In any 10-year period, a third of Americans will see their standard of living drop by 50 percent or more, and a fourth will live in poverty for at least a year, Greg J. Duncan, of the University of Michigan`s Survey Research Center, writes in American Demographics magazine.
That bold, if depressing, prognostication is based upon data collected during the 1970`s by the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), a national study of 5,000 families. PSID determined that generally, family incomes do start low, peak in the prime earning years, when the principal breadwinner is 25 to 45 years old, and decline as workers retire. However, families`
cicumstances vary wildly over time, with most of the trouble attributable to eight specific situations identified by PSID:
Becoming a family head or a spouse caused dramatic declines in the living standards of 23 percent of those in the study. A major reduction in work hours of others in the family besides the main breadwinner hurt 10 percent of them. The loss of a job by the main breadwinner afflicted 9 percent, divorce or separation 7 percent, a major reduction in the principal earner`s work hours 5 percent, a major reduction in wives` work hours 4 percent, loss of work because of illness of the head of the household 3 percent and the death of a spouse or parent 3 percent.
These catastrophes forced 1 in 5 women into poverty. Men fared better;
fewer than 1 in 10 fell below the poverty line.
Nevertheless, he continues, one or more of these economically debilitating problems will befall three-fourths of Americans in the course of a decade.
”The message is clear,” he says. ”Save while you can.”
FLAMING FIASCOS
More Top Picks Best Ball Chairs For Kids With Adhd
About 200 people–140 of them children–die, and 3,000 are injured each year in accidents involving cigarette lighters, Terrence Scanlon, chairman of the Consumer Products Safety Commission says. Scanlon wants to make child-proofing of lighters a priority for his commission in 1989.
Some think that is not soon enough. The United States House of Representatives` subcommittee on commerce, consumer protection and
competitiveness plans hearings on charges that disposable lighters favored by many smokers explode or shoot flames dangerously high.
Scanlon wants the lighter problem handled in the same manner that accidental poisonings by household chemicals and medicines were. In other words, he wants to make lighters as hard to light as childproof bottles are to open. Now, that would be a way to break tobacco`s deadly lock on America.
GROWLING GUESTS
International Living newsletter reports that tigers have besieged Russia`s far eastern villages. In Nakhodka a tiger allegedly blocked tracks being used by a commuter train. In Kolkhoz a farmer discovered two tigers scratching at his window.