alt Hacker News27000 + 20% is 32400 not 47000, so not sure what's up with that sentence.
Also, define "success". Even if it's just about being exceptional in economic terms, AIUI a bog-standard swdev salary is enough to be in the top 10% with no favoritism needed. And if it's about being able to retire and have grandkids come visit sometimes, I think that might be more common than not.
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The 20 percent is the effect on the child's own adult income from growing up with more economically diverse friends. The 27,000 versus 47,000 comparison is a separate number: it's roughly the same size effect you'd see from that same child's own parents earning 47,000 instead of 27,000 while raising them, a different mechanism entirely, used only to give the 20 percent some intuitive scale. They're not the same number expressed two ways, so multiplying one by 1.2 to check the other won't line up.
I did the same math and had the same question.
But wait, something was learned! I typed in the start of the equation and after hitting space after the equal sign it yielded the answer! The Hacker News comment box can do the math for you!
That sentence confused me, too, but it's clarified in the next paragraph:
> Children who grow up with high economic connectedness earn 20 percent more as adults on average than otherwise similar children who do not, a gap equal to growing up in a family making 47,000 dollars a year instead of 27,000.
ie: knowing wealthier people has as much impact on your income as growing up in a family making $47k/year instead of $27k/year