DoubleReverseRoll
New Member
Just wanted to start off mentioning the stats that started this conversation are being massaged to say something that isn't necessarily accurate. Sorry to go into this, but I'm in finance and my degree was in applied economics, it's sort of my other love besides dancing. Not trying to call anybody out, but I just think that the numbers you're quoting regarding income are very off with some simple examination.
First off, the number that you're looking for isn't GDP per capita, it's median household income (difference being whether we're looking at US as a country's earning power per person, unrelated to income per person, or income per household). Median household income as of March 2016 was estimated at $57,263. You are also using a median income number, against a mean for the number of individuals in a household-- these are two different measures. The median is going to be the 50th percentile, the mean will be the average, so the total number of people in the US divided by the total number of households. I was unable to find a statistic for median number of people per household or for average household income, so the numbers just aren't comparable. In census data for 2011, mean household income was actually higher than median household income (about 70k vs 55.5k)-- there are some really high earning outliers in the US that skew the mean upwards.
Additionally:
1) Some 14.5% of Americans are living below the poverty line. If we assume that this is reflective of households as well (not just individuals), we are looking at skewed numbers anyway because that's 14.5% of the population that not only does not have money for ballroom dancing, but they do not have disposable income for anything else either. The $57k includes some very poor individuals, we aren't looking at a selection of middle class households here. Is a household below the poverty line going to be concerned that they aren't able to comfortably afford ballroom dance lessons? Not likely, they're just scraping by as is. I wasn't able to get a statistic on the average number of people per household in households below the poverty line, but would be interested in seeing how that statistic compares to that of the general population. If we discount 14.5% of households at the bottom because they have no disposable income with which to ballroom dance, our median income will already increase a lot. I ran some simple math, the median is the 50th percentile, if we remove the lowest 14% our 50th percentile already increases to just above $65k.
2) By dividing the median by the mean 2.54 people, we are assuming that these 2.54 people are evenly distributed across the population. As we spoke about before with income, mean can be skewed by outliers. Many of the households below the median are going to be households with fewer than 2.54 people. In 2014 the number of single person households varied between 19% and 44% depending on the state-- that's a lot of households we're talking about. If you assume that the average number of single households per state is 31.5% (just taking the mean of 19 and 44), then that's 31.5%, the majority of which will likely fall in your first and second quartiles, that should not be divided by 2.54.
3) When you're looking at a family of more than 1 person, the household costs per person tend to go down, so as a percentage of their total income per person, each person would (hopefully) have a larger disposable income. So even if we're dividing the median household income by the number of people per household, the amount of money it costs to live is going to go down (i.e. each person in a household isn't going to pay the same amount in rent as a single person living alone would, buying in bulk and feeding multiple people is cheaper per person than feeding one person), so saying these people have to spend their money proportionally regardless of household size is also inaccurate.
Real disposable personal income per capita annually in the US is estimated at $38,595 as of March 2016. So this number says that the average person in the US has $38,595 in disposable income per year, and I think this number gives a much more accurate idea of what amount people might have to spend. Once again extreme outliers, but even with the extreme outliers we're looking at 14.5% of our population with presumably zero disposable income to counteract these outliers to some degree. I would be willing to say that based on these numbers, we can conclude that the average US family (discounting outliers, either as those below the poverty line, or those with essentially unlimited disposable income) still will have a reasonable amount of disposable income.
Now, the question is whether it's enough to support a ballroom dancing habit? I would say yes, if you're a really dedicated pro-am competitor, maybe not, but I can say I am making (as a single person household), fairly significantly less than the American median income and have NOWHERE NEAR $38k to spend in disposable income, but I'm able to support a dancing hobby quite comfortably. I'm currently taking 2 lessons per week at $80 per lesson, am comfortably making my bills, and am still saving. I don't live in an area that has a particularly low cost of living. Currently I am between partners so I'm not competing, my pro as offered to do pro-am with me, but I can't afford it, and I understand that. At this level I'm looking at (about) $8320 per year going towards coaching alone-- once I get a partner I expect those costs will go down as I'll be splitting lesson costs with someone, worst case scenario they stay the same if we double the number of lessons we're taking from 2 to 4 per week. I also pay for competitions TBAing collegiate competitions, need new shoes probably every 3-4 months, at some point I will require new costumes, and I also (occasionally) see guest coaches so might have some additional costs. I would still estimate even in an expensive year I won't be spending more than $12,000, and while that's a lot for a hobby in a year, I'm doing a lot with it, I could cut back and still call myself a dedicated dancer taking 1 lesson per week. If I did that I could probably keep my costs below $8000 total even in an expensive year. If I really wanted to be cheap about it I could probably keep myself under $5000 and still consider myself a dedicated dancer. I would like to think that most middle class Americans, family or no, could come up with $5000 per year to go towards a hobby if they budget carefully. It is possible I overestimate the budgeting and earning power of middle class Americans.
