While this particular example applies largely to the poor, you could write a similar article about the vast majority of Americans.

How about "Why engineers in the Bay Area pay 1 million for a 600k condo" or "Why smart people pay 400k for a 150k education."

Fundamentally, the high price of the couch is really a reflection of the risk made in the "loan." Americans are too leveraged and don't save enough across the board. If credit were harder to come by, and the majority of loans were made with the expectation that the borrow would actually pay off the loan, you wouldn't end up with 4k couches. Also, I would imagine the apparent need to keep up with the Joneses would be diminished because fewer people would be driving the proverbial rent-to-own Mercedes.