Family Income

The nation's median family income in 1987 reached $30,850, rising 1 percent from 1986 after inflation and narrowly exceeding the previous high mark of 1973, the Census Bureau said yesterday. The increase was concentrated among white families, especially in the South, while the medians for black and Hispanic families fell slightly, the bureau reported. Median income is a line at which half the homes earned more and half earned less during the year. The bureau's report is a more detailed look at numbers first released in August.

WASHINGTON — A new survey of U.S. family finances released by the Federal Reserve on Monday documents in painful detail just how deeply the Great Recession and its aftermath has been felt in household budgets across America. The Survey of Consumer Finances, conducted every three years and covering a span from 2007 to 2010, documents steep declines in family income that correspond to what many Americans already know about their own declining net worth. It also shows how the South and West have felt more pain than the rest of the country because of the severity of the housing sector's downturn there, and provides evidence that the self-employed and business owners have taken it on the chin in recent years.

Median family income increased sharply, income inequality decreased, poverty rates declined, and health insurance coverage rose. Poverty rates for African Americans and the elderly reached all-time lows. Ironically, this remarkably positive picture of the American economy's performance in 1995 was released by the Census Bureau just after publication of "America: Who Stole the Dream?" by Inquirer reporters Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele. The series was a disturbing chronicle of individual American workers' hardships in the face of job losses and wage declines, and their deep anxieties.

Next month, a church-sponsored nonprofit community organization will embark on an $850,000 project to build 10 rowhouses on the edge of downtown and sell them to moderate-income residents. The Interdenominational Action Association is in the final stages of putting together a financing package that will allow it to begin construction on the three-bedroom rowhouses, according to the Rev. James Evans, an Episcopal priest who is serving as a housing consultant for the project. The vacant site is on Avenue of the States between Ninth and 10th Streets.

Deputy Philadelphia Mayor Herbert Vederman, who is working for the city without salary or benefits, earned more than $1.6 million last year in the private sector, according to a financial disclosure statement filed yesterday. Vederman's disclosure vaults him to the top of the list of income earners in the Rendell administration. The statement was filed under the provisions of a mayoral executive order in mid-May requiring financial disclosure by appointed officials. The document shows Vederman made virtually all of his money from Charming Shoppes Inc., which runs the Fashion Bug chain of clothing stores.

The median income of families grew 20 percent to $29,458 between 1970 and 1986, but today's poorest families are much worse off than those of 1970, according to a study released yesterday by the Congressional Budget Office. Income inequality also is significantly higher than it was in 1970, the CBO reported. The elderly were the big gainers, while poor families with children - especially single young mothers - suffered sharp losses, the CBO said. The overall trends are "positive," said Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R., N.M.)

Democrats have emerged from last week's elections with control of both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. For the winners this is both good news and bad. To be effective in the short term, this means that Democrats must be perceived as more than a congressional roadblock to Reaganomics over the last two years of the current Republican administration. If the Democratic Party is to mount a serious challenge to the GOP in the 1988 presidential elections, it must use its congressional majorities to formulate issues that will be relevant to voters in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The income gap between rich and poor and rich and middle class is at its widest since the end of World War II, the Census Bureau reported yesterday. The poorest one-fifth of families received 4.6 percent of the total national family income, the survey found, their lowest share since 1954. The share going to the middle class - those families midway between the richest and poorest - was 16.7 percent, the lowest recorded since 1947. Those in the richest category, the top fifth, received 44 percent, the new statistics show.

Hispanics are expected by 1990 to replace blacks as the ethnic group with the highest poverty rate in the nation, according to one analysis of recent Census Bureau data. While income levels among blacks are rising, Hispanics are losing ground and per-capita income among Hispanics is now lower than that for blacks, according to the study. The study noted that the black poverty rate of 31.3 percent last year was about the same as it was in 1979. But the poverty rate for Hispanics increased from 21.8 percent to 29 percent during the same six-year period, said the center, which based its findings on U.S. Census data.

According to U.S. census data, families in Lower Moreland Township have the highest median income in the area, and their houses have a higher median value than those of any other community in the area. In both cases the township is second in the county only to Lower Merion. These and other demographic tidbits about Lower Moreland were presented to the township's planning commission Monday night by Steven Nelson, community planner for the Montgomery County Planning Commission.

