IPhone X: Holiday $$$ hog

PARENTS, beware: Your teenage kid’s iPhone is about to “break.”

There are sure to be millions of kids across the country this week who suddenly say, “My phone doesn’t work well anymore.”

That is often the opening salvo for negotiating a holiday gift. But this year, the iPhone X will break something else too: your bank account.

The new buzz-worthy gadget has all the usual bump-ups in speed and performance, plus purportedly more durable “stronger screens.” Its price has also been bumped up — to an uncomfortable $1,000.

The average American family spent just over $900 on holiday giftgiving for its members in 2016, according to an annual survey from the American Research Group.

According to Gallup, going back to 1999, the average American family has spent between $700 and $900 on the holidays for the past 16 years.

That makes sense, as wage growth was next to nil during that decade and a half.

On the other hand, the price of the iPhone, which debuted in 2007 for $199 to $299 with a two-year contract, has continually crept up, losing the majority of its carrier discounts along the way.

Today, you are looking at the toy of the 1 percenters, if ever there were one.

It is not by accident that Apple, which had $15.4 billion in cash on hand in 2007, today has amassed $261.5 billion.

When Billy and Suzie had to have their earlier-generation iPhones, one phone “only” ate up 25 percent of a family’s holiday budget. Now, one new iPhone will set you back about 110 percent of your family’s entire holiday funds.

The phones may be great, but a grand? Come on, that’s offensive.

There won’t even be enough money left in the holiday budget to get dad his $25 Starbucks card, which buys him just four cups of obscenely overpriced coffee.

Maybe Santa should just phone it in this year.