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by jmcqk6 1172 days ago
> Let's say you're a baseball fan. The average cost of a season ticket is $4,473.

The average baseball fan is not buying season tickets. The average baseball fan cannot afford season tickets.

The average income in the US is $31,000. There is no way the average person is spending a third of their budget on "hobbies," especially when they're likely spending close to half of that on housing.

2 comments

I did not say "every person"

or even "the average person"

You are inventing your own goalposts here.

The fact is that there are an estimated 3.5 million MLB season ticket holders. These are people who are spending 10k on their hobbies. So it is reasonable for me to say "people spend 10k on hobbies"

English is being used worldwide in the year 2023, so may be it is me but by Considering People in your post means much more closely to median or average people.

There are people who spend 10K on hobbies seems much more reasonable.

But that is just my opinion.

I’m curious where your $31,000 annual income figure comes from. I’d had in my mind closer to $70,000 - which a quick confirmatory glance at the census seems to confirm for me [0] - but I should update my assumptions if they’re off by that far or I’m thinking about it wrong.

https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2022/demo/p60-27...).

what you've linked is the median household income, not individual income, i.e., calculated as the combined gross income of all members of a household, so it stands to reason that the individual median/average income is closer to the $31000 posted by the earlier comment than the $70000 you mentioned...