Gimme Only What I Need

I found this to be interesting. Today's Economix column presented some survey data from the Pew Research Center on goods that consumers consider "luxury" or "necessity" stratified by year and age. Take a look at the following charts from the NYTimes:

Take a look at what consumers considered "television" to be, in particular. Notice that respondents who felt that television was a necessity consistently hovered around 60% from 1973 to 2006. Also notice how, seemingly counterintuitively, more of these people are older, with about 71% ranking it a necessity in the 50 - 64 and 73% in the 65+ range. This is actually not that surprising, however. As the column notes, much of this is probably due to the fact that younger populations have found new means of watching television shows (internet, DVDs, etc.). I also suspect that older populations use television as a considerable passtime once retired. Though, I wonder what the data would look like had children under the age of 18 been included in the sample.

Still, it is interesting to have this bird's eye view of what consumers consider necessity today and realize how signfiicantly spending habits have changed over the years.