WASHINGTON — A new survey of U.S. family finances released by the Federal Reserve on Monday documents in painful detail just how deeply the Great Recession and its aftermath has been felt in household budgets across America. The Survey of Consumer Finances, conducted every three years and covering a span from 2007 to 2010, documents steep declines in family income that correspond to what many Americans already know about their own declining net worth. It also shows how the South and West have felt more pain than the rest of the country because of the severity of the housing sector's downturn there, and provides evidence that the self-employed and business owners have taken it on the chin in recent years.

By Lewis Diuguid Because of this country's racist past, the future for people of color, and for the United States overall, doesn't look too promising. That was the conclusion of a report by the group United for a Fair Economy. Consider that in 1980, the U.S. population was 80 percent white. By 2010, the white portion had dropped to 65 percent. The Census Bureau now projects that by 2042, eight years sooner than once predicted, the United States will become a majority-minority nation.

AMONG the more egregious shortcomings of your Legislature - a bloated body known for greed, avarice and inaction - are its disregard for the people it's supposed to serve and its high regard for serving itself. An example is the shameful silence of its so-called leaders on the issue of health insurance for lower-income working Pennsylvanians. A state program called adultBasic, which provides low-cost, minimal health-care coverage to 41,424 folks (5,999 in Philly), is set to expire Feb. 28 because it has run out of money.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dan Onorato and his wife, Shelly, reported $111,636 in total income last year, according to a partial copy of the tax return they filed with the IRS. The return, along with similar reports for each of the four previous years, were released Thursday to The Inquirer at the newspaper's request. Onorato, of Pittsburgh, earned $90,000 as the elected Allegheny County executive. Most of the rest of the family's income came from Shelly Onorato's work as a part-time dental hygienist and health-care consultant.

Their 2008 family income ranged from a little above $83,000 to almost $216,000. Four of the six candidates running for governor - two Democrats and two Republicans - complied with a request from The Inquirer to release income-tax information for recent years so that voters could gain a sense of their finances. Three of the candidates, as requested, also released statements from their doctors on their physical fitness to serve as governor. Democrats Dan Onorato, the Allegheny County executive, and State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams, of Philadelphia, failed to supply either sort of information.

Michael L. Krancer, a Republican candidate for state Supreme Court, lives in a $1.7 million home atop a rolling hill in Bryn Mawr with a pool and a cabana. Taxes alone were $42,000 a year. Then there is private-school tuition for his two daughters and his five cars, including two Mercedes-Benzes. There's just no way he could afford all this on his $127,000 salary as a judge with the state's Environmental Hearing Board, lawyers for a challenger argued yesterday. They asked a state judge to bump Krancer from the May 15 primary ballot, claiming he had failed to disclose other sources of income.

Following through on a promise to make it easier for low- and middle-income students to attend the University of Pennsylvania, president Amy Gutmann announced yesterday that Penn would cover the full cost of undergraduate education - including room and board - for students with family incomes of $50,000 or less. "The signal it sends is you can afford to come to Penn, if you can get into Penn," said Gutmann, who described "equal educational opportunity" as one of her "highest priorities.

John Sweeney is president of the AFL-CIO This Labor Day, we read that more jobs are out there and the housing market is booming. The nation must be doing well, right? Not so fast. Despite the "recovery," economic dissatisfaction among working Americans is increasing. Nearly 60 percent are not happy with the country's economic situation, according to new research by Peter D. Hart Research for the AFL-CIO. And it's deeper than rising gas prices. Working people are facing tough times - even if the talking heads haven't noticed yet. A record 53 percent of working people say their family's income is falling behind the cost of living; that's the first time more than half have reported falling behind.

Wrong Bucks towns got handouts from state RE: Christine Schiavo's March 10 article "4 towns get improvement funds," on the first Bucks County communities to receive $2.3 million in state grants for municipal improvements: Which struggling, low-income towns would one imagine would be in need of government subsidies to finance projects they cannot afford to pay for themselves? Bristol Borough, Penndel or perhaps Morrisville? Hardly. They were Yardley, Quakertown, Doylestown Borough and Doylestown Township.

On television they are the undisputed queens of the household, swapping families in one show and living desperate lives on another. In the movies, they might come in the Stepford variety. Wives. Throughout history, "The Mrs. " has worn many hats - from husband's chattel to modern independent spouse. Gone are the days when brides automatically adopted their husbands' names. Erased are the marriage vows that required a woman to "obey. " Forgotten is the archaic man-and-his-castle mentality.