this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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This is a fairly disconnected statement "ever" includes
discount fares
regional flights
vacations taken as a kid
flights paid for in whole or in part by parties with more cash
saving money for a long time
flights paid for when one had a better financial position or after a windfall
Generalistically people are poor because they are thousands to tens of dollars per year underneath where they would need to be to be middle class. For instance earning 20,000 per year less than a middle class family x 20 years = $400,000 less Whereas you are wondering how people can possibly be poor because they had $350 once ever. This is like those weird fucks who think people who have smart phones can't be poor.
Also worrying about the environmental impact of poor people flying once back in 1995 is ... probably moot.
I did some more digging. 52% of Americans have flown in the past year, including 60% of 18-24 year olds. 70-75% of those flights were for leisure travel. (https://www.airlines.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/A4A-Air-Travel-Survey-Key-Findings-18Mar2025.pdf) So I'm still confused - I hear all the time from young people that they can't afford necessities, that they're one paycheck away from being homeless, that they'll never own a home - but they're able to drop an average of $2k/year on vacations? (https://www.chime.com/blog/average-cost-of-a-vacation/) Make it make sense. Seven years of vacations would be the a down-payment on the median home price. I didn't take a vacation until my mid 30s because I was trying to ensure that my money went to life stability, so it's just kind of a head scratcher to me that people are so loose with their money while knowing that it could very easily make them homeless.
You can't get anywhere without getting on a plane in America or out of it.
Also the average is almost certainly skewed by the incredibly large amount some people spend on vacations and the basic minimum it costs to do so.
And people will put nice things in debt so that they can still enjoy it cause nobody wants a life where they do nothing and get nothing nice ever. That's literally a whole style of monk because it's hard to do.
That's not how the average was calculated, see the article I linked. And people can absolutely have a fun time without getting on an airplane. A weekend road trip or camping trip, visiting a zoo, hopping on a train - plenty of fun and affordable options that cover most of the US without flying or dropping two stacks and threatening yourself with homelessness just to have an experience that can wait until you're more established.
Hell, my favorite vaca was completely free - I strapped a tent (free from Buy Nothing) to my bicycle (same) and rode a trail to a river front campsite that was also free (thanks, boy scouts) and sat by the water relaxing for a few nights. All I had to buy was food.
My vacation is staying home and tending to my garden and eating my own produce.
We are not exactly the standard polling public though who have absolutely been sold the concept of getting to see the globalized world. There are all types in this world. We can't ask them to all be like us.
Also it's a bit wild to think you may ever be more established. This world and societal structures are crumbling and people can feel it. People can feel they may not get the chance before things change.
Let me help you with some math and logic. If 52% of people have flown in the past year and 70% of those flights were leisure then 0.52x0.7 = 0.364 or 36.4% flew for leisure in the last year and 63.6% did not.
Presumably the 2/3 who didn't fly for vacation also didn't spend 3000 and change which is hint just what a bank told you it should cost not how much people especially poor people are actually spending. There is a massive disparity between the haves and have nots in America.
Tldr: they aren't living paycheck to paycheck because they spent 3000 they are doing so because shit is expensive. People also aren't poor because they eat too much avocado toast.
You didn't read my 2nd link huh