Comment by pc86

A large proportion of the time -- I hesitate to say "most" but that is my inclination -- the people making these visualizations have an agenda, and it's usually increased funding for their pet cause. So any time you're looking at this sort of thing especially when they're making broad over-arching generalizations (more "trauma" as a child makes life harder) it's important to read critically, interrogate the validity and bias of sources, and try to see if and where they may be skewing things with visualizations, omitting or lessening the perceived impact of damning data that disagrees with them, and/or making things that agree with their point more prominent than they probably should be. I usually don't even try to figure out what their "pet cause" may be before doing any of that because I don't want my own implicit biases to influence me more than they already do.

It's hard to be sure but I also think several of the folks earning the most as adults came from the "bottom" tier with the most adverse childhood experiences.