Ballroom is certainly not a sport for the poor-- but I think maintaining a serious ballroom dance hobby is not unaffordable for a middle class individual.
First off, the number that you're looking for isn't GDP per capita, it's median household income (difference being whether we're looking at US as a country's earning power per person, unrelated to income per person, or income per household). Median household income as of March 2016 was estimated at $57,263. You are also using a median income number, against a mean for the number of individuals in a household-- these are two different measures. The median is going to be the 50th percentile, the mean will be the average, so the total number of people in the US divided by the total number of households. I was unable to find a statistic for median number of people per household or for average household income, so the numbers just aren't comparable. In census data for 2011, mean household income was actually higher than median household income (about 70k vs 55.5k)-- there are some really high earning outliers in the US that skew the mean upwards.
Additionally:
1) Some 14.5% of Americans are living below the poverty line. If we assume that this is reflective of households as well (not just individuals), we are looking at skewed numbers anyway because that's 14.5% of the population that not only does not have money for ballroom dancing, but they do not have disposable income for anything else either. The $57k includes some very poor individuals, we aren't looking at a selection of middle class households here. Is a household below the poverty line going to be concerned that they aren't able to comfortably afford ballroom dance lessons? Not likely, they're just scraping by as is. I wasn't able to get a statistic on the average number of people per household in households below the poverty line, but would be interested in seeing how that statistic compares to that of the general population. If we discount 14.5% of households at the bottom because they have no disposable income with which to ballroom dance, our median income will already increase a lot. I ran some simple math, the median is the 50th percentile, if we remove the lowest 14% our 50th percentile already increases to just above $65k.
2) By dividing the median by the mean 2.54 people, we are assuming that these 2.54 people are evenly distributed across the population. As we spoke about before with income, mean can be skewed by outliers. Many of the households below the median are going to be households with fewer than 2.54 people. In 2014 the number of single person households varied between 19% and 44% depending on the state-- that's a lot of households we're talking about. If you assume that the average number of single households per state is 31.5% (just taking the mean of 19 and 44), then that's 31.5%, the majority of which will likely fall in your first and second quartiles, that should not be divided by 2.54.
3) When you're looking at a family of more than 1 person, the household costs per person tend to go down, so as a percentage of their total income per person, each person would (hopefully) have a larger disposable income. So even if we're dividing the median household income by the number of people per household, the amount of money it costs to live is going to go down (i.e. each person in a household isn't going to pay the same amount in rent as a single person living alone would, buying in bulk and feeding multiple people is cheaper per person than feeding one person), so saying these people have to spend their money proportionally regardless of household size is also inaccurate.
Real disposable personal income per capita annually in the US is estimated at $38,595 as of March 2016. So this number says that the average person in the US has $38,595 in disposable income per year, and I think this number gives a much more accurate idea of what amount people might have to spend. Once again extreme outliers, but even with the extreme outliers we're looking at 14.5% of our population with presumably zero disposable income to counteract these outliers to some degree. I would be willing to say that based on these numbers, we can conclude that the average US family (discounting outliers, either as those below the poverty line, or those with essentially unlimited disposable income) still will have a reasonable amount of disposable income.
Now, the question is whether it's enough to support a ballroom dancing habit? I would say yes, if you're a really dedicated pro-am competitor, maybe not, but I can say I am making (as a single person household), fairly significantly less than the American median income and have NOWHERE NEAR $38k to spend in disposable income, but I'm able to support a dancing hobby quite comfortably. I'm currently taking 2 lessons per week at $80 per lesson, am comfortably making my bills, and am still saving. I don't live in an area that has a particularly low cost of living. Currently I am between partners so I'm not competing, my pro as offered to do pro-am with me, but I can't afford it, and I understand that. At this level I'm looking at (about) $8320 per year going towards coaching alone-- once I get a partner I expect those costs will go down as I'll be splitting lesson costs with someone, worst case scenario they stay the same if we double the number of lessons we're taking from 2 to 4 per week. I also pay for competitions TBAing collegiate competitions, need new shoes probably every 3-4 months, at some point I will require new costumes, and I also (occasionally) see guest coaches so might have some additional costs. I would still estimate even in an expensive year I won't be spending more than $12,000, and while that's a lot for a hobby in a year, I'm doing a lot with it, I could cut back and still call myself a dedicated dancer taking 1 lesson per week. If I did that I could probably keep my costs below $8000 total even in an expensive year. If I really wanted to be cheap about it I could probably keep myself under $5000 and still consider myself a dedicated dancer. I would like to think that most middle class Americans, family or no, could come up with $5000 per year to go towards a hobby if they budget carefully. It is possible I overestimate the budgeting and earning power of middle class Americans.
Ballroom is certainly not a sport for the poor-- but I think maintaining a serious ballroom dance hobby is not unaffordable for a middle class individual.
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