More than 90 million adult Americans drink beer. As one of America’s most-consumed beverages, beer, by far, is the most popular alcohol beverage. From lawyers to longshoremen, surgeons to short order cooks, beer drinkers in America cross a huge span of people – different occupations, generations, education levels, religious preferences, ethnic backgrounds and political persuasions. Consumed far more widely than wine or distilled spirits, beer is truly the alcohol beverage of choice among adult Americans.

While beer is widely popular, for descriptive purposes, it’s best to focus on regular beer drinkers. These “Jane and Joe Six-Packs”, who report having consumed 6 or more beers in the past week, are a sizeable group topping 33 million adults. Here are some interesting facts about who they are:

• Most – about 57% -- are married.
• Not surprisingly, there are about three Joes for every Jane – but even so, that means there are over 8 million Janes.
• They are significantly over-represented by those holding “blue collar” jobs, with “blue collar” Joes and Janes 63% more like to be blue collar than the general population.
• They strongly mirror the population with respect to education. Slightly more than half have attended college or a technical school and about half of them have attained a college degree.
• The highest representations, not surprisingly, are adults in their twenties and thirties. Approximately 20 % of these young adults fit the Joe and Jane description. Other details on these consumers are:
  • Especially for those in their twenties they are over-represented in all income categories below $50,000 per year and are under-represented in all income categories above $50,000. They are also nearly twice more likely to have student loan debt than others in their twenties.
  • Many are trying to save to establish their households. As may be expected for those in their twenties, 57% rent a house or apartment. Even for those in their thirties, 37% of the Joes and Janes still pay rent, a higher percentage than for others in their thirties.
  • About two-thirds of those in their twenties are single and have never been married. While this percentage is much lower for those in their thirties (about 25%), this percentage is higher than it is for others in their thirties.
  • These are truly “regular” guys and gals. Compared to others, they have high rates of participation in activities such as playing billiards, playing videogames, and even playing board games, including chess. They also are more likely than others to attend zoos, go dancing, and go to movie theatres.
  • They are a very active group – anything but couch potatoes. They are more likely than others to directly participate in a wide variety of sports – true for golf, basketball, football, bowling, hunting, fishing, tennis, jogging, and mountain biking, just to name a few.
  • They are more likely to attend sports events – for instance golf, tennis, NASCAR and other auto racing, and basketball games too.

So the simple answer is, “Joe and Jane” are in many respects, typical citizens. But more than most, they face well known challenges in today’s economic climate. While maintaining active lifestyles, many also deal with repaying college loans and getting out from under credit card debt. As they struggle to stretch the wages they earn, many are also trying to save for a down payment on their first home and while doing so, pay sizeable amounts of their earnings on apartment monthly rentals, car payments and insurance costs. As for rising energy costs – they are hit hard there too, not only for heating and cooling their homes, but also dealing with the growing burden of filling the gas tank.

It’s easy to lose sight that especially for the younger Joes and Janes, many today are in jobs without health benefits or defined pension plans. Of course, for those married, both partners increasingly have to work, even with the spiraling costs of child day care taking an ever-growing slice from the second income. Many “Joes and Janes” directly experience the widening income gap in America. They have also been served notice that they may well have to dig deep over their careers to pay for rising social security for retiring boomers.

In short, “Joe and Jane Six-Pack” are young working Americans, people of modest incomes, raising families, enjoying a lot of our country’s simple pleasure. They like sports, outdoor activities, backyard barbecues. And they often deal with some pretty tough economic realities. Perhaps more than most, Joe and Jane are folks who understand first-hand what is meant by a widening income gap in America.

When you actually know the situation on the ground, it should be clear that Joe and Jane should not be further targeted with more taxes, while others much more capable to support public needs are spared, just because they don’t drink beer. In fact, analyses based on recent data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey clearly show that beer taxes are very regressive, as a percentage of income, costing lower- and middle-income households more than 6 times than those with more comfortable incomes. Half of all beer, for example, is purchased by families with incomes below $50,000 – even though they account for less than one-fourth of income earned.

One thing that Congress could do to help Joe and Jane is to roll back the federal tax on beer, as the federal government has been done four times previously. That’s relief that they would appreciate. Lowering the beer tax would mean more money in the pockets of these young, hard-working men and women. Lower beer taxes would reduce a highly regressive component of the federal tax system and would make tax policy fairer.