Can poor people have HDTVs?

Some family member could have given it to them, so yes possible.
Should they buy one?, No. IMO if you do not have money to clothe your child or feed them you do not have money for luxuries.

There was a very cool Mash episode.

The rich Dr. guy will not contribute to the Christmas party for the Orphans. He is being beat up, verbally, by all the camp. Outside the celebration he is with the Nun who oversees the orphanage and is he is making sure his donation is enought to feed the orphans for the month. He says something to the effect of his sainted mother always taught him that to give a child a expensive tidbit (candy) is a sin when the will go back having an empty belly.
The quote was much better than my phrasing.

I just think necessities are much more important.

My MIL is POOR, she lives with us and demands to help with some bills but she only makes 600 and change from SS
Her medical is about 200 a month, her phone, cable, groceries run her about 250 a month (she has an apartment here, her own kitchen etc), then her regualr shopping etc for cleaning and such. She put 50 a month back for almost 2 years and bought herself a NICE BIG HDTV, and why not? She raised her kids and has no one but her to care for, why should she not have nice things just because she is poor? I dotn care what poor people have in thier homes it thier home.

yes. we have a large flat screen that we bought when we werent where we are now financially (i hate to use the word poor since we still have so much, tho income #s say we're poor). but what should we do with it? sell it for 1/4 of what we paid (outright, no credit card used) or use it to pick up the few basic channels we can get thru the antenna (no cable)? we have an XBox w/ Kinect that MIL bought us for Christmas. DH's work gives him $800 a year for "continuing education" that can only be used for certain things...so we have laptops that we didnt pay out of pocket for.

you (general) should never judge someone's current financial situation by the things they have in their house unless you really know everything about them & their individual situation.

Of ourse they can, those fat ass income tax checks come in handy lol

yes. people who are poor weren't always poor.

If they can afford it with a few sacrificed, then why not? We all have our priorities. I know I would live to get a new TV because mine is a huge monster, lol. I'd like a sleeker one with HDTV. But at the moment my priorities are in changing my kitchen appliances. I'm making the last payment on my fridge this month (yayy!) and I need to change my oven, so that will come first. Next I need a dryer because mine went kaput and there's only so much sun in Mexico in the summer... Lol.
Then, when we've bought our necessities, I may go and buy a TV.
I gotta say, I am getting a lot of use out of my Best Buy credit card. I'm happy I got it, lol.

Sharon

Depends...if they are depending on the public dime to put the roof over their heads and food on the table then no they shouldn't be spending money on the tv.

I grew up poor and there is no way in hell my Mother would have EVER bought one. That money would have been put back for an emergency. We had a 19" one my dad left for years..it broke and we were without a tv for almost a year until Mom felt like she was able to have it repaired.

I wonder where this world is that poor people don't have relatives, don't live with their parents, don't have access to Goodwill and other second hand stores and never sign up for giving trees or get charity donations.

There are kids in third world countries running around in Aeropostale and Justice...because they came in the donation box from the mission. Kids in outrageous poverty in India who have access to laptops, donated specifically through a program to help them gain computer literacy.  I can get a HD flat screen for $10.  So can people living in shanties in South America.  So what?

Are the enforcing the law that bans them from it?