Half all U.S. households contain at least one Apple product

Whether it’s a humble iPod nano or a state-of-the-art, Hummer-sized Mac desktop, Apple gadgets reside in half of all households in the United States.

This statistic comes to us via a CNBC survey on Americans’ view of the economy, which touches on home ownership, investments, presidential approval ratings, and more. The Apple-related stat shows us that regardless of our hard-times talk about a tough economy, many of us are still capable of conspicuous consumption when we feel like it.

According to the survey, around 55 million households currently have at least one iPod, iPhone, iPad, or Mac lying around the house. Of the roughly 55 million households that don’t currently have an Apple-made device, about 5 million said they planned to bring one into the fold sometime during 2012.

Of course, many of these households don’t stop at just one measly iPod. They survey results also showed that the average household contains 1.6 Apple devices and that around 25 percent of households planned to add at least one more piece of Apple hardware in 2012.

While age does make much of a difference in determining whether or not you’ll go Apple (if you’re under 65, anyhow), income certainly does. Less than one third of households earning less than $30,000 per year own at least one Apple device. However, for households earning $75,000 per year or more, that figure shot to 77 percent.

Apple’s ever-growing popularity among normal consumers has a dark side, too, which we’re starting to see in the form of protests over the company’s manufacturing process. At the beginning of the year, Apple’s self-audit of its factories in Asia showed the existence of child labor, slave labor, and other grossly unjust practices.

Given the popularity of Apple products and Apple stock, we conclude that there’s no good excuse for the company’s continued labor abuses.

Image courtesy of wavebreakmedia ltd, Shutterstock