38%
Here's an interesting factoid. About 38% of all registered vehicles are trucks or SUVs. And keep in mind, a lot of those are the old rusted out matte black klunkers which are no longer called pickup trucks but "pick-em-up" trucks.
SUVs alone, a symbol of American overindulgence, account for between 12% and 16% of all registered vehicles.
I know.
It's insane. Seriously. Our thirst for gas guzzling is disgusting. And don't even talk to me about the American avarice.
Enough to define a whole nation as overindulgent.
38%.
But looked at from another angle...38% of Americans households make under $35,000 per year. This income level puts a family of four in a bracket eligible for state assistance for WIC and child care assistance. In fact, SCHIP is designed to help "near poor" families living at about 200% of the Federal Poverty Line.
SCHIP allows states to provide coverage to children in families with incomes up to 200 percent of the FPL [Federal Poverty Line]
--Article
The United States Poverty Line for household of 4 - $22,050.
Wait a minute. Where is my math?
200% of $22k would be $44k...$44k and below would be 45% of the US households. Incidentally this is nearing the national median.
So...38% of registered vehicles are pickups or SUVs and up to 45% of households are eligible for SCHIP.
And yet if I had a nickel every time I heard somebody run off at the mouth about a privileged America with its citizenry rollin' down the street in their gas guzzling Escalades or Tundras I'd be in the median income bracket.
Let's put things into perspective.
Let's stop this statistical shimmy-shoo and get a little more direct. Let's get away from the broad strokes of the near poor and trucks, and lets just focus on poverty and SUVs.
In American there is a higher percentage of children below the age of 18 living below the poverty line than there are registered SUVs. At best, SUVs account for 16% of registered vehicles, while 21% of children are below the poverty line. And the percentage of households living in poverty is more or less comparable to the percentage of SUV registration.
Poverty is defined as: lacking the resources to meet the basic needs for healthy living; having insufficient income to provide the food, shelter and clothing needed to preserve health.
There are more Americans who meet this definition than there are SUVs. Yet so many define America by the SUVs and what they represent, the privilege and overindulgence, rather than defining America by the starvation, the homelessness, and inadequate resources for clothing. In this light, the notion of the "average" American as rich and privileged starts to see cracks in the hull.
It's too convenient at times to portray the comfortable, rich overprivileged America when it's rhetorically useful, even when the truth is far more complex. Pull out your charts and stats of an America using more than its fair share of global natural resources and I'll show you a family living in a tent, or a family whose water has been shut off for over a year and the 14 year old daughter helps to deliver newspapers in the worst neighborhoods in the city at 6am to pull in a few extra dollars for the family and help pay for a family member's medication.
If there is the overarching identity of "average" America as indulgent and privileged, it's way too simplistic and even potentially stands in the way of broader public support for social programs, since portions of the population see only whining where there is in fact actual need.
America is a nation of HUGE wage disparity, and it seems as income goes down, your visibility also goes down, even until the nation is defined by symbols of opulence rather than the greater number actual people who don't have food, shelter, clothing.
We need to re-examine what "average" America is.