I saw that. Interesting at the top end that married couples earn more than twice what single people do. Being married helps with promotion? Rich people are more likely to get married?
Both are true. Well, I should say that on average men who get married or are expecting a baby get promotions and raises whereas women (again, on average) get passed over due to the expectation that they wonāt have the time or inclination to give 150% at work anymore. When I worked in consulting in the South in the 1970ās, managers would admit that out loud to my face; now, itās never acknowledged and most managers probably donāt even realize theyāre doing it, but they are.
And rich people (or young adults with good prospects due to elite education) have a tendency to marry each other. Opposites attract in many ways, but when it comes to lifestyle preferences, it doesnāt seem to work that way.
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Well, not eggggggg-zactly. Thatās a twisted version of the scenario I presented, because a $2500 ticket is way out of line with the economy price of $1250. From $400 to $600 or even to $700 is not way out of line with the economy price, in practical terms.
But as you pointed out, the leap from $1250 to $2500 is a ripoff. Thatās DOUBLE. $1250 -> 2500 is way out of line with what Iām suggesting. It should be $1250 -> $1750 MAXIMUM, because Iām only wanting 20 to 25% more space, so the upcharge should be NO MORE than 50% or Iāll feel ripped off.
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Mine too. I blame my crappy public education and lack of adult enrichment opportunities. Now, back to my TV shows.
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Premium economy really shouldnāt be 3x the economy price.
Edward Tufte approves this comment
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Expecting airlines to do things rationally or logically is going to be your downfall. 
Iāve noticed that everyone thatās replied to you ānuh-uh, Such-and-Such airline has exactly what youāre asking for,ā that itās not a US carrier. Not at all surprising, after all, this is 'Merrāka: Pay the maximum possible price for the least possible product, then act like youāre all superior for getting screwed over. Yay!
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Iām sure they appreciate your saying so, o noble paladin. Wheras what you did there, not annoying at all, and totes diff.
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sighā¦
If they split it out further, and differentiated the parents who have their own parents living nearby from those who donāt, youād probably see something there too.
I donāt know how many millions of dollars in psychiatric treatment Iāve saved by having my Mom take the kids for a dayā¦ but I bet the difference (between parenting with help from your own parents or without) is pretty similar to the difference (between being a single parent or being part of a pair).
Parentheses added for clarity, because my composition skills are poor today too. 
Thatās how it all works, in America at least. You convince the biggest losers that the people keeping them down are the people who want a level playing field, and that someday real soon now the losers are going to be part of the ruling class, with all the cheesesteaks and high class hookers they can handle. Itās why the good olā boys in Southern US states tend to vote for the people who will do their families the most economic damage - itās part of a self-reinforcing meme set that is impervious to most forms of reason, because anyone arguing against it is just a āwhinerā who wants to subvert the Ayn Rand paradise thatās just out of reach forever.
Have you ever tried to convince a dittohead that US environmentalists have zero political power and are in no way responsible for nuclear power being unsafe and uneconomical? Itās like talking to a wall, you can present independently confirmable facts all day long and get nowhere. A better argument is usually that the French have nuclear power, so it canāt possibly be good.
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Please give a few examples of this hostility thatās so popular. Seems to me the modern rich have the best lives of anyone who has ever lived on planet earth and therefore very little to complain about. So why all the complaining?
Because a few people point out inequality? In most cases itās not hostility, itās just making some basic observations about economics.
If anything, the number of people barely keeping it together who arenāt hostile towards the rich is pretty impressive.
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Airlines are notoriously unprofitable. So, itās not like theyāre screwing over the poor and rolling in cash. The fact is that the market has telegraphed loud and clear that what the vast majority of people value in air travel is low-priced tickets, not slightly more legroom.
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Actually, according to Wikipedia, quite a few American airlines offer some form or other of Premium Economy.
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āpay the maximum possible priceā for domestic airfare? I just booked a ticket to fly from DC to Los Angeles for about $300. Transcontinental air travel 50 years ago was out of reach of everyone except the wealthy, and was substantially more dangerous than it is today. Seems like the market is providing people with exactly what they want, which is low priced tickets and near-perfect safety.
And, as someone else noted, the major US airlines all offer premium economy seating with more legroom, priority boarding, etc.
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Airlines are subsidized with tax dollars for perfectly good military reasons. But your point about what the market is demanding is still validā¦ I would only add that when the vast majority of people canāt afford high-priced tickets, itās kind of a self-evident tautology. Of course everyone wants tickets to cost something less than or equal to the money they have to spend, right?
And the wealthy will always have the opportunity to have better things; thatās another tautology, itās what wealth means. But historically the rich will sometimes insist on rigging the economic playing field to favor their inept spawn, and eventually that callousness ends up dragging down everyone, including said inept offspring and any rich or poor folk who deserved better. Look at Samsa up above (hopefully heās just trolling, though.) Putting forth the idea that itās somehow morally right to inherit unearned wealth in the same breath as saying that the wealthy deserve special favor? That attitude is what gives you both amoral aristocracies and bloody revolutions.
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Indeed, and itās definitely not three times better. Iād probably consider paying for it if it was 1.5x the price but Iām pretty sure the airlines price it that way for a reason. I just donāt know what the reason is.
I agree (although Iām somewhat shorter.) Itās people taking the wrong mindset. The space assigned to you is that from your seat reclined, to where the seat would be in front of you if that person reclined.
If you canāt fit into that space, perhaps you should consider paying for a seat of a size suitable for you?
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You canāt really extrapolate anything out of that data in isolation. A huge chunk of your 18-25 years olds are filing as single, during their lowest-income years, simply because they havenāt gotten married yet. Iāve filed taxes for about twenty years, with about half of those as āsingleā and half as āmarried.ā My average income during the married years (the last ten) is probably five times higher what the average was for the first ten years I filed as a single individual. But thatās simply because Iām an established professional now, not a 16 year old stock clerk!
And itās been a long time since I looked into this, but filing as āhead of householdā is more of a quirky thing (unmarried, but supporting another individual).
You would really need to isolate the data in some other form (looking only at individuals versus married couples of the same age, for example) before even thinking of drawing any conclusions.
Those are good points.
Itās also true that older married couples on the down side of the lifetime wave of income are also included. And that the mega-gajillionaires (entertainment and sports) seem to cluster in the younger range. And single later in life usually means divorced or widowed, both of which involve a hit to oneās financial situation. As you say: the data needs to be pulled apart in many different ways to figure out what the key factors really are.
For the record, Iām a head of household, so I know what the term means.
