While the OP wants to take it off the table, crime has traditionally been a favorite way to climb the ladder to economic prosperity. It has relatively few barriers to entry. On the downside, job security is non-existent and termination practices can be quite severe.
Longer, yes (for the reasons you stated). But not harder. If you invest $33k a year into the stock market, then after 42 years (say) you will have the $8.4M that Exapno mentioned as the 1% wealth threshold (assuming we stick to constant 2015 dollars and there are no disastrous economic shocks). $33k/yr is a lot, but you don’t need anywhere close to the $400k/yr 1% salary to invest that much. You can do it on a $100k/yr salary and still live very well.
$100k/yr is well above median income, but there are tons of professional jobs that pay that much. You don’t have to be lottery-winner lucky; just lucky enough to not be born in an environment that denies you access to education, etc.
According to Wikipedia, there were in 2012 3.44 million people in the U.S. with a net worth (excluding primary residence) of over a million dollars.
The population then was roughly 310 million.
So as of a couple years ago, a little over a million dollars in liquid assets would put you in the upper 1% in wealth.
This does not appear to be based on very conservative assumptions. We now have returns data for 23 countries for the 115-year period ending in 2014. The average inflation-adjusted return on equities has only been 5.2% (see page 59):
https://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/?fileID=AE924F44-E396-A4E5-11E63B09CFE37CCB
Also note that few investors would be willing to stay in 100% equities for the entire 42-year period.
I’m not up with that investment strategy. 100% equities for 42 years? Just a trifle too risky for real-life financial decision-making, I think. 
Risk and return tend to be related - which is why most folks want a balanced portfolio, less likely to make them “wealthy” with the sort of automatic ease you are suggesting from betting on equities, but also less likely to leave them facing retirement destitute.
If there was a quick and easy way to wealth, the “1%” would refer to the people who couldn’t be bothered to do it.
Is over a million all it takes? Wow. Do retirement accounts count? I think I’d only count the amount that could be taken out after penalty.
Or two $50,000 salaries. If you have middle class parents, you may get a small inheritance to add in. $8.4M may be optimistic, but it’s possible to hit $1M.
Of course, if you’re calculating your net worth, you have to subtract debts, including mortgages. I know I’m still marginally underwater.
New PhDs in computer science and EE get a lot more than this in Silicon Valley. And I think the median income in Santa Clara county is around $100K. Of course the cost of living here reflects this.
Well yeah, but that’s the catch, isn’t it? I remember interviewing for jobs that would pay $43k out of school in San Francisco and/or NYC, and ones that would pay $35k in Houston or Dallas (this was 1996-1997), and it turned out that when cost of living was figured in, the Texas jobs were actually more lucrative, even if the absolute pay was lower.
I just meant overall, lawyers and business types are historically highly paid, and other fields (and other lesser degrees) aren’t.
Get into the yachting industry. You get to feel like a millionaire, the owners are usually far to busy to get to their yacht very often, and you get to play with all the toys. The pay is pretty good and the tips can be absurd.
The trick is you’ve got full board and lodging. It’s not for everyone obviously, there are plenty of downsides
Well, I didn’t say that this was an optimal retirement strategy :). Just that it gives a reasonable chance at reaching $8.4M after 42 years.
But in fact, I do think that sticking with pure equities for the majority of that time is the best bet. It’s a long enough period that you can ride out several moderate shocks. And the amount at the end is large enough that even if you have to start retirement during a down time, you aren’t eating so much into your principal that it will cause you severe problems.
Low growth is a risk factor in and of itself. I used 7%, which is the inflation-adjusted average of the S&P 500 for the past 60ish years. Surreal thinks 5% is more accurate, which is fair but arguable, since it averages in more countries. I’ll stick with 7% for now.
Suppose you mix in a bunch of safer investments and only average 4% returns. Now your final nest egg is only $3.6M. Even if you were in the middle of a giant market crash that destroyed half your investment, you’d still be ahead in equities.
Which isn’t to say that they’re the right answer all the time. But they’re probably the right answer for a very long-term investment, and one which isn’t going to be sold at a high rate once “mature”.