Prices of TVs and PCs Plummet as Prices of Newspapers and Textbooks Climb

In what may be as much an ongoing sign of America’s changing culture as its changing economy, the prices of televisions and personal computers dropped significantly over the past year, while the prices of newspapers, magazines and textbooks went up.

According to new data released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average price of a television went down 17.5 percent from December 2011 to December 2012. At the same time, the average price of personal computers and their peripheral equipment went down 8.7 percent.

Purchasers of non-electronic instruments for delivering news and information faced a different marketplace, however. The average prices of newspapers and magazines climbed 6.2 percent from December 2011 to December 2012, said BLS. At the same time, the average price of a college textbook rose 7.9 percent.
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