Word: medians
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Rising costs may mean the end of the era of home ownership for half of U.S. families. In 1950 seven out of ten American families could afford a new, median-price home. Today higher mortgage rates and building costs mean that fewer than three in ten can pay for it. Eight years ago, the average U.S. family's monthly home payment totaled a quarter of its income. Now the figure is one-third, and it is still rising. Banks and savings and loan associations have attempted to get more Americans into homes through new methods of financing, like adjustable...
Indeed, the entire book is basically an exercise in casting: get the country's star investigative reporter to tackle "the unanswered questions" about the grubby death of America's favorite counterculture co median. The fact that the co-author of All the President's Men and The Final Days was on the case invested Belushi's life with a weight and dimension it lacked when he was busy living it. It turns out, however, that there are no unanswered questions that matter. So everyone comes up short: Belushi's widow and his sister...
...different players. New York's high-stakes Lotto seems to be the pick of the upper and middle classes, while three-and four-digit numbers games appeal to a more downscale market. In Arizona, a state-funded study found that lottery regulars are predominantly white males with a median age of 36 and a household income of $20,000. Says Charlie Buri, who voted against Arizona's lottery but now serves as its director: "People aren't taking the bread and milk off the table to play the lottery...
...grown more alarming in the years since Moynihan's depiction. Today a majority (55%) of black children are born to unmarried, often teen-age mothers; in 1965 only 26% of non white new-borns were illegitimate. Half of all black children have no father at home, and the median income of these single-mother households is only $7,458. The incidence of divorce among black couples is twice that among whites. One out of twelve black children lives with neither parent...
Young buyers find, however, that they frequently must settle for tight accommodations. With the median cost of a new home now $79,500, up 7.7% from a year ago, an affordable starter house may turn out to be little larger than a roomy cabin. In Hudson, N.H., eager buyers have been plunking down $60,000 for two-bedroom town-house units that Builder John Stabile has packed into 1,050 sq. ft., or about half the size of a singles tennis court. On the outskirts of Southern California's San Fernando Valley, $90,000 can buy a Kaufman & Broad...