The Average American - and kind of a book review

I'm occasionally obsessed by the ordinary and statistics.  I am intrigued by the accepted norms and the real norms.  This especially comes to light on financial matters and/or when a news report comes out with some statistic that doesn't pass the rapid approximation test.
At various times I'll pour over statistics available online as to wealth, income, poverty, etc.  I'm very surprised at what the median household income is in the US (~$51k, I thought it would be higher).  I'm also surprised at statistics on poverty in the US.  Compared to all of recorded history, the poor in the US are doing pretty well - at least physically.  (note:  I'm NOT suggesting poverty is good or easy or that income inequality isn't a major issue in the US)

Mostly, I find what is normal (defined as one of the statistical averages) to be fascinating.  After pondering this, I found Kevin O'Keefe's book The Average American.  As with a lot of books that I read, this was part narrative and part non-fiction informative.  The book chronicles Mr. O'Keefe's journey to define and find what and who the average American is.
Many of the tidbits on what is normal in the book are very interesting.  At middle-age, I would have believed I eat a lot of peanut butter, but I'm nowhere near the national average (peanut butter has an overly prominent role in the book).

The book is definitely worth reading.  His writing style is easy to follow and while it doesn't have the same narrative quality of, say, Bill Bryson his personal journey - both physical and mental - is very interesting.  Part of my interest in the subject is due to the fear that being, or becoming, normal is equal with becoming boring.  I think I'm wrong on that.  However, I do believe there is significant overlap between the subset of the population that is normal and the subset that is boring.  I will still say that being boring equates with a life not lived to its potential - at least.

In the book, Mr. O'Keefe defines a set of questions to qualify who is the average American.  Some of the questions appear to be overly trivial, but it is his list.  I do think there is one fatal flaw in his list in that some questions taken in combination are terribly exclusive.  As example, the average American must live in the state they were born in and live within 100 miles of the ocean.  Out of the stated 140 questions used, these two are very exclusive as 60% of the population lives within the state born in and 40% live by the ocean (source:  NOAA).  Taken randomly, these two questions out of the 140 remove ~76% of the population.  Additionally, these two taken together mean that anyone born in Illinois, would not be normal despite the Illinois borders Lake Michigan, a large navigable waterway (the coasts are heavily populated due to historic reasons of trade and reliance on water which are less relevant now).  He doesn't address what would happen if an individual was born in Connecticut, spent all but the last few years in Iowa, then moved back to Connecticut not to be close to "home" but because that was where the job was.
At one point in the book, he ascribes that perhaps the most ordinary American should not meet every criteria to remain normal as being too normal is not normal.  But, this appears to be a passing idea that is not ultimately used.
In the end, the author must whittle down to his version of the average American somehow and the way he gets there is terribly interesting despite the flaws.  I can't help but wonder what would happen if Mr. O'Keefe were to bump into Sarah Vowell on the road and the two would have become a traveling American Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (hmmmm, peanut butter again).

One very interesting bit of information from the book was a vignette about a NY Times magazine written by Camille Sweeney that found on interviewing people who made around the median income, all had recently bought a new car, a boat, a widescreen TV, a vacation cottage, a pool, or had a pricey family vacation.  Additionally, even most of  the poor had some "fun money."  No matter where someone is in the income spectrum, there appears to be something left over for what is beyond the needs.  Said another way, everyone seems to live near their means.  Or, more money doesn't buy more happiness (but I bet it makes being miserable more fun).

In the end, the personal narrative makes any flaw in methodology an academic exercise.  After finishing the book, I excitedly went to the web site listed in the book only to find it a thin site of praise for the book.  I was hoping for more in depth statistics on his questions.  This lead me to the web site for the Census Bureau which is endlessly filled with easily available information on Americans!  Many of these data are easy to browse on subsequent pages on the Bureau's Web Site.  How could I have not known this was there?

What I was most missing from the book and web site, was a discrete and complete list of all 140 questions he used for his search.  I would have loved if his web site would have these in quiz format to define the users "averageness" based on the questions.  I found other sites that do this based on a different set of questions, but after investing time in the book, it wasn't what I was looking for.
Below is a set of questions I was able to glean from the book.  Since this is my interpretation of his list, I don't know if this is plagerism or not.  Very few people ever read this blog, so I won't worry about such things...  Besides, even with this, how the author got to the questions is worth the read.

