if more money is necessary than one can save up, there are always small business loans from banks.<p>Economic mobility only exists as long as higher quality jobs remain unfilled.  The US is more educated than ever before, yet inequality has increased since the 1950&#x27;s.  Education certainly brings society to a higher technological level over time, but it&#x27;s not a given that it reduces poverty or inequality.<p>This phenomenon has been well documented and can be seen in many developing countries where people are actually over-educated relative to the types of work demanded for economic growth.  For example, if a country has no roads or electric grid, many industries cannot develop until that infrastructure is built, meaning there&#x27;s more demand for construction workers than university graduates.<p>And of course, the missing piece between education and work that doesn&#x27;t yet exist is capital.  Without capital to develop new industries, you&#x27;re limited to only the amount of work that is currently demanded, so education will never bring you to a higher equilibrium, it&#x27;ll simply make the educated person more competitive within the market.<p>Anyhow, many economists have written entire books (<i>cough</i> Piketty) and papers about inequality and economic growth.  In the developing world there are plenty of examples of economies that are stagnant because of inequality.  Even within the US&#x27; own history, you have examples of high and low inequality, and the resulting economic growth.