"That person on wellfare/whatever can't REALLY be poor -- they have a cell phone!"

[xiphias]

You ever hear people say that?

Cheapest landline I can find around here: $45/month, with long-term contract. Most are closer to $60.
Cell phone data plan with unlimited text and talk, worldwide, and 500 mb of web: $50/month, no contract.

We SHOULD be saying, "That person can't REALLY be poor -- they can afford to not have a cell phone!"

The whole "cell phones are for rich people" stopped being true in the 20th century.

Comments

[sethg]

I remember this scene from 1997–98, when I was at an Israeli yeshiva populated mostly by British and American expats. One of the bochurim came in to the beit midrash with a cell phone, and he was teased for having gone native.

[goljerp]

Ah, yes, Israel in '97-'98 -- they were about 10 years ahead of the US in terms of cell phone usage. (I.e. only around 2008 did the US catch up to where Israel was then, in my biased observation.) I remember being on a Tel Aviv - Jerusalem bus and a cell phone went off; more than half the bus was reaching for their phones. (I guess the rest had a different ring tone.)