Not distinct groupsIn economics, luxuries and necessities are classed as two separate goods. But in actuality they are on a continuum best expressed as a elasticity curve.
In times of spending cutsThis is not a time we can afford to indulge in a whole lot of nice-to-haves, even though, for sections of the population, they feel the loss of those services or funding streams. The alternative is that nice-to-haves come at the expense of necessities and at the expense of fairness to people with more need. |