I'm quoting Fox because the other mentioned US. Blame them for US centrism, but then please update your incomes and costs to somewhere like Somalia, or even Greece. But that would be too woke or something?
Even if most people can, that doesn't mean that if you can't is because of bad decisions. That means being homeless is because of bad decisions. That means that those already on debt for medical issues made a bad decision.
For a lot of people spending those 16 dollars on RAM is the bad decision.
BTW, median income is absurd. You can have income and still spend on living expenses more than you earn. Now please tell me people needs to move to rural Ohio to maw grass to buy 8 gigs of RAM.
Edit: somehow I've struck a nerve with people from programing.dev who created the account on the same day, never commented anything and saw my comment within a few minutes of one another. I think I've struck a nerve :)