A household with income under $13,000 spends about 9 percent of income on lottery.

[Moralm]

http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2010/05/11/lotteries-2/

 

The article is a bit dated, but it is amusing to see people blame poverty for poor people buying lottery rather than questioning whether their condition of poverty and their predilection for buying lottery tickets has a common cause (ie the inability to defer gratification).

 

I also find the use of the word "tax" to be interesting in this article. I'm not sure that paying for a government service voluntarily (the purchase of lottery tickets) counts as a tax.

[Alan C.]

American Workers Spend $1000 A Year On Coffee, $2000 A Year On Lunch

 

The workers who spent the most on both coffee and lunch were those aged 18-24.

 

A surprising number of people I talk to spend $100/month on their smart phone plans.

 

I spend $100/year for a pay-as-you-go plan with a cheap T-Mobile flip phone, and I never come close to using all of my minutes.

 

I don't know what people generally pay for cable TV, but it's about $50/month for the basic package around here.

[Moralm]

American Workers Spend $1000 A Year On Coffee, $2000 A Year On Lunch

 

 

A surprising number of people I talk to spend $100/month on their smart phone plans.

 

I spend $100/year for a pay-as-you-go plan with a cheap T-Mobile flip phone, and I never come close to using all of my minutes.

 

I don't know what people generally pay for cable TV, but it's about $50/month for the basic package around here.

 

I spend about half as much on a phone plan and we still have basic cable. I should make a change to both of those things.

[J-William]

I had a friend who worked as a pizza delivery guy and had two kids and he paid $150 a month on cable... Had two cars he couldn't afford.

 

Strangely he had trouble paying bills and had bad credit... And he was a big supporter of Obamacare.

 

He should be the face of Obamacare I'm not sure you could pick a less sympathetic character.

I had a friend who worked as a pizza delivery guy and had two kids and he paid $150 a month on cable... Had two cars he couldn't afford.

 

Strangely he had trouble paying bills and had bad credit... And he was a big supporter of Obamacare.

 

He should be the face of Obamacare I'm not sure you could pick a less sympathetic character.

[Anuojat]

I am poor and i dont use tv and i... very rarely use any form of gambling...

[ancapzeebo]

I make 19 grand a year and live in relative luxury. I don't buy the whole narrative of the poor anymore.  I'm 24 and have no skills and still got 3 job offers in one day. ( I would make over 25k if it weren't for the state.)

[Alan C.]

In case anybody is interested, T-Mobile has changed their pay-as-you-go model. I had to recharge my minutes recently because they were about to expire for the year. Instead of paying the usual $100 for 1,000 minutes, I only had to pay $10 to add 100 minutes and my remaining unused minutes rolled over for another year, so I'm good for another year for only $10.

[David Ottinger]

They have to find a way to "tax" the poor somehow.  They can't impose it, but they certainly can create a monopoly on gambling. 

 

"I'll give 'em an offer they can't refuse."

 

Here, pay $1 and you have a 1 in 175 million chance to be rich!

[Josh Takacs]

The state first keeps half of the total money collected and then takes half of the money the winner gets. So right from the start its a 75/25 split for the state and they didn't even need one tax collector. O and by the way you lucky winner if you want to spent any of that winnings have fun paying at least a 7% sales tax plus others that are to numerous to mention. You know sometimes you look at a crook and think, "Your evil but dame you sir are good a what you do."

[shirgall]

Compared to the mafia's version of this, "the numbers racket" the government takes a far bigger cut of the action than the crooks ever did. And the crooks only did because gambling was illegal.