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In my experience, a typical person under median income has never owned a pet or an iPhone or had cable or gym membership, or they have already cut those things,

In my experience, a typical person under median income has never owned a pet or an iPhone or had cable or gym membership, or they have already cut those things, just to keep afloat. It's poor form for a rich person to say "just stop doing [luxury that I consider a social norm]" when a person on median income most probably doesn't do [luxury] to begin with. You are really saying that poor people are not welcome to those things: cheap entertainment is not for them; the comfort of a pet is not for them; access to communication is not for them. Not having fair access to those things keeps people in poverty. I would point out that owning a pet, in particular, has major health benefits for the owner - the benefit of owning a pet may easily outweigh the cost.

caseysoftware 11y ago
I specifically said "to stabilize and build a little savings" and nothing about retirement. It's great that you've cut unnecessary things. But I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about the overall trends and data: According to Mintel[1][2], 57% of those making less than $35k own pets. Further, 34% of people without a high school diploma and 31% of those with only a high school diploma smoke[3]. Odds are those two groups are also low income. Social norm or not, you have to prioritize and make hard choices. [1] - http://www.marketingcharts.com/traditional/3-in-5-americans-own-pets-17938/ http://www.marketingcharts.com/traditional/3-in-5-americans-... [2] - Updated report: http://store.mintel.com/americas-pet-owners-us-september-2014 http://store.mintel.com/americas-pet-owners-us-september-201... [3] - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stanton-peele/why-do-poor-people-smoke_b_627057.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stanton-peele/why-do-poor-peop...
- learnstats2 11y ago
  > Social norm or not, you have to prioritize and make hard choices. Yes, my point is that you have to prioritize and make hard choices to live at that level of income; not to build savings. (I edited my parent comment because I didn't feel my personal data was really relevant, sorry for any confusion.)
  - caseysoftware 11y ago
    And by editing your comment, you've completely changed your argument. Well played. In my original - and still unedited - comment I said: "cutting out all the non-necessities for a few years to stabilize and build a little savings is a great thing everyone should be encouraged to do." It's not about "not welcome to..." anything, it's about making hard choices for a while to have better options in the future.
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  Some of those pets owned by povs may perform multiple duties as the alarm portion of the home security system. For others, that pet may be the only creature on Earth that ever acts happy to see them. It may also be entirely dependent on them for survival. That has an important--and possibly even necessary--psychological benefit. If you're single, and don't have a pet, I certainly don't begrudge you the expense in acquiring one. It is certainly cheaper than dates or typical group entertainment activities with your friends. And if I may pat nerd culture on the back for a moment, tabletop board games, role playing games, and certain card games are very often cheaper than bowling, professional sports tickets, dance clubs, movies, concerts, amusement parks, or even pay-per-view television events. But I'm still not going to fault anyone for attending a pro baseball game for $30 per attendee for nosebleed seats, rather than play a tabletop RPG at $5 for some PDF downloads, paper, and a communal bag of pretzels. In the same way, I don't fault anyone for living in a tiny studio apartment rather than in a van down by the river. The theoretical possibility that I could survive entirely on dandelions and fresh roadkill does not establish the lower bound for anyone's standard of living. Everyone at that income level has already made more economic substitutions than most people realize. And in a lot of cases, novel substitutions are criminalized or otherwise prohibited by people for whom such substitutions are violations of social norms. For instance, if you substitute a grass lawn for food-bearing plants in your front yard, some HOA busybody may fine you for it, then convince the cops to force you to destroy it and replant grass seed. And good luck trying to raise rabbits or chickens in your back yard. Or maybe you don't even have a yard in which to make the attempt, and your landlord won't allow windowboxes. So that "social norm" sword swings both ways. If you find the unaesthetic economic substitutions made by povs to be unacceptable, you cannot reasonably also complain about the expenses incurred in not making those substitutions. I see owning pets as a substitution for more expensive human relationships, and smoking as a substitution for having any sort of hope for a better life in the future or having pride in a lasting accomplishment. If those things were less costly and more widely available, the inferior substitute goods would be less prevalent.

caseysoftware 11y ago

I specifically said "to stabilize and build a little savings" and nothing about retirement. It's great that you've cut unnecessary things. But I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about the overall trends and data: According to Mintel[1][2], 57% of those making less than $35k own pets. Further, 34% of people without a high school diploma and 31% of those with only a high school diploma smoke[3]. Odds are those two groups are also low income. Social norm or not, you have to prioritize and make hard choices. [1] - http://www.marketingcharts.com/traditional/3-in-5-americans-own-pets-17938/ http://www.marketingcharts.com/traditional/3-in-5-americans-... [2] - Updated report: http://store.mintel.com/americas-pet-owners-us-september-2014 http://store.mintel.com/americas-pet-owners-us-september-201... [3] - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stanton-peele/why-do-poor-people-smoke_b_627057.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stanton-peele/why-do-poor-peop...

learnstats2 11y ago
> Social norm or not, you have to prioritize and make hard choices. Yes, my point is that you have to prioritize and make hard choices to live at that level of income; not to build savings. (I edited my parent comment because I didn't feel my personal data was really relevant, sorry for any confusion.)
- caseysoftware 11y ago
  And by editing your comment, you've completely changed your argument. Well played. In my original - and still unedited - comment I said: "cutting out all the non-necessities for a few years to stabilize and build a little savings is a great thing everyone should be encouraged to do." It's not about "not welcome to..." anything, it's about making hard choices for a while to have better options in the future.
logfromblammo 11y ago
Some of those pets owned by povs may perform multiple duties as the alarm portion of the home security system. For others, that pet may be the only creature on Earth that ever acts happy to see them. It may also be entirely dependent on them for survival. That has an important--and possibly even necessary--psychological benefit. If you're single, and don't have a pet, I certainly don't begrudge you the expense in acquiring one. It is certainly cheaper than dates or typical group entertainment activities with your friends. And if I may pat nerd culture on the back for a moment, tabletop board games, role playing games, and certain card games are very often cheaper than bowling, professional sports tickets, dance clubs, movies, concerts, amusement parks, or even pay-per-view television events. But I'm still not going to fault anyone for attending a pro baseball game for $30 per attendee for nosebleed seats, rather than play a tabletop RPG at $5 for some PDF downloads, paper, and a communal bag of pretzels. In the same way, I don't fault anyone for living in a tiny studio apartment rather than in a van down by the river. The theoretical possibility that I could survive entirely on dandelions and fresh roadkill does not establish the lower bound for anyone's standard of living. Everyone at that income level has already made more economic substitutions than most people realize. And in a lot of cases, novel substitutions are criminalized or otherwise prohibited by people for whom such substitutions are violations of social norms. For instance, if you substitute a grass lawn for food-bearing plants in your front yard, some HOA busybody may fine you for it, then convince the cops to force you to destroy it and replant grass seed. And good luck trying to raise rabbits or chickens in your back yard. Or maybe you don't even have a yard in which to make the attempt, and your landlord won't allow windowboxes. So that "social norm" sword swings both ways. If you find the unaesthetic economic substitutions made by povs to be unacceptable, you cannot reasonably also complain about the expenses incurred in not making those substitutions. I see owning pets as a substitution for more expensive human relationships, and smoking as a substitution for having any sort of hope for a better life in the future or having pride in a lasting accomplishment. If those things were less costly and more widely available, the inferior substitute goods would be less prevalent.