Wednesday, July 02, 2008
A Little Perspective
So lately I've realized that I have a skewed perspective of reality. I know ... unbelievable. So I'm think that my perspective skew happens to more people than just myself. Here it is.
I feel like our little family is of modest means (which relatively speaking is likely true). I look at our simple home and our simple cars and see modest things. The I drive around a little and see what seems like lots of very nice homes and expensive cars. I translate this to mean "wow lots and lots of people are much better off than we are". So I was checking some number on the US census site and found numbers that didn't confirm my perspective. Like the median income of a US household is $46,000 a year. So 50% of all households in America (one of the richest countries in the world) make less than $46,000 a year; furthermore, 80% of all households in the US make less than $91,000 a year! That's 8 of 10 households make less than that. The vast majority of people. It's funny how we think everyone is better off than us. While it is true that lots of people are better off than us it's not by as much as I was thinking. It also easy to assume people are making over $100K or even a million but chance are quite slim, very few people make that much money. And some how we are good at ignoring everyone around us that isn't as well off as we are in our own town and community not to mention the rest of the world.
Source: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/ineqtoc.html (table IE-1)
I feel like our little family is of modest means (which relatively speaking is likely true). I look at our simple home and our simple cars and see modest things. The I drive around a little and see what seems like lots of very nice homes and expensive cars. I translate this to mean "wow lots and lots of people are much better off than we are". So I was checking some number on the US census site and found numbers that didn't confirm my perspective. Like the median income of a US household is $46,000 a year. So 50% of all households in America (one of the richest countries in the world) make less than $46,000 a year; furthermore, 80% of all households in the US make less than $91,000 a year! That's 8 of 10 households make less than that. The vast majority of people. It's funny how we think everyone is better off than us. While it is true that lots of people are better off than us it's not by as much as I was thinking. It also easy to assume people are making over $100K or even a million but chance are quite slim, very few people make that much money. And some how we are good at ignoring everyone around us that isn't as well off as we are in our own town and community not to mention the rest of the world.
Source: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/ineqtoc.html (table IE-1)
# posted by Ryan : 11:26 AM
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When I was dirt poor (figuratively of course) trying to support a family of 5 on <$16K/year, I remember reminding myself on several occasions how lucky I was that I didn't have to spend 16 hours a day gathering spider webbing to make fishing line, then fishing all day to catch a couple of fishies to put food on the table, while my wife would walk miles to the market every day to sell or trade the one fish we didn't eat. Something I saw another family doing in a documentary when I was a wee lad.
Funny though how I have to keep reminding myself of that no matter how much I make. I always seem to find new and innovative ways to spend my earnings.
But, perhaps I am luckiest of all in that I don't have a burning desire to "keep up with the Joneses."
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Funny though how I have to keep reminding myself of that no matter how much I make. I always seem to find new and innovative ways to spend my earnings.
But, perhaps I am luckiest of all in that I don't have a burning desire to "keep up with the Joneses."
# posted by 
: 12:13 PM
: 12:13 PM
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