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No doubt you've heard the quote, often attributed to former University of Oklahoma and NFL coach Barry Switzer, about people who were "born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple."
Well, new data show that many financially successful Americans do, in fact, have a head start that may be hard for them to recognize - especially since that head start is associated with things completely out of their control.
Inherited Versus Acquired Traits
For these lucky Americans, much of their financial advantage is gained at birth: "inherited" rather than "acquired." For purposes of this research:
I Inherited characteristics include someone's year of birth, race or ethnicity and whether their parents went to college.
* Acquired characteristics mean the income and wealth associated with someone's own college education.
In a recently released "Demographics of Wealth" report, the first in a series of three, my Center for Household Financial Stability colleagues William Emmons, Lowell Ricketts and Ana Kent state that...