Here’s the One Place That Both the Rich and Poor Love To Go
There’s a recognized adage, most frequently attributed to motivational speaker and author Jim Rohn, that “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” If this is true, the people in your daily life can influence your interests, values, and morals — as well as your degree of success and socioeconomic status.
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However, that can be a disheartening realization to those who are lower- or middle-income and wish to increase their social and financial status. That’s because Americans of different classes rarely associate with each other, according to recent research from Maxim Massenhoff and Nathan Wilmers of the Naval Postgraduate School and Harvard University, respectively. Said research was detailed in brief by Business Insider.
The researchers used SafeGraph mobile location data to track people from their homes, which may indicate their income level or socioeconomic class, to the places they visited. The research discovered that, for the most part, wealthy people congregate with their wealthy peers. This is true even in public places like museums and historical sites, which are often free to visit.
Even libraries and parks, while attracting some visitors from different socio-economic classes, aren’t the pillars of diversity you might expect. That’s because, the study shows, they tend to serve residents in the same community — who tend to share the same economic status.
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Socioeconomic Isolation Has Grown Since the Pandemic
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shared similar findings, noting that socio-economic isolation has gotten worse since the pandemic. Interactions between people of different socioeconomic backgrounds dropped by as much as 30% between early 2019 and late 2021, Business Insider reported.
Remote work and online shopping, the study surmised, gave people less reason than ever before to leave the comfort of their own neighborhoods and, instead, to stick with people who share their social class.
Chain Restaurants Attract All Classes
However, there is one exception to the rule, Massenhoff and Wilmers found. Full-service, casual, affordable chain restaurants like Olive Garden, Applebee’s, Chili’s, and IHOP consistently attract Americans from varying socioeconomic backgrounds.
“The most socio-economically diverse places in America are not public institutions, like schools and parks, but affordable chain restaurants,” Massenhoff and Wilmers wrote.
Why It Matters
The findings are significant to lower- and middle-income Americans looking to build wealth. Raj Chetty, a Harvard economist, found in a separate study that your upward mobility really is determined by your circle of friends.
The study found that “if lower-income kids grew up in areas that have the same economic connectedness as higher-income kids’ neighborhoods, their future earnings increase by an average of 20%,” as detailed by Business Insider.
“Changing affordable housing policies, busing policies to get kids to go to the same school, changing school district boundaries, things like that — those may all be very valuable to increase economic connectedness,” Chetty said.
However, the new study showing that rich people and poor people, alike, gravitate toward casual, full-service change restaurants could offer a way for not just school-age children, but adults, to mingle with those belonging to other income brackets.
Bottom Line
If you want to rub elbows with wealthier people, consider celebrating happy hour at Chili’s. Or take a page from the book of country singer Walker Hayes and get “fancy like Applebee’s on a date night.”
You and your significant other likely won’t be the only ones. Those two-for-$25 meals are a smart savings move no matter how much money you have.
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Here’s the One Place That Both the Rich and Poor Love To Go
