To Him That Hath...

The Bureau of Census has just confirmed what many Americans already suspected: 1974 was not a very good year. While the median income of U.S. families rose to $12,840 in 1974--a 7% increase over the previous year--it was not enough to offset the 11% jump in prices, the bureau's new report says. Worse, another 1.3 million Americans slipped below the poverty level (e.g., $5,038 for a nonfarm family of four), though the poverty line itself was raised to reflect inflation. By the bureau's figures, the increase brought the total of officially defined poor to 24.3 million people, or 12% of the nation's population.

Congress took care last week to ensure that no such fate should threaten high federal officials, Cabinet officers, Supreme Court Justices and the legislators themselves. Both houses passed a bill authorizing cost of living increases for some 17,000 federal officials who do not already get them and whose salaries have in many cases been frozen since 1969. The increase could be as high as 8.66%--a figure reckoned to make salaries competitive with private industry--but President Ford has indicated that he will try to hold it to 5%. Among the beneficiaries are 535 members of Congress, who now make $42,500; eleven Cabinet officers, who make $60,000; 14,600 top-level career officials whose salaries have been limited to $36,000; and Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller, who makes $62,500. "It may be a little inflationary," conceded House Speaker Carl Albert with candid resignation, "but so is everything we do."

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