The Berkshire Eagle from Pittsfield, Massachusetts • 3

World Nation The Berkshire Eagle, Monday, October 5, 1992 A3 Index of nation's social health hits a 21 -year low New York Times Newi Service With reports of child abuse and teen-age suicide on the rise, and with older Americans spending more of their income on health care, the nation's overall social well-being has skidded to its lowest point since the study begin in 1970, according to an index tabulated by social scientists at Fordham University and released today. The annual study, "The Index of Social Health," seeks to evaluate the cumulative effect on Americans of 16 major social problems, among them unem ployment, drug abuse and highway deaths linked to alcoholism. In an effort to quantify the overall impact of those problems, the study boils down reams of national statistics, most of them gathered by the federal government, into a single, annual measure on a scale of zero to 100. In 1970, the first year that the index was calculated, it stood at 75. But in 1990, the last year for which complete statistics are available, the index plummeted to 42, a decrease of 44 percent over 21 years.

The index reached a high of 79 in 1972 and has fallen fairly steadily ever since. "What's troubling to me is that the social health of the country has been so low for so long," said Marc L. Miringoff, author of the study and director of the Ford-ham Institute for Innovation in Social Policy in Tarrytown, N.Y. "While the economic indicators in the 1980s went up generally after the '82 recession, the social indicators that I measure really remained at a low point," Miringoff said. "The general trough that we've reached may explain, in part, why people feel a bit more hopeless than they did in 1982." A companion study, "The Index of Social Health for Children and Youth," found that the social well-being of American children declined in 1990 for the fifth consecutive year, to a record low of 44.

The children's index hit its highest point, 78, in 1976. Miringoff described child abuse as the social problem that became most acute over the 21-year period measured in the children's study. "The rate of reported child abuse in 1990 was more than four times the rate in 1970, and it has worsened every year without exception since 1970," he wrote. He also cited the number of year since 1970. The index also showed the gap between the incomes of the nation's richest and poorest families had widened to a record degree in 1990.

Given the gravity of the nation's social ills, Miringoff called on the federal government to treat social statistics more seriously by releasing them on a monthly or quarterly basis. "One of the things that bothers me about all this is that we measure the economic indicators and measure them often, but the real picture of America's social well-being remains invisible," he said. children living in poverty a figure that has increased 33 percent since 1970 and the rate of suicide among teen-agere, which doubled during the same period. Those statistics also helped drive down the overall index of social health, Miringoff said. Another factor measured by the index included the poverty rate among Americans over 65 years old, which increased nearly 50 percent during the 21-year period of the study.

In addition, the study found, older Americans spent a greater percentage of their income on health costs than in any other Congress agrees on $27 billion sr in tax breaks By John H. Cushman Jr. New York Times News Service WASHINGTON Congressional negotiators have agreed on a tax bill that offers more than $27 billion in tax breaks and investment incentives in the next five years, many of them meant to aid depressed cities, help the housing industry, and encourage personal savings and industrial investment. The measure, which the conferees are expected to present to the House and Senate this week, puts President Bush in a political bind: Should he sign or veto a bill that cuts some taxes and raises others, including some of each proposed by his administration? To pay for the tax breaks and incentives, Congress raised dozens of taxes and curtailed some deductions, just the kind of approach that Bush has so often criticized Gov. Bill Clinton for approving.

Some provisions that increase taxes were proposed by Congress, like the limit on the deductibility of moving expenses for people changing jobs. Others were proposed by the administration, like changes in quarterly tax payments by corporations and the self-employed. Prospects uncertain Whether any of the provisions might lead Bush to veto the entire bill is unclear. Even some Republican lawmakers had complained during the negotiations that they were not certain what Bush considered an unacceptable tax increase. Richard G.

Darman, the White House budget director, said yesterday that the White House would have to examine the bill in detail before the president decided whether to sign it "It isn't a tax-increase bill if he's going to sign it, let me just say that," Darman said in an appearance on the NBC News program "Meet the Press." Clinton said yesterday that the bill "does raise taxes to pay for good things." "There's no question that if he signs it," Clinton added, "it's inconsistent with his position, which is that he is not going to raise any taxes, even though we all know he's raised a slew of them." If Congress passes the tax bill before its scheduled adjournment, which could be as early as tomorrow, Bush will have 10 days to decide whether to sign it That is a period during which he will for the first time debate both Clinton, who says he would focus tax increases on the wealthy, and Ross Perot, the independent candidate who has called for tax increases to be shared by the middle class. If the president does nothing, the bill will die by a "pocket veto," which Congress could not override because it would be out of town campaigning. The congressional negotiations culminated late Saturday night with a tentative agreement that House and Senate members of the taxation committees are likely to present to the full Congress today or tomorrow, after staff experts finish up the technicalities. Upper-income break During the negotiations, conducted mainly by the Senate Finance Committee chairman, Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, and the House Ways and Means Committee chairman, Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois, the lawmakers dropped two provisions that would have made permanent some temporary tax increases on upper-income taxpayers that are scheduled to expire in the next few years. Those provisions would surely have invited a veto.

