Monday, December 10, 2012
Air Conditioning Question
I was shocked to find out that over 80% of "poor people" in the US have air conditioning. I do not have air conditioning in my residence here in Ghana and I live on the equator. I used to live in Arivaca, Arizona where it gets really, really hot and I had no air conditioning. How is it that "poor people" in the US can afford things like air conditioning that people with PhDs like myself can not afford? What has happened in the US since I left? Did the price of air conditioning drop to $1 a month or something? If so then why has the low price remained limited to the US? Less than 20% of people in Africa have home air conditioning. Even in super rich Europe you will not find 80% of the "poor" with air conditioning. What gives?
I wonder what "has air conditioning" means. Does is mean central air conditioning? If that's the case, then it's a matter of the landlord installing it in his building, so it's kind of misleading to say the poor person is the one who "has AC," he just happens to live in a building that has it. If it means anyone who has a window box AC (that you can get for a couple hundred bucks), then that's misleading too. Landlords frequently supply those these days, too.
ReplyDeleteI can't afford to put central AC into my home, and I'm well above the poverty level, so I think whoever published those statistics is not giving the full picture.