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<\/figure>\n\nNo longer do substantial majorities of the public say a microwave oven, a television set or even home air conditioning is a necessity. Instead, nearly half or more now see each of these items as a luxury. Similarly, the proportion that considers a dishwasher or a clothes dryer to be essential has dropped sharply since 2006.<\/p>\n\n
These recession-era reevaluations are all the more striking because the public’s luxury-versus-necessity perceptual boundaries had been moving in the other direction for the previous decade. For example, the share of adults who consider a microwave a necessity was just 32% in 1996. By 2006, it had shot up to 68%. But it has now retreated to 47%. Similarly, just 52% of the public in the latest poll say a television set is a necessity — down 12 percentage points from 2006 and the smallest share to call a TV a necessity since this question was first asked more than 35 years ago.<\/p>\n\n
Along with a new creed of thrift, there’s another factor — technology adoption — that appears to be shaping public judgments about some of these items. Take cell phones. A relative newcomer in the everyday lives of most Americans, the cell phone is among a handful of newer gadgets that have held their own on the necessity scale from 2006 to 2009. Moreover, it may have contributed to a drop in necessity ratings for the older-era appliance it has partially supplanted. The survey finds that people who consider a cell phone a necessity — some 49% of the public, including a disproportionate share of young adults — are less inclined than others to feel the same way about a landline phone.<\/p>\n\n In addition to exploring these shifts in consumer perceptions, the Pew Research survey asked respondents about a range of belt-tightening strategies and behaviors triggered by the recession, which officially began in December 2007.<\/p>\n\n It finds that eight-in-ten adults have taken specific steps of one kind or another to economize during these bad times. Almost six-in-ten say they are shopping more in discount stores or are passing up name brands in favor of less expensive varieties. Nearly three-in-ten adults say they’ve cut back spending on alcohol or cigarettes. About one-in-four say they’ve reduced spending on their cable or satellite television service or canceled the service altogether. About one-in-five say they’ve gone with a less expensive cell phone plan, or canceled service. One-in-five say they’ve started mowing their own lawn or doing home repairs rather than pay others for the service. And about one-in-five adults say they are following the example of first lady Michelle Obama and are making plans to plant a vegetable garden to save money on food.<\/p>\n\n As expected, the survey also finds that people who have taken the biggest economic hits during this recession are the ones most inclined to have tightened their belts. So, for example, if a respondent or someone in that person’s household lost a job in the past year, had trouble paying the mortgage or rent, or lost more than 20% in a retirement account or other investments, the respondent is more likely than others surveyed to have economized in a variety of ways.<\/p>\n\n However, this distinction doesn’t<\/em> apply to changing perceptions about what’s a luxury and what’s a necessity. These shifts have occurred across-the-board, among adults in all income groups and economic circumstances — perhaps suggesting that consumer reaction to the recession is being driven by specific personal economic hardships as well as by a more pervasive new creed of thrift that has taken hold both among those who’ve been personally affected and those who haven’t.<\/p>\n\n The survey does find that the recession has touched the lives of most Americans in one way or another. About one-in-four respondents say they or a member of their household has lost a job in the past year. Nearly half say they or another household member has lost more than 20% in a retirement account or other investments. About one-in-five say they or another member of their household has had problems making mortgage or rent payments. Taken together, about two-in-three American families have faced at least one of these problems in the past year — with young adults, women and the less affluent more likely than others in the population to have been affected.<\/p>\n\n Results for this survey are based on telephone interviews conducted with a nationally representative sample of 1,003 adults living in the continental United States. A combination of landline and cellular random digit dial (RDD) samples was used to represent all adults in the continental United States who have access to either a landline or cellular telephone. A total of 752 interviews were completed with respondents contacted by landline phone and 251 with those contacted on their cell phone. The data are weighted to produce a final sample that is representative of the general population of adults in the continental United States.<\/p>\n\n From the kitchen to the laundry room to the home entertainment center, Americans are paring down the list of familiar household appliances they say they can’t live without.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sub_headline":"","sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"relatedPosts":[],"reportMaterials":[{"key":"5b1922bd-caaf-4a6e-bff2-9fdb596bd1b3","type":"report","url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2010\/10\/luxury-or-necessity-2009.pdf"},{"key":"8c3062f2-21d9-4b2a-b2ba-e8d5c2b702c0","type":"topline","url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2010\/10\/luxury-or-necessity-2009-topline.pdf"}],"multiSectionReport":[{"key":"_migrate_0","postId":42031},{"key":"_migrate_1","postId":42042},{"key":"_migrate_2","postId":42052}],"package_parts__enabled":false,"package_parts":[],"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[232,453,371,237,163],"tags":[],"bylines":[],"collection":[],"datasets":[1094,1103],"level_of_effort":[],"primary_audience":[],"information_type":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[458],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[],"research-teams":[519],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-42018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economic-conditions","category-leisure","category-lifestyle","category-personal-finances","category-religion-social-values","datasets-fertilityluxury-or-necessity","datasets-personal-financesocial-trust","formats-report","research-teams-social-trends"],"label":false,"post_parent":0,"word_count":910,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/social-trends\/2009\/04\/23\/luxury-or-necessity-the-public-makes-a-u-turn\/","art_direction":false,"_embeds":[],"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[{"id":42018,"title":"Luxury or Necessity? 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<\/figure>\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/legacy\/733-3.gif\")
<\/figure>\n\nAbout this Survey<\/h4>\n\n
\n