By Te-Ping Chen and Lauren Weber
The ability to climb the economic ladder has been a hallmark of the American experience. Yet children born to low-earning parents in 1992 had a harder time moving into the middle class than the previous generation, according to research from Opportunity Insights, a Harvard-based institute that studies economic mobility.
Today's paths to the middle class don't just run through college or traditional manufacturing work. The Americans who make it are open to change, persistent and jump at unconventional opportunities. Many find openings in hands-on fields such as healthcare, and they lean on short-term credential programs as steppingstones to new careers.
Here's how five people succeeded:
From homeless to welder
LeAngela Runels grew up poor in the Detroit area, at times living with her mother, who lacked steady employment, or her older sister. In high school, Runels was sometimes homeless and stayed with friends.
She was determined to keep her grades up and took community-college classes in high school. To pay the bills at Eastern Michigan University, she worked two jobs, at the cafeteria and as student supervisor.
"My fear of instability pushed me more toward working," Runels said.
In 2017, her junior year, she dropped out after a surprise pregnancy. She started a cleaning business during the pandemic, toddler in tow, but made only around $1,000 a month.
In 2022, a cleaning client who was an executive at a local Goodwill told her about its job programs. One involved making outdoor furniture from wooden pallets. Her instructors there referred her to another program: welding.
Runels, 29 years old, now makes $21 an hour welding for a metal-recycling company, and combined with her cleaning company, earns around $55,000 a year. She hopes to eventually start her own company repairing trailers and railings.
She once wondered if poverty was inevitable. But having a child was clarifying: "I need to have a clear plan and structured life goals to provide for him and set an example."
Climbing the healthcare ladder
Growing up in Philadelphia public housing, Jazmeen Chisholm didn't have many career role models. Her father worked warehouse and sales jobs. Her mother was injured as a grocery clerk and received disability checks.
Chisholm, 26 years old, hoped to become a doctor and help kids with asthma, which she also suffered from. But medical school was too expensive, so she chose a community-college nursing program instead.
Shortly after enrolling, she had to quit to care for her grandmother, who'd had a stroke, and two cousins whose father had gone to prison.
The next year, Chisholm got pregnant and started a certified medical assistant program at the for-profit Brightwood Career Institute. She was near graduating when it shut down, leaving her with $35,000 in debt and no degree.
She worked fast-food jobs, while her mom watched her baby. She tried working as a home-health aide, but the $13-an-hour job was grueling and difficult by bus.
In 2023, she learned about a nonprofit program that could pay for her to become a certified medical assistant, getting that career back on track. She jumped at the chance, though it meant juggling training with full-time restaurant work.
Chisholm now makes $25 an hour at Temple University Hospital and is working on a bachelor's degree in human-resource management, which her employer is helping fund. "I've been at the bottom," Chisholm said. "I want to be able to change the rules at the top."
From prison to six figures
When Alex Montoya was six years old, his father murdered his mother and then turned the gun on himself. He bounced for years between relatives' homes in California's Inland Empire, wound up involved in gangs and served prison time.
"Fortunately I saw a lot of things in [prison] that I didn't like, and that changed my mindset to further my education," said Montoya, 46. He got an online associate degree in business management after prison, but his criminal convictions hurt his job applications. He eventually landed a role paying $21 an hour, cutting copper and aluminum wire.
In 2019, Montoya realized he could earn more through Uber: up to $1,800 a week driving in Los Angeles's tonier neighborhoods. He patched together other income, too, selling self-designed zombie-themed T-shirts, and working for the job board Jobcase, advising job seekers with criminal records.
During the pandemic, Montoya used a workers' compensation settlement from a prior work injury to take time off and study for his commercial driver's license. The online course cost $3,000 and landed him a $130,000 salary driving fuel tankers for an employee-owned firm.
At the same time, he is also looking at other earning opportunities, teaching himself to trade stocks and invest in real estate. "I just don't believe in having one source of income," Montoya said.
The lucky break
Melissa Gurule was 22, working as a restaurant server in San Leandro, Calif., feeling like she had no direction, when a manager for a nearby dental practice approached her. He was desperate to hire and asked if she would apply.
"I was thinking, this is a scam, and I'm going to be kidnapped," Gurule said of the 2021 encounter. But she took his card, figuring it was worth a shot.
Her parents were grocery-store workers who put in long hours and hadn't talked to her about college or given her much advice. "It was eat, sleep, go to bed," Gurule said. She worked at the same store as her parents during high school.
Gurule started community college after graduation and studied theater, thinking she would like to act. But she didn't know how to apply for financial aid, and neither did her parents. She left after a year.
It turned out the dental practice was real, and a way out. They hired her and connected her with a local nonprofit that paid for the three months' training she needed to become a certified dental assistant.
Gurule now makes $35 an hour as a pediatric dental assistant, and she hopes to become a dentist. Without her lucky break, she said, she would still be doing restaurant shifts. "I guess they thought I had the potential to be doing something else."
From tool shop to tech
Timothy Wever, 40, wanted to build a different life from his parents.
They worked for a false-teeth manufacturer and put food on the table, but the family of four lived in a run-down Tampa, Fla., neighborhood. "I just hated where we lived," Wever said.
After graduating high school in 2003, he welded for two years at the shipping docks in Tampa, making $14 an hour. The money was good, but the job was physically demanding.
The sci-fi blockbuster "The Matrix" inspired him to get a computer-animation associate degree, but he couldn't find work after graduating. He began a bachelor's program, thinking it might help, but struggled academically and left early with $60,000 in student debt.
Wever looked for work again, taking jobs that paid as low as $10 an hour handing out tools at a manufacturer and doing deliveries. Eventually, he job-hopped his way up to a $23-an-hour project-manager role in manufacturing. But he dreamed of getting back into computers.
In 2021, Wever enrolled in a 14-week coding program that charged no up-front fees -- just part of his salary if he landed a job. The company running the program, CodeBoxx, hired him to coach for two years before he landed a software-developer role making $77,000 a year. He wound up paying $14,000 for the program.
"I actually have a savings account," said Wever, who is married now with a child. "I'm living comfortably."
Write to Te-Ping Chen at Te-ping.Chen@wsj.com and Lauren Weber at Lauren.Weber@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 21, 2026 05:30 ET (09:30 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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