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There is a line from this article, saying,

High-income households and college graduates—which are more likely to have higher amounts of student debt— were more likely to support forgiveness. Fifty percent of households making more than $100,000 per year support forgiveness, compared to 45% of households making less than $50,000. Fifty-three percent of college graduates support forgiveness, versus 35% of people with a high school education or less.

"It's basically an off-the-rack policy to give money to upper-middle class, highly educated people and not others," said Jason Delisle with the American Enterprise Institute. "I don't think it's a good policy because I don't think that's a group of people that we should be providing aid to, necessarily, at the expense of others."

According to 3 dictionaries, the idiom "off the rack" means,

1, 2,, 3

bought, mass-produced, ready-made.

So is the article trying to say

"Hey dude, it's a supermarket policy to give money to high-income people, nothing original"?

Thank you in advance(m_m).

Kentaro
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3 Answers3

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There are a lot of written instances of off-the-shelf policy in Google Books (which ignores hyphens when matching search strings, but they would usually be included). By contrast, there are only half-a-dozen instances of off-the-rack policy (which will always mean exactly the same thing).

It's just a relatively "transparent" metaphorical usage alluding to the fact that in the retail industry, products that are presented on shelves / racks are usually mass-produced (so they're all the same; "generic", not "custom-designed").

But OP has missed the all-important point that it's a metaphorical usage. The writer isn't actually talking about the retail industry or supermarkets at all - he's talking about Joe Biden's plan to "write off" student loan debt. Which is a "knee-jerk, simplistic, off-the-shelf" policy (I would have said "populist", but apparently most Americans don't support the policy, so it's not that).

In the specific context, it's a disparaging description, intended to imply the policy hasn't been properly thought through. It just follows conventional Democrat thinking - partly because it just throws money at the problem, and partly because "giving" money to the middle classes (and their college-educated children) is how politicians and bankers often seek to revive their damaged national economy.

FumbleFingers
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  • But OP has missed the all-important point that it's a metaphorical usage. The writer isn't actually talking about the retail industry or supermarkets at all.....In the specific context, it's a disparaging description, intended to imply the policy hasn't been properly thought through. --->Did you see my last remark "nothing original"?

     – Kentaro Feb 27 '21 at 16:18
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    Yes, I saw that line in your question text. But you wrote *it's supermarket policy* in that same sentence - I was just making the point that the usage doesn't *directly* concern supermarkets at all (and it wouldn't surprise me to learn that *off-the-shelf* predates *supermarket* anyway). In any case, the metaphoric usage is more rooted in *clothing* sales (tailors) rather than supermarkets and grocery shopping. Another form of exactly the same idiom is an off-the-peg* plan* (pegs on clothes racks). – FumbleFingers Feb 27 '21 at 16:51
  • But you didn't mention nowhere this originates from the clothing world....I love the U.S English so don't play with me kindly!. – Kentaro Feb 27 '21 at 16:59
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    I don't understand your point. I've just checked the full Oxford English Dictionary, and apparently idiomatic *off-the-shelf* was first recorded in 1936 (5 years *after* their first citation for *supermarket). But off-the-peg* (which means the same) was first recorded in *1879* (in a second-hand clothing context). Whatever - it makes no difference exactly what shelf, peg, or rack the original metaphoric "product" came from. All that matters today is they all mean "standard, "ready-made", as opposed to *bespoke, tailor-made*. – FumbleFingers Feb 27 '21 at 17:22
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    You are perfectly missing your own goal. Give me a nicer answer next time. lol. Have a good night. – Kentaro Feb 27 '21 at 17:26
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    I'm sorry if something I've said has upset you, but I've no idea what it might be. – FumbleFingers Feb 27 '21 at 17:32
  • I'm not sure the author means it isn't thought through, I think they mean that the policy is one of many that's intended to give aid mostly to middle class families while having a veneer of equal distribution which Democrats are endorsing primarily because they think they can sell it to both their lower class and middle class base. I agree that the metaphor isn't great because it's hard to figure out what they mean by it though. – IllusiveBrian Mar 01 '21 at 01:20
  • @IllusiveBrian: It *is* a bit confusing when we get down to the specifics of *exactly* what Delisle meant by it. There's no doubt it's intended to be "disparaging" (which certainly isn't always the case with this/these idiomatic usages). But even while I was writing my text after the words *intended to imply...* I realised I couldn't really justify any of it. (That was basically just me pitching in with *my* "off-the-peg, previously-constructed, stock-in-trade" political prejudices! :) – FumbleFingers Mar 01 '21 at 16:25
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"Off the rack" comes from the clothing world, where it means a suit that you buy without any alterations for sleeves or cuffs or the like, for fit. So in this case, it means a policy that's already in place somewhere else and brought over and applied without any changes.

user73622
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It's awkward in that sentence. It doesn't really mean anything. I can tell from context it means "bad", but otherwise it means the person from AEI was in a hurry and couldn't think of a better phrase.

"Off the rack" can be a snobbish expression meaning lacking taste and refinement. A wealthy woman has her dress tailored by her maids. Saying it looks off-the-rack means she's so poor that she had to buy a dress at a store and couldn't even afford to have it altered to fit nicer.

It's also a way to say that something is just regular. You got it from a store the same as anyone else could: "your car runs smooth -- does it have a custom carburetor?" "Nope -- off the rack, but I hand-tuned it".

Neither of those really make sense for a student loan debt forgiveness program.

Owen Reynolds
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