[erikerikson]

It's frowned on in a lot of the US too.

While many in this thread appear to be assigning the behavior to status seeking, I suggest it has far more to do with convenience seeking. We have the sad truth of poor, honest, hard working families keeping down up to four jobs and still needing to rely on food banks to make ends meet. There are too many factors to say how prevalent but this is a thing that exists in at least some cases.