Are you sure "own" is the correct word? Those people are completely debt-free with no car liens or mortgages?
The figures are as follows (all in thousands):
14,157 units below the poverty line (12.7% of all units)
5,566 of those Owner occupied (39.3%)
3,191 of those owned "free and clear" (22%)
So his 45% claim isn't even true to start with. It falls to 22% when you consider full ownership.
Seeing yummyfajitas make factually incorrect claims is disappointing but not surprising.
If so, do you also consider the Census (whose terminology I used) to be making "factually incorrect claims"?
First of all, owning "free and clear" is hardly the expected meaning of ownership in the context of cars or especially houses in the US. I have a mortgage and I still say I own my house. When I told friends I was buying my house, I expect >90% of them assumed I was getting a mortgage. The government reported "homeownership rate" certainly does not exclude households with mortgages.
Second of all, ignoring semantics, the original context was a conversation about whether a significant number of households being unable to afford technology like a $5K computer would stifle innovation. Innovation probably doesn't care whether customers are in debt or not, so this is still perfectly decent evidence to cite about the spending capacity of poor households.
"Disappointing but not surprising". Sigh.