A global study led by a researcher at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and published in the journal Scientific Reports finds that economic inequality on a social level cannot be explained by bad choices among the poor nor by good decisions among the rich. Poor decisions were the same across all income groups, including for people who have overcome poverty.
“Our research does not reject the notion that individual behavior and decision-making may directly relate to upward economic mobility. Instead, we narrowly conclude that biased decision-making does not alone explain a significant proportion of population-level economic inequality”
Everyone needs to be careful of conflating studies that look at populations with advice for individuals. Good decisions can still improve the financial situation of individuals, but on a population scale that’s not enough to sort everyone’s wealth by how good their decisions were.