My husband being able to afford dental implants is a permanent increase in his quality of life. As is owning a home. Also, you keep saying it’s “1% of lifetime income” but I’m disabled and not earning anything at all long-term. $30k is life-changing for me and not just shifting income forward.

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Are you telling me that my husband being able to eat solid foods again isn’t a dramatic improvement in his quality of life? Or our going from renting an apartment to owning a home? If your studies do not capture these effects, what good are they?

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Matt I know you’re an economist so this is probably going to fall on deaf ears, but there are things in this life other than studies and I’m telling you that $30k dramatically improves a lot of people’s material circumstances. It’s literally more than I have ever personally earned in a year.

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You’re looking at this as an economist with a strict definition of “life-changing” rather than as an individual with barely any savings and medical bills to pay. Like, our savings were just completely drained by a few thousand dollars of emergency dental work. $30k is a life-altering amount for us.

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Suddenly receiving 30 grand would be a life-changing windfall in that it would allow us to significantly improve our lives by, say, buying a house. It’s not going to shift us into another socioeconomic bracket but it would still be /life-changing/ because of what it would allow us to do.

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