The amazing stories of rags to riches are nice to hear but in reality poverty is a vicious cycle. There are exception of people breaking out of the cycle through their special skill or luck but for hungry stomach, the opportunities to show your skill are less.
You seem to understand how this works better than the majority, especially the luck-factor you included, as many would always be praising the rich and those who broke forth from the poverty/underprivileged level, not knowing that in some cases, it is not about what they know or their skills, but by just being lucky.And this luck also extends to some less skilled people, which makes them more successful than the more skilled ones, and might even employ them (better skilled ones), to see how this world is not balanced. This happens regardless of how hard some people try.