Luxury Sales Rise Despite Recession
Despite persistent inflation and high unemployment, Americans managed to accumulate more luxury items during the recession than just before it, the Census Bureau said yesterday.</br></br>However, the bureau noted in its latest survey on household possessions that the crunch of the recession did force some Americans to forgo buying an automoile during that period.</br></br>According to the study taken in the fall of 1974, the bureau found 59 out of every 100 Americans owned a color television set, a 3.6 per cent increase over 1973s tally, which was taken before the recession got under way.</br></br>The report said 28 per cent of the nationÛªs 71mil-lion households owned dishwashers, a 2 per cent increase over the previous year. Nearly 19 per cent, the bureau said, had central air conditioning installed, also up 2 per cent from 1973.</br></br>But the percentage of families owning one car and those with more than one declined between 1973 and 1074.