Academic

Books v. Cigarettes: Why Read When You Can Smoke?

By Dan Filler

Visual Economics has an interesting, though slightly disturbing, pie chart that shows how the average American consumer spends his or her money.  If there's a punchline there, it's that the average person spends 2.75 times more money on tobacco than books.  I suppose we shouldn't be surprised.  7-11 never seems to keep copies of Blink on a rack above the counter.  American's aren't bored though - don't worry.  We spend almost 23 times more of our dollars on entertainment than books...and that entertainment budget doesn't even include the booze!  Here is the breakdown of the leading macro-components of our annual budgets.  (The actual chart provides more detail.)

34.1%       Shelter
17.6%       Transportation
12.4%       Food
10.8%       Insurance and Pensions
5.7%         Health Care
5.4%         Entertainment
3.8%         Apparel and Services
3.7%        Cash contributions
1.9%         Education
1.6%         Miscellaneous
1.2%         Personal Care
0.9%        Alcoholic Beverages
0.7%        Tobacco
0.2%        Reading

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on July 17, 2009 (boomark / email).