What kind of jobs make people wealthy

[alh]

<p>As others on the thread have pointed out, income is different from wealth. Henry Louis Gates has written about the long term impact of property ownership in African-American families. Many who are well off today had ancestors who were able to acquire (and hold on to) land right after the civil war.</p>

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I have been studying the family trees of 20 successful African-Americans, people in fields ranging from entertainment and sports (Oprah Winfrey, the track star Jackie Joyner-Kersee) to space travel and medicine (the astronaut Mae Jemison and Ben Carson, a pediatric neurosurgeon). And I’ve seen an astonishing pattern: 15 of the 20 descend from at least one line of former slaves who managed to obtain property by 1920 — a time when only 25 percent of all African-American families owned property.

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<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/opinion/18gates.html?pagewanted=all[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/opinion/18gates.html?pagewanted=all&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I am not wealthy enough to live comfortably on the upper east side. However, my children continue to benefit from being the descendants of a family that has owned land more than 200 years. Land ownership created enough income to send generations of children to college and into professions.</p>

<p>I wonder how many really wealthy people (those living high on the hog in Manhattan) come from truly impoverished backgrounds? I wonder how many come from families that have owned land from generations.</p>