[PEN-L:99] BLS Daily Report

[Richardson_D]

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BLS DAILY REPORT, TUESDAY, JUNE 30, 1998

Sales of new homes rose in May to a record level, fueled by low interest
rates and high consumer optimism.  New single-family home sales rose 0.3
percent in May, the Commerce Department said, breaking the previous
record set in April.  Analysts had expected a drop in May sales....
(New York Times, page D8; Washington Post, page E2)_____New homes sold
at a record pace last month, boosted by low interest rates and steadily
rising personal income. The housing report, following the announcement
last week of continued strength in consumer spending, highlights the
contradictory impact of the Asian economic crisis on the U.S.  While
American manufacturers and exporters are starting to suffer, consumers
are benefiting from lower import prices and falling interest rates as
international capital flees to the so-called safe haven of the U.S.
market....  (Wall Street Journal, page A2)

The 162,700 GM employees laid off due to strikes at GM plants in Flint,
Mich., will keep their medical benefits, but GM will discontinue vision
and dental benefits July 1.  The 9,200 strikers will not receive
GM-supported health care benefits but can retain coverage paid for by
UAW's strike fund....  (Daily Labor Report, page A-1).

In the past five years, 24 percent of 731 working-age people polled got
a new or better job because they could use new technology, says a survey
by Zogby's Real America, a polling-results newsletter in Utica, N.Y.
Technological change cost only 4 percent their jobs (Wall Street
Journal, "Work Week" feature, page A1).

Measured in working hours, not dollars, the cost of living has been
falling for decades, a study finds....  W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm,
economists at the Dallas Federal Reserve, contend that workers today can
afford more of the basics, and the good life, than ever before, provided
that time - not wages - is the gauge used to measure affordability....
Calculations of the work time needed to buy goods and services use the
average wage for production and nonsupervisory workers in
manufacturing....  (Peter Passell, writing in The New York Times, June
28, Business Section page 9).

DUE OUT TOMORROW: Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment: May
1998


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