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Owning an iPhone is the Number-One Way To Guess if You're Rich or Not, Research Finds (businessinsider.com)

Posted by msmash on from the how-about-that dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: In the United States, if you have an Apple iPhone or iPad, it's a strong sign that you make a lot of money. That's one of the takeaways from a new National Bureau of Economic Research working paper from University of Chicago economists Marianne Bertrand and Emir Kamenica. "Across all years in our data, no individual brand is as predictive of being high-income as owning an Apple iPhone in 2016," the researchers wrote. There are details and caveats to the research, but the economists found that owning an iPhone gave them a 69% chance to correctly infer that the owner was "high-income," which they defined as being in the top quartile of income for households of that type -- like single adult or couple with dependents, for example.

12 of 497 comments (clear)

  1. no individual brand is as predictive... yeah by gyepi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "no individual brand is as predictive of being high-income as owning an Apple iPhone in 2016,"

    Seriously? Owning a Bentley is a worse predictor of being high-income than owning an Apple iPhone? Are we sure there are no further qualifications here?

    --
    Attitudes make the difference between Space and Time: we want to MAX our temporal, and MIN our spatial extension.
    1. Re:no individual brand is as predictive... yeah by The+Evil+Atheist · · Score: 5, Informative

      They defined high-income as in the top quartile. That's a lot of 'tile. Sure, owning a Bentley may predict higher incomes, but no use for predicting for top quartile.

      --
      Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
    2. Re:no individual brand is as predictive... yeah by geekmux · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "no individual brand is as predictive of being high-income as owning an Apple iPhone in 2016," Seriously? Owning a Bentley is a worse predictor of being high-income than owning an Apple iPhone? Are we sure there are no further qualifications here?

      Uh, from TFA:

      "In 2004, Land O' Lakes butter and Kikkoman soy sauce were predictive of high-income households. In 1992, Grey Poupon mustard was the strongest sign of a rich family."

      I've found more useful statistical data from bullshit articles on The Onion, which this might as well be. I sure as hell hope taxpayers aren't funding this "research".

    3. Re:no individual brand is as predictive... yeah by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Seriously? Owning a Bentley is a worse predictor of being high-income than owning an Apple iPhone?

      Yes. I know plenty of people in the top quartile, and none of them own Bentleys.

      If you want to determine if a randomly selected person is in the top 25% by income, asking if they own a Bentley would be a very poor discriminator.

      Top quartile cutoff is $78k. If your household income is above that you are "rich" according to TFA.

      Disclaimer: I am top quartile. I own an iPhone 6 refurb. I do not have a Bentley.

  2. Image over function by layabout · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It seems to me that owning an iPhone shows that you are more concerned about image over function/capability. Which is also a pretty strong indicator of being rich

    1. Re:Image over function by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Informative

      It seems to me that owning an iPhone shows that you are more concerned about image over function/capability.

      This isn't 2007. Nobody is impressed by an iPhone.

  3. so pay attention slashdotters by nimbius · · Score: 5, Funny

    If you're shopping online with your user agent set as
    Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 6_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/536.26 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0 Mobile/10A5376e Safari/8536.25
    You might pay more than someone coming from Firefox or Chrome. This wont impact IE or Edge users as they prefer to shop in person for the most flavorful brand of crayon.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
  4. Re:Owning a luxury car (or jet/yatch) is even bett by Gavagai80 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Both iphones and Ferraris sometimes only predict that your parents are high income.

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    This space intentionally left blank
  5. Re:Owning a luxury car (or jet/yatch) is even bett by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ferraris, feh. Owning a senator is how to tell if you're rich or not.

  6. Re:Owning a luxury car (or jet/yatch) is even bett by nospam007 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Owning a Ferrari is a sign that you are going bald and have a small dick.
    It has been that forever.

  7. Re:Owning a luxury car (or jet/yatch) is even bett by Immerman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They're talking about wealth - not income. And thanks to the low class mobility in the U.S., the number one way to become rich is to be born to rich parents.

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    --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  8. Re:Owning a luxury car (or jet/yatch) is even bett by EvilSS · · Score: 5, Funny

    Owning a Ferrari is a sign that you are going bald and have a small dick. It has been that forever.

    Can confirm: Thick hair, big dick, no Ferrari.

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    I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.