Despite the exclusivity of some of the questions, assign one point for each question that agrees with the norm.  The O'Keefe Average Quotient (OAQ) can then be calculated by dividing the number of points by the total number I could define from the list (139).  The closer the value is to one, the more normal the tester is:

1. US or DC citizen
2. Lived in the same home for five years
3. Resident of native state
4. Resides in nation's average community (ambiguous)
5. Family is extremely or very important
6. High school graduate
7. In paid labor force or working towards it
8. At least one married couple in the home
9. Has offspring
10. Regularly in bed before midnight 
11. Believes in God
12. Is Christian
13. Is respectful of others religions
14. Attends church at least once a month
15. Religion is very important in own life
16. Is respectful of all races
17. Annual movie-goer
18. Lives in owner-occupied home
19. Resides in one house (one unit - detached)
20. Has direct access to one or two motor vehicles
21. Home has garage or carport
22. Has a driver's license
23. Has two to four people residing in the home
24. Regularly wears seat belt
25. Household has discretionary income
26. Is in full-time labor force or retired from it
27. Has at least one pet
28. Is not trying to be nationally known
29. Is satisfied with the way things are going in personal life
30. Supports current abortion laws
31. Believes abortion is wrong
32. Supports stricter enforcement of environmental laws
33. Describes self as very or fairly happy
34. Believes money can't buy happiness
35. Has home valued between $100k and $300k
36. Participates in recycling
37. Has fired a gun
38. Believes in the right to bear arms
39. Is against the public use of semi-automatic weapons
40. Is in favor of registration or waiting lists for gun owners
41. Believes gambling is an acceptable entertainment choice
42. Has gambled money on at least one game of chance in the last year
43. Household has craft or hobby
44. Donates money to charity
45. Gives time to charity annually
46. Has net worth between $30k and $300k
47. Lives where there is at least 0.1" of snow annually
48. Lives where average annual temperature is between 45 and 65 degrees F
49. Is between 18 and 53 years old
50. Spends most time indoors
51. Gets moderate exercise weekly
52. Has health insurance
53. Walks under own power
54. Weighs 135 to 205 pounds
55. Lives in urbanized or suburban area
56. Resides on zero to 2 acres
57. Has a private lawn
58. Supports US troops
59. Drinks soda
60. Drinks coffee (regularly or occasionally)
61. Has an electric coffee maker
62. Eats bread weekly
63. Believes music can bring family closer together (ambiguous)
64. Has a stereo in the home
65. Wears glasses and/or contacts to correct vision
66. Has all five senses
67. Can read English
68. Can speak English fluently
69. Community mirrors racial/ethnic make-up of the nation (ambiguous)
70. Life impacted by drugs or alcohol
71. Opposes legalization of marijuana for recreational use
72. Supports use of pot for medicine
73. Has visited the ocean
74. Lives within 100 miles of the ocean
75. Lives in the Eastern Time Zone (guess this means some people are sometimes normal)
76. Has consumed alcohol
77. Considers homosexuality an acceptable lifestyle
78. Has a color TV (do they make black and white anymore?)
79. Has cable (presumably this means satellite as well?)
80. Has DVD and/or VCR
81. Commonly watches TV daily
82. Household's per capita income is between $15k and $75k
83. Primary weekday destination is within 5 miles of home (coming from the midwest, I'm not sure I believe this)
84. Primary mode of transportation is the privately owned motor vehicle
85. Home has a porch/deck/patio/etc.
86. Has outdoor grill at home
87. Eats meat (red and white)
88. Has one to three registered voters in the household
89. Lives on a local road
90. Household files federal income taxes
91. Household files state income taxes
92. Pays a sales tax
93. Eats ice cream at least once a month
94. Lives within two miles of a public park
95. Uses recreational facilities annually
96. Chief local politician is a Democrat
97. Local governing council is mostly Democratic
98. Reads local newspaper daily
99. Has read or started to read one book within the last year
100. Uses a landline phone
101. Uses mobile phone on a regular basis
102. Home is within range of cell service
103. Believes friends are extremely or very important
104. Home has a paved parking area to his garage or carport
105. Favorite way to spend the evening is in the home
106. Home is between 10 and 50 years old
107. Home has between 4 and 6 living purpose rooms
108. Grew up within 50 miles of current home
109. Has a kitchen
110. Has a clothes washer
111. Has a clothes dryer
112. Has an automatic dishwasher
113. Has at least one full bathroom
114. Brushes teeth daily
115. Visits the dentist annually
116. Showers daily
117. Has a Christmas tree every year
118. Has a credit card
119. Has an ATM card
120. Has household credit card debt
121. Uses the internet
122. Has played computer or video games in the last year
123. Is a football fan
124. Is a baseball fan
125. Political viewpoints are a 3, 4 or 5 on a 7-point scale
126. Owns jeans
127. Has done financially better than parents
128. Has at least one living parent
129. Has at least one living sibling
130. Represented by at least one Democratic US Senator
131. Represented by a Republican House member
132. Takes annual vacation time
133. Has a listed phone number
134. Eats at McDonald's annually
135. Lives within three miles of a McDonald's
136. Lives within 20 minutes of a Wal-Mart
137. Shops at Walmart annually
138. Is between 5'3" and 5'10.5"
139. Lives in the middle majority of the nation's populated areas (ambiguous)
140. Note:  There is supposed to be 140, but something was lost in Kansas...read the book and that will make sense.

