Do you know why people watch Jerry Springer? Because they're stupid. They are not very intelligent.
You know how you correct that?
You don't.
50% of Americans are of below-median intelligence. Telling the not-bright to "be smart and do smart stuff" would be like telling my slow ass to "run faster, and win the marathon!" I can't do it. No matter how much you tell me how to do it, my old, bum-knee, slow, fatass, ain't winning any marathon.
Jerry Springer watchers aren't going to be doctors and such. Shit, many of them aren't sharp enough to hold down any real office job, or job that requires critical thought. And blue collar jobs are drying up (yes, they're out there, but not like they were in the manufacturing boom years).
Add to that how precarious the situation is for someone on the edge of poverty (get arrested, get sick, have your car break down, and it ALL falls apart -- you lose your job, your place to live, everything), and it's really fucking easy to be poor. It's actually somewhat hard to "not be poor." I'm not making any excuses for anyone -- I'm simply observing the reality on the ground. Sure, folks from the most wretched places end up being rich....but the ODDS are way against them.
Give me 100 kids from families that earn $100k plus, and pit them against 100 kids from families that earn under $40k. Which GROUP will be the most successful? Same schools, same city, etc. -- which one are you betting on? Odds matter. Chances matter. Advantages matter. They all figure in to your success. In most cases, they figure in quite significantly.
But, it's much easier to pretend that you had no advantages, and tell other folks to "get off their lazy asses and work for your success like I did." That's just fucking asinine. I am quite successful. Some of it is do to innate ability (I was born pretty smart - which is good, because if I was counting on my athletic ability to get me out of the hood, I'd have been fucked). A good bit of it is due to hard work -- wherever I found myself, I worked hard (eventually -- when I was a young school kid, not so much, I coasted on being smart). But a CRAPLOAD of it is due to the fact that I had a middle class family, good nutrition, attentive parents, who sacrificed to send me to private schools, were voracious readers and instilled a love of reading in me, etc. etc. for about 1,000 more qualities. In short, the family I was born into was by far the BIGGEST factor in my success. Pure, dumb luck.
My mother's half sister was a worthless junkie. She had a daughter with some other junkie. We helped her with the kid for a while, till we pushed her to put her daughter into the foster care and adoption system. She was adopted at age 6, and grew up in a good, strong family with dedicated parents. That change in circumstance took her from a dysfunctional kid, to a thriving one and then successful adulthood. Family unit matters -- it's the biggest determinant of success, across the board. So, what you're REALLY telling a shitload of people is "choose to be born into a better family." Like I said, asinine.