From big to giant: Behemoth TVs start to take off [AP says $75,000 is "lower-income"

Associated Press ^ | July 1, 2014 | Anne d'Innocenzio

[grundle]

Americans increasingly are replacing their once-enviable 50-inch TVs with even bigger screens. Think: 65-inches and up.

Lower-income shoppers are accounting for a larger share of the supersized TVs. In the year that ended in April, 61 percent of TVs 60 inches or larger were purchased by shoppers with household incomes of $75,000 or less, up from 45 percent a year earlier, according to NPD.

[LukeL]

It was a joke, yes, and I do not think 75K is low income. However as this writer is probably from New York, LA, or Boston, 75K is low income.

[Pox]

Absolutely. Who do you think keeps voting for dems?

[Reaganez]

GDP per capita is ~$53k depending on who is doing the calculating.

Most households have only one full time job.

Many single/divorced households.

Defining lower income as households making $75k or less is rather high IMO but not ridiculously unreasonable.

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

Where I am, $75k would be considered doing very well. Upper middle class. It just amazes me how much people are willing to pay to live when there are plenty of great places that don’t cost an arm and a leg.

[eddie willers]

They put up a few of those Aldi’s here in the Atlanta area.

I’ve never been in, but they look way too small to have any great bargains.

What are they, stores for the mob to launder money?

[eddie willers]

Boy, I remember when 19-inch TVs were considered huge.

Then they didn't work, so you put the 14-inch black-and-white TV on top of it.

I guess we were rich.

We had the 19" on top of our broken 25" color console.

[Graybeard58]

The poor can’t afford them so we must subsidize them.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Not at all. They have a limited selection, but what they do have is usually very reasonable and good, including house brands. Look at their website and find the weekly specials for your area, I think that you’ll be impressed.

[dfwgator]

“Frank’s 2000” TV” - Weird Al Yankovic

Risin’ above the city, blocking out the noonday sun
It dwarfs the mighty redwoods and it towers over everyone
I still remember when that delivery truck came down our block
What a lucky guy, I hear he got the last one in stock
And the neighbors are just green
They say, “That’s the biggest screen we’ve ever seen!”

It’s Frank’s 2000” TV (Frank’s 2000” TV)
Everbody come and see(Frank’s 2000” TV)
Frank’s 2000” TV (Frank’s 2000” TV)

That’s Frank’s remote control, you can look, but don’t touch it, please
‘Cause Frank’s the one in charge and he decides what everybody sees
The picture’s crystal clear and everything is magnified
Robert DeNiro’s mole has got to be ten feet wide
Everybody in the town
Can hear those 90,000 watts of Dolby sound
And I’m mighty proud to say
Now I can watch “The Simpsons” from thirty blocks away

On Frank’s 2000” TV (Frank’s 2000” TV)
Everybody come and see (Frank’s 2000” TV)
Frank’s 2000” TV (Frank’s 2000” TV)
Everybody come and see (Frank’s 2000” TV)

I’m gonna get one of my own real soon
It’s like having a drive-in movie in your own living room
Whoa, hey now... hey now na na na now
Hey now... hey now na na now

Frank’s 2000” TV (Frank’s 2000” TV)
Everybody come and see (Frank’s 2000” TV)
Frank’s 2000” TV (Frank’s 2000” TV)
Got a two year warranty on parts and labor
Frank’s 2000” TV (Frank’s 2000” TV)
Frank’s 2000” TV

[Secret Agent Man]

i just read here last week half of the working americans make less than 30 grand a year.

[Secret Agent Man]

didn’t get a cell phone until my thirties. not anything special either.

[Secret Agent Man]

actually they aren’t bad, some of their stuff.

[Pontiac]

HD Bump

[Pontiac]

Sam's Club CEO Rosalind Brewer says the trend is "counterintuitive" to the overall frugality it's seeing from members, who are switching to cheaper chicken from more expensive cuts of beef.

To those of us old enough to remember the Soviet Union it is not all that surprising.

As the Soviet Union slowly imploded Cheap Entertainment became the staple of the masses. Vodka

It has always been the same with the capitalist countries as well. Certain things are recession proof. Booze and movies.

When the good things in life become less affordable the disadvantaged will still spend what little disposable income they have on the things that help them escape from their troubles. TV is one of those things.

Welcome to Obama’s America where the working poor are saving their pennies so they can get a better boob tube to help them escape from their vanishing future.

[Las Vegas Dave]

Special thanks to Pontiac for the ping..

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LasVegasDave.

[Reaganez]

But those places don’t have many great jobs.

[grania]

Sad but true. $75,000 isn't what it once was.

My personal thinking is that $75,000 is somewhere near the cutoff for participants in the real economy. That would be people who have enough financial resources to be able to be independent financially and have money to spend on extras.

Probably about 25% of US citizens have the potential to live that independent economic lifestyle. The other 75% (or so)? The little people don't count, except as a cash crop for the elite.

For a lot of people with the potential to be economically comfortable, they make stupid economic decisions that keep them impoverished....more cash crop for the elite.

These are my cynical personal views from reading and observing. "Grania's Hypothesis" of our economy...no proof, just conjecture.

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

Circular logic.

If $75,000 a year will buy you a nice house, pay for food, clothing, travel, etc. as if you were making $250,000 in another location, then it is “a great job”.

The purchasing power of the job is what matters, not what someone in a higher cost of living area thinks you should make to have a “great job”.

[UCANSEE2]

It matters not as much how much you make, but how much you spend.

[Nowhere Man]

I still watch a 1982 Zenith console, been using it every day since April of 1983.