Aphyer was discussing “working 60-hour weeks, at jobs where they have to smile and bear it when their bosses abuse them”, not specifically “poor” people. My experience of people working such hours, even on a low wage, is that they are proud of their work ethic and their ability to provide and that because of their hard work they have nice things and a path to retirement. They don’t consider themselves poor—they are working hard precisely to not be poor. As a concrete example, people in the armed forces have to smile and bear it when their bosses send them into war zones, never mind lower level abuse like being yelled at and worked past the point of exhaustion and following deliberately stupid orders.
That said, your question prompted me to get some statistics regarding the consumption patterns of low income households. I found the US BLS expenditure by income decile, and looked at the lowest decile.
This is emphatically not the same thing as either “poor” or “working 60-hour weeks”. People in this decile are not employed for 60hrs/week, because 60hrs/week for 40 weeks at federal minimum wage is $17,400 and puts someone in the second decile for income. Most of these people are retired or unemployed and spending down savings, which is why mean expenditure is $31,000/year vs mean income of $10,000/year. I welcome better data, I could not find it.
Those caveats aside, the bottom decile spent, on average (mean):
0.4% on sugar/sweets, $116/yr
0.8% on alcohol, $236/yr.
4.7% on food away from home, $1,458/yr
3.8% on entertainment, $1,168/yr
1.2% on nicotine, $383/yr
We’re looking at ~10% spending on these categories. From experience and reading I expect some fraction of spending in other categories to be “luxury” in the sense of not being strictly required, perhaps ~10%. This is in no way a criticism. Small luxuries are cheap and worth it. Few people would agree to work ~20% fewer hours if it meant living in abject poverty.
I’m curious what answer you would give to your own questions.
Aphyer was discussing “working 60-hour weeks, at jobs where they have to smile and bear it when their bosses abuse them”, not specifically “poor” people. My experience of people working such hours, even on a low wage, is that they are proud of their work ethic and their ability to provide and that because of their hard work they have nice things and a path to retirement. They don’t consider themselves poor—they are working hard precisely to not be poor. As a concrete example, people in the armed forces have to smile and bear it when their bosses send them into war zones, never mind lower level abuse like being yelled at and worked past the point of exhaustion and following deliberately stupid orders.
That said, your question prompted me to get some statistics regarding the consumption patterns of low income households. I found the US BLS expenditure by income decile, and looked at the lowest decile.
This is emphatically not the same thing as either “poor” or “working 60-hour weeks”. People in this decile are not employed for 60hrs/week, because 60hrs/week for 40 weeks at federal minimum wage is $17,400 and puts someone in the second decile for income. Most of these people are retired or unemployed and spending down savings, which is why mean expenditure is $31,000/year vs mean income of $10,000/year. I welcome better data, I could not find it.
Those caveats aside, the bottom decile spent, on average (mean):
0.4% on sugar/sweets, $116/yr
0.8% on alcohol, $236/yr.
4.7% on food away from home, $1,458/yr
3.8% on entertainment, $1,168/yr
1.2% on nicotine, $383/yr
We’re looking at ~10% spending on these categories. From experience and reading I expect some fraction of spending in other categories to be “luxury” in the sense of not being strictly required, perhaps ~10%. This is in no way a criticism. Small luxuries are cheap and worth it. Few people would agree to work ~20% fewer hours if it meant living in abject poverty.
I’m curious what answer you would give to your own questions.