Grow up wealthy. Don’t focus on your education. Don’t work hard. Those are not exactly the characteristics you’ll find listed in the Horatio Alger guidebook on making it in America. But according to the hard numbers, poor kids who do everything right don’t do better than rich kids who do everything wrong.

+ And WaPo’s Chico Harlan explains how people who are broke can end up paying three times more for a couch.