To pay for that change, the conferees scaled back Bentsen's proposal to expand the availability of tax-deferred individual retirement accounts. The bill would nonetheless make tax-deferred IRAs available to individuals with income of up to $75,000 and couples with income of up to $100,000 ceilings considerably higher than current limitations. In addition, the lawmakers focused their attention on revenue-raising provisions that the Bush administration proposed at the beginning of this year, when it presented its budget and economic program to the Congress. Associated Press Florida Power Light crews work yesterday on restoring electrical service to tornado-torn Pinellas Park. Floridians had no warning of twisters New York Times News Service PINELLAS PARK, Fla.

A day after tornadoes had touched down in Pinellas Park and Largo on Saturday and killed three people, National Weather Service officials said they would open a review into why the service's office issued no warnings until it was too late. The tornadoes hopscotched across the Tampa Bay area for hours Saturday, causing extensive damage in three mobile home parks. The twisters, with winds up to 150 miles an hour, also hit two housing developments, leveling some homes and damaging others. The tornadoes were generated by a major two-day storm in the Gulf of Mexico. Even as residents were assessing the damage yesterday, body here," the retired 64-year-old executive said.

"There's her blood." All he could do yesterday was pore over the tiny bits left of what had been their life together. Local officials estimated about half of the 500 structures hit by the twisters were destroyed and that many of the others suffered extensive damage. Gov. Lawton Chiles, who toured the area yesterday, said full damage estimates were not available and further assessment by federal and state officials was necessary before a decision could be made on declaring Largo and Pinellas Park disaster areas. The governor listened as Linda Fogle, 52, an inspector in a nearby machine shop, showed him the damage to the home she had lived in with her two sisters.

"We just ache to see it," the governor said as he looked at the structure, its windows blown in and porch blown away. An orange sign on the house read, "Unfit for Human weather service officials had begun to piece together what had happened in their local office in Ruskin. Steven Weiss, a meteorologist at the National Severe Storms Forecast Center in Kansas City, said the local station never issued a warning before the first tornado touched down Largo and issued a warning only one minute before a tornado hit Pinellas Park He said the station has only conventional radar equipment and that "the newer Doppler radars would have had a better chance" of detecting the tornadoes. But he cautioned it was difficult to forecast storms in the gulf, where there are no spotters as there are on land. The Associated Press quoted Chuck Eggleton, the meteorologist on duty at the Ruskin station on Saturday, as saying technical difficulties prevented him from broadcasting warnings on his radio station for more than an hour during the height of the bad weather.

Residents in the devastated area said yesterday they first knew the tornadoes were coming when the twisters were already upon them. "It was a three-second warning and then, bang, the house across the street from me was gone," said Jim Milne, a 39-year-old meat cutter who lives in Pinellas Park "The things are unbelievable it's so fast we heard the wind, the pressure, we thought tornado! And it was all over in three seconds. I'm sitting in my living room. We hear a whirsh. It sort of lifted me up, like being in an airplane." He said his home was damaged but still standing because of the huge trees that stood around it "It sucked up all the trees," Milne said.

Across the street, the door knob from the front door was imbedded in the back wall of the house. Not far away, in the Park Royale Mobile Home Village, Glenn Moore stood upon the blood-soaked spot where his wife, Theresa, had died in one of the tornadoes. He said he and his wife had bought a mobile home in May, planning to spend the winters in Florida and the summers in Toms River, N.J. "They found my wife's The gtfe Eagle Microsoft's Gates rates tops with Forbes Perot, 62, who built his fortune providing computer services, landed in 19th place on the list with an estimated net worth of $2.4 billion. That's up from the magazine's $2.2 billion estimate last year.

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The publisher reserves the right to edit, reject or cancel any advertisement at any time Only publication of an advertisement shall constitute final acceptance of an advertiser's order. UtOl ASTRO SIRLOIN STRIP STEAKS The aristocrat of steaks. ATTENTION Boneless, completely trimmed, witn a delicious jeep flavor. Served with well-deserved i NEW YORK (AP) Computer software inventor and college dropout Bill Gates replaced entertainment mogul John Kluge atop the Forbes annual list of richest Americans, the magazine said yesterday. At age 36, Gates becomes the youngest person to reach the No.

1 ranking. The founder of Microsoft the world's largest personal computer software company, makes money from each machine that uses MS-DOS, the most widely used personal computer software. Gates' $6.3 billion fortune grew by $1.5 billion this year, while Kluge's net worth dropped about $400 million to $5.5 billion, the magazine estimated. Kluge, 78, had held the top spot on the magazine's annual list for three years since Wal-Mart stores founder Sam Walton split his wealth among his family in 1989. Five members of the Walton family, whose patriarch died in April, occupied spots three through seven with $5.1 billion each.

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