Toilet paper for 17 bucks? Milk for almost $25? Eye-popping prices are the point: Adweek is celebrating today as its "ad of the day" a local spot from a local charity, the Tipping Point Community. The point of the "candid camera" exercise, I guess, is to make people feel what it's like to not be able to afford the basic necessities, which they could also have just done by going to Bi-Rite — I kid, kind of.
"To determine the inflated Poverty Line Prices," Tipping Point writes, "we took the average price of Bay Area necessities and calculated the percentage of take-home pay each item would represent for a family living on the poverty line earning $24,300. After taxes, that's $22,222."
As San Francisco magazine wrote in 2013, the Tipping Point Community was created by Daniel Lurie, a highly respected do-gooder who is the son of Mimi Haas and stepson of Peter Haas, the former CEO of Levi's. Lurie's biological father is a rabbi and ran the Jewish Community Federation for 17 years. Perhaps you're beginning to see why he might be professionally generous? Yes, his foundation is based on Malcolm Gladwell's book of facile anecdotes that bears the same name.
The spot is, perhaps, something to chew on as you consider your Thanksgiving meal. Using your own income or the income of your family, you can determine your own poverty line pricing on their website.
Related: Pop-Up Dinner Parties In Dumpsters Fight Food Waste For Charity