Misplaced priorities

Recently I was reading an article about urban poverty and was more than confused about the concept. To say that a person holding a job, earning a salary that entitles him to be in the tax paying category, is poor just because he spends all his money on luxury items and hence is unable to afford necessities is too far fetched. There is a difference between what are necessities and what are luxury items. A person is poor if he cannot afford the basic necessities, he is not poor if he cannot afford the luxury items and definitely not poor if he is unable to get necessities because he has spent all his money on luxuries. The real urban poor are the slum dwellers, the individuals who are earning than Rs33 a day, who do menial jobs to get their ends meet. The twenty-something who have jobs and are trying to copy the high end lifestyle are not poor. Not eating proper food in order to buy branded clothes and phones or cars is not poverty, it is stupidity. It is being blind to the world. There used to be an old saying of not spending more than what you earn and there is merit in it. Now on social media, one gets to see posts saying what is so middle class. Reusing and recycling things is not so middle class, it is being socially aware and environmentally concerned. And if it is middle class, then everyone should have middle class values. Wasting food at a buffet is insensitive, it is not a matter of pride. There are people who are really poor, who need help. But the bunch of young people who are engulfed in things so vain are not urban poor. They are, if anything, a poor judge of things and lack the basic skills of resource management.