Index funds and mutual funds are a broad swathe of the market so they are considered very safe. Buying individual stocks is risky, so if they are already risk averse maybe don't do that, but there's no better way to grow your money than investing it.

You make an excellent point, though - the lower and middle classes don't invest, except maybe in their 401k. Sometimes they don't understand how to, sometimes they just think it's too risky. But the upper class is running circles around us because they'll even go into debt (leverage their assets) to make more on their investments. The rest of us blanch at the thought!

Thank you for reading and commenting!