[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_in_the_United_States [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States
I could drive around neighborhoods in Detroit (as far back as pre-2000) and see a lot of people with houses that were falling apart from disrepair, but they have a decked-out car with gold rims and hydraulics in the driveway... Or the ricers that can only afford a Ford Escort, but add some huge spoiler to it... People spending mounds of money on things that don't matter that much isn't something new.
(The statistic you point out has bothered me for a long time, but it's hard to control people's spending priorities, and it's not like these people are buying new flatscreens with welfare checks. You can drive around any college town during May or August and pick up a working TV for free off the curb.)
this is a very good point. I wonder if there is data around that examines how welfare checks are spent.
You brought up a good point to differentiate this from food stamps and unemployment.
If you are poor, TV is probably the only entertainment you can afford. America has lost or greatly diminished almost all its local communities. A poor person without television would need a lot of other local poor people without televisions to start recreating a community where people do things with each other.
(Nobody say "library". I love libraries, but in low-income neighborhoods they're usually less common and less well-stocked. If you can even afford to get there and back.)