ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 19, 1996 TAG: 9612190056
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: What's on your mind?
SOURCE: RAY REED
Q: Recently the director of the Virginia Lottery said 84 percent of those playing the lottery have incomes over $15,000. I want to know how many Virginians with incomes below $25,000 buy lottery tickets and what percentage of the lottery revenue comes from those with incomes below $25,000. I'm asking because I'm concerned about how regressive the lottery "tax" really is.
E.F., Roanoke
A: In asking if the lottery is regressive, you're trying to find out if the lowest-income people pay a larger share of their income into the lottery.
The basic answer is that fewer people from low-income groups buy tickets. Those who do buy, however, put a larger share of their income into the lottery.
Here are some figures based on an 11-month survey done for the Virginia Lottery by Chilton Research Services and concluded in June.
It found that 41 percent of Virginia adults, or 1.8 million people, had bought a lottery ticket in the past two weeks and were considered current players.
Thirty-two percent of the frequent players had incomes of $25,000 or less. That's about 575,000 people.
Half of those, 290,000, with incomes less than $15,000 spent $115 million, or $395 per player, in the past fiscal year.
Another 290,000 who earn between $15,000 and $25,000 spent $165 million, or $570 per player.
The 68 percent of players earning above $25,000 spent $550 million, or about $460 per player - $1.25 a day from 1.2 million people.
There are a couple of caveats to note in these figures. We deducted $110 million from the lottery's total earnings ($924.3 million) for tickets bought by non-Virginians in stores along the North Carolina border.
Also, we assumed the percentage of adult players is 41 percent in each income bracket.
Mountain lights
Q: Why are there no fog lights on Fancy Gap Mountain on Interstate 77 in Carroll County, like those on Afton Mountain near Waynesboro? Interstate 77 can be extremely foggy and dangerous.| |R.M., Roanoke A: Electric lights that mark the lanes have been slow to catch on in Virginia, but the state Department of Transportation finally is spending $5.2 million to install its own set on I-64 on Afton Mountain.
Why not on Fancy Gap, too? It's hard to prove that one mountain is foggier than another.
Here's the explanation from Bill Worrell in the VDOT office in Richmond: "We are of the opinion that Afton Mountain has a unique situation unlike anywhere else in the state because of conditions that create fog."
If a study was done of which mountain needed lights most, nobody could remember it, Worrell said.
The company that owned and installed the Afton Mountain lights from 1983 to 1991 was situated in Rustburg, just several miles south on U.S. 29.
Given Afton's proximity to the experimenting company and to the state capital's decision makers - plus the public's expectations - the mountain was bound to be favored when the state got around to buying its own lights.
Got a question about something that might affect other people, too? Something you've come across and wondered about? Call us at 981-3118. Or, e-mail RayR@Roanoke.Infi.Net. Maybe we can find the answer.
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