I can answer this. Grew up below US federal poverty line, now make good money. I'm older so I also have more perspective and have seen both ends of society.
In my experience, it is not theoretically difficult to move from poor to middle class in the US, even without a degree. Many new immigrants do it, some very quickly. What holds people back is one of the following: addiction, mental illness, domestic abuse, family issues, crime and/or no green card. Frequently, the same person has multiple of these issues and society traps them is some way. Once they get trapped, the pain they experience is excruciating regardless of race and there isn't really a way out of it. This is how poor desis I grew up with live.
I'll give you an example. There was an Indian woman my mom was friends with who lived a few doors down growing up. She was single and had no papers (very common for low income desis btw), but she was working and kind of young. Until one day late at night she was walking home and some guy raped her behind a dumpster on my street. If you've never actually seen what a person who has been through that looks like, you're not going to understand. That woman was destroyed at every level a person can be destroyed. And here's the crazy part... the cops actually the caught the guy that did it. I still remember the "wanted" posters they put up around our neighborhood during the search. Judge threw the book at him too - perp got life without parole. And you know what? Girl's still fucked... no closure, nothing. That's what I mean by trapped - there are many different ways of getting trapped by society at that level. She got trapped mentally by crime.
So my experience was basically watching different people, many desi many not, get trapped in different ways.
Addiction is a really common way low income desis get trapped, especially because once you get trapped by addiction, the system traps you further. I had a childhood friend who lived on my street. He was desi but his family had a lot of drama/ domestic abuse. The other thing about being a poor desi is lack of space - there were 10 people living in his house, which was tiny af (think 500 sf), and they were always fighting, shouting, etc. No peace and no chance to get away to find peace. Anyways he started smoking in middle school. Then he got addicted to meth in high school. Then he started dealing meth. Then he dropped out. Meth started fucking up his brain. And then one day he got caught dealing and went to prison. And said prison was violent and fucked him up even more. And then he got out and was still addicted, still fucked up mentally, still a drop out and btw still stuck in the same shitty neighborhood. He got trapped by family issues and addiction, which turned into getting trapped by mental illness, crime etc. You know what being desi did for him? Not a damn thing.
Since this is getting quite long, I guess I'll just conclude by saying in my experience poor desis who get trapped are basically completely fucked, just like every other poor person who gets trapped - white, black, native etc.
As far as me personally yeah it totally fucked me up for life mentally i can't even look at white people lmao