LEADERS IN BUSINESS
Inflation has driven up the cost of
everything in recent years, including how
much money kids gets paid for their
weekly allowance.
The quarter-a-week days are gone. In
1985, parents are giving their kids as
much as $6 a week for helping out around
the house, according to some elementary
students who were questioned about the
money they earn at home and how they
spend it.
Take, for example, student Jennifer
Shemesh, age 8.
Jennifer gets more money per week
than any of her classmates, but also has
a longer list of jobs.
She says she does all sorts of work
around the house, including dusting,
cleaning her bedroom, cleaning her little
brother’s bedroom, setting the table for
dinner, making the beds and helping
clean the bathroom. Sometimes she also
helps vacuum and do the dishes.
Jennifer says she mostly saves her
money until she has enough to buy
clothes for her Cabbate Patch doll and
sometimes for herself.
While she does earn more, she spends
her money the same way her classmates
do — on their toys.
Chris Brown, a 9-year old student, says
he gets $2 a week and buys Matchbox
cars and Gobots, depending on how much
he has saved.
Chris says he earns his allowance by
making his bed, taking out the garbage,
helping his mom clean and sometimes
doing other work she asks him to do.
Their classmate, Matt Skjoldal; says he
gets about $5 a month for work around
the house.
He says he sometimes buys toys like
Gobots and Transformers, but mostly
saves it.
“I have a savings account at First
. Eastern Bank,’ he says proudly.
To earn his pay, Matt says he takes out
the garbage and helps ‘with his two
younger brothers who are 4 and 1 1/2
years old.
Two other students — Kim Leteer and
Missy DeMent — say they each get $1 a
week for making their beds and some
2
other jobs around the house.
Eight-year-old Kim says she is saving
her money for something big, but hasn’t
descided what yet.
Missy, 8, says she’s also saving her
money, just so she knows she has it when
she needs it.
Lisa Diggan says she gets a “little bit”
of money for making her bed, cleaning
her room and washing dishes.
Freddie Reibsome, age 7, says he gets
$2 every Thursday when his mom gets
paid.
For his weekly pay, he says he cleans
his room.
Along with his classmate Steve Hare,
he says he also spends his money on toys,
mostly different kinds of games.
And then there’s Jamie Fausnaught, 7,
the daughter of Jody and Tom Faus-
naught, and one of the few students who
doesn’t get an allowance.
She says she does have to clean her
room and sometimes take out the gar-
bage.
But she doesn’t want anybody to think
her mom and dad don’t give her money.
When she goes shopping downtown and
sees something she likes, they usually let
her buy it.
And her favorite thing to spend money
on — pencils.
Ten-year-old Jennifer Parks had the
most interesting story to tell.
She says that her mom and dad
recently cut her allowance from $3 to
$2.75 a week because she wasn’t helping
out with her younger sister.
She says she makes her bed and cleans
her room, but doesn’t always help little
Jessica get dressed and get her bath.
Also, she’s supposed to help clean up
Jessica’s playroom.
“She makes a mess and I have to clean
it up,” she laments.
But she doesn’t plan to let a little bit of
misfortune stand in her way.
She’s going to start helping out with
her little sister so she can get back up to
$3 a week.
James Elliot, 12, says he gets a mini-
mum of $1 and a maximum of $5 per
week, depending on how much work he
does around the house. He has to feed the
pet dog and rabbits, take out the garbage
and walk the dog.
Elliott says he sometimes spends his
money on books, or savings up for
something big, like models or Kits.
Melissa Falk, 10, says her allowance
also ranges accoring to the amount of
A tiny rise in retail prices and a
healthy jump in durable goods orders last
month were greeted by analysts recently
as welcome support for their predictions
of a 1985 marked by continued low
inflation and steady economic growth.
If anything, the 0.2 percent January
increase in consumer prices reported by
the Labor Department had private econo-
mists hinting that their already optimis-
tic inflation forecasts might not be quite
rosy enough.
Commerce Department chief economist
Robert Ortner said “inflation is slowing
down rather than picking up.”
At the White House, spokesman Larry
Speakes called the report ‘‘particularly
good news at this stage of the business
expansion. ... Prices are down and stay-
ing down.”
And on Capitol Hill, Federal Reserve
Chairman Paul Volcker said the Fed’s
1985 projections, unveiled earlier, envi-
sion “perhaps some further improvement
in inflation.”
Volcker reiterated to a House Banking
subcommittee that he would be
‘‘delighted’’ to see higher-than-antici-
pated economic growth in 1985 and said
that would not necessarily prompt the
Fed to tighten the money supply if
inflation remained in check.
The nuances of Volcker’s remarks fre-
quently spark swings in the . financial
markets and David Wyss, chief financial
economist for Data Resources Inc. of
Lexington, Mass., said he read the sum
of Volcker’s testimony as ‘‘a deliberate
Page 13
work she does and if she’s “good.”
Sometimes she gets money and some-
times her mom and dad buy her pres-
ents. Sometimes that’s a pack of gum
and once she was even given a football.
To earn her allowance, she says she
helps set the table, takes her dog out and
plays with her and tries to get good
grades in school.
rise in prices
attempt to be upbeat to try to undo some
of the damage he did last week.”
after Volcker told a Senate panel the Fed
had moved away from a policy of easing
credit. It was rising sharply at midafter-
noon Tuesday.
Rob Wescott, senior economist at
Wharton Econometrics Inc. in Philadel-
phia, said the January consumer price
index confirms a “very low underlying
rate of inflation’ and added that it
suggests there “may still be room” for
downward revision of inflation forecasts.
His own firm is calling for a 1985 rate
of 3.5 percent, based on the gross
national product price deflator. By that
measure, inflation was 3.8 percent last
year.
Wescott said the 3.8 percent increase in
durable goods orders, only the second
increase in five months, ‘is a confirma-
tion that the economy is picking up speed
first quarter.”
Wescott and Wyss both expressed some
concern that an 11.5 percent decline in
one element of the index — nondefense
capital goods — could signal a cooling in
the latter part of the year if the trend
continues.
But Wescott said the negative was
“nothing to despair about” now and Wyss
characterized it as something that bears
watching closely.
Dauksis
639-5788
William Dauksis, President
40 Years Experience
OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK
1
sc
> §
RA PISS
visti
A Svc
. hk fon {may