---
title: "Cool Air No Luxury"
description: "Seven-in-ten Americans (70%) now consider home airconditioning a necessity, up from only half who said so in the mid-1990s."
date: "2009-03-26"
authors:
  - name: "Pew Research Center"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2009/03/26/cool-air-no-luxury/"
---

# Cool Air No Luxury

Americans no longer consider cool comfort during the heat of summer as a luxury; a Pew Research survey finds that fully 70% now call home air-conditioning a necessity, a 19-percentage-point increase from the number who expressed that view a decade earlier. And most Americans no longer tolerate heat on the road either: 59% now consider car air conditioning a necessity, up from 41% who took that view in the mid-1990s. [Read More](https://www.pewresearch.org/pubs/323/luxury-or-necessity)