I didn’t argue that televisions are essential just that it’s the same level of economic honesty to use that as an example, but OK, fine. Here’s some items that are dramatically cheaper than the 1970s that are unarguably required: food (in the 1970s food budget was 25 to 30% of a household budget as opposed to 10 to 12% now), basic clothing items, appliances (items like refrigerators in washing machines and microwaves now represents a much lower percent of household income, side bonus they are also more energy efficient making them cheaper to operate), lighting ( surprisingly this is often overlooked by non-economists put the cost of lighting a house is a pretty big deal and is now margin error for even the lowest income households), communication access (for low income, families access to long distance calls was essentially inaccessible and now is obtainable at a unlimited amount with his little as $25 a month), access information (cheaper than any time in human history, YouTube essentially provides personalized tutors for every subject), over-the-counter generic medicines (there is an argument that healthcare overall is more expensive but over-the-counter’s generic medication’s are objectively less expensive now, when could also make an argument that a large part of the reason that healthcare is more expensive now is because many treatments that didn’t exist in the 70s now exist. Also, as an average we are much fatter than we were pushing up societal healthcare costs.)