My OAQ is 0.762.  I am not sure if that makes me normal.  I hope it doesn't make me boring.

Forced Through the Cracks

Lets start with what this is not.  This is not a rant against the Obama or any Presidential Administration.  This is also not a rant against poverty.  There are others who already do too much of that.  This is an opinion after watching the current mayhem over the new health care law go into effect.
While I think that politics made the current health care law hopeless complicated, this is also not a whine about the new law.  It is the current law.  As an aside, for all the problems the health care website has had I do find it somewhere between hilarious and comforting to know that three guys created The Health Sherpa to do what a whole government bureaucracy could not do (interviewed on the news yesterday, they said it "was a little tough...").  I used The Health Sherpa to look up rates in my area and they were surprisingly low.  I'm still not sure that makes me a believer, but if those numbers are correct then maybe there is hope!

The news media has surprisingly not shied away from reporting that many people who have perfectly acceptable plans will be losing them.  The response has varied over time, but one of the responses was along the lines of, it is only 5% of the people.  That statement is what will always be wrong with the Federal Government.  The government plays in numbers, big numbers.  The government will do what it thinks it can within those numbers to change, maybe to help.  In effect, the government defines what the average person is (or more realistically, a few average people) and then targets towards that average.  If anyone falls outside of that average, they must first conform.  Ever tried to get help for a special situation in any bureaucracy?

This can be seen in the long-term federal response to poverty.  Using realistic statistics and definitions, the federal government spends about $500 billion per year on poverty - this is a pretty easy number to come by using web searches and throwing away the skewed numbers used by the nutjobs on both the far left and right.
That is enough cash to lift every one of the 45 million Americans in poverty out of poverty.  There are real and political reasons why that would never be sustainable, but the numbers in this case don't lie.
Part of the reason this money will never change the status quo is because the enormity of the federal government is so horribly inefficient.  That much money can't be sent to Washington and doled out again without some loss at every transaction.  Additionally, that money is spread throughout many departments all with their own fiefdoms and inefficiencies.  It is good politics though.
The other reason this will never make real change is it is targeted at a predefined population.  That money goes to help the "average" poor person.  The people that don't fit that predefined mold are on their own.  The farther a group or individual is away from the predefined target, the less likely help will be real.  It is part of the reason that so many government programs target the cities, with more people, the average looks like it is there.  Poverty in rural America is an afterthought.

The solution to this isn't the states, as too many of them work in the same way.  The solution isn't large charitable organizations, they are targeting the same subgroups based on the same numbers (and read through the financials of the United Way).  The solution is local.  Unfortunately, local government is too strapped and at risk of political whim.

This leaves local charitable organizations to pick up all the pieces left over; all the "only 5%" out there.
There but for the grace of God go I - and those admirable organizations deserve as much help as they can get.