The Lottery Class

An interesting Op-Ed in NYTimes today about the rise of debt, its relation to income inequality, and potential remedies (via Economists View which has commentary about the article). One statistic especially surprised me:

[State governments] aggressively hawk their lottery products, which some people call a tax on stupidity. Twenty percent of Americans are frequent players, spending about $60 billion a year. The spending is starkly regressive. A household with income under $13,000 spends, on average, $645 a year on lottery tickets, about 9 percent of all income.

It also mentions the "checks cashed here" places which, like lottery players, are highly represented in Central Square. Which reminded me of this article (via EV) from January by Arnold Schwarzenegger / Bill Clinton (!).