European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - January 7, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Both employer and employee. The benefits to the company include improved recruiting employee retention space control and productivity Gordon said. It costs Between $3,000 and $6.000 a year in most cities just to put a Rool Over one employee s head. In terms of productivity studies show a 15 to 30 percent increase because employees at Home tend to work More hours and get More accomplished through flexibility. The complaints by some telecommuters include isolation a tendency to work too much concerns about advancement and a tendency to gain weight because the refrigerator is too near. This is definitely something that is not mainstream corporate America yet Gordon said. The growth rate is impressive and the number of companies that Are actively pursuing it estimated at 200 to 300 Are High. But we re still at the cutting Edge. Large corporations do not change quickly. This is something that files in the face of nearly 100 years of tradition of going to work now we re saying time out let s look at an option Here " Marenghi was hired in january 1983 by longtime computer guru John diebold As his editorial and research assistant. I did t want to move to new York because i have family and friends Here she said. The time i m freeing up by not commuting is the plus. I m saving one and a half to two hours a Day and there is monetary savings on commuting and  i like having my own Coffee in the morning and not something off the  she commutes instead to an office in her Condo. Equipped with a Telephone a company provided computer two file cabinets and a desk. Frequently she works in Blue jeans with her dog at her feet. Jack Nilles of the University of Southern California s Center for futures research coined the term telecommuting in 1973 when calculating the amount of Gas used annually to commute to work. It clearly has been growing in popularity Nilles said. It is getting to the Point where the technology particular a personal computers is widely accepted by business. By the 1990s, most desks will have computers associated with them. By the end of the Century we could have 20 percent of the work Force telecommuting at least some of the time he said. New York to photo a Home it becoming increasingly out of reach for Many amt Elcani. Middle class standards harder to achieve by Robert Furlow associated press any americans now in their 30s Are finding they can t match their parents Middle class achievements of Nice Homes financial Security and children s education. All around us there Are signs that the Middle class is in trouble said a study commissioned by the congressional joint economic committee. Single persons Are postponing marriage. Families Are postponing having children Good jobs in manufacturing Are being lost. Young people feel substantial economic  the authors of the study said some analysts fear the situation won t improve until the Hage Federal deficit is greatly reduced an action that in itself would probably lower living standards in the Short run. In comments released with the report Wisconsin rep. David obey chairman of the committee called the situation a serious  we must achieve higher rates of growth and that Means increasing the productivity and competitiveness of our Economy he said. That is a hard and Complex Job with no single easy  measured in 1984 dollars to remove the effects of inflation median family income doubled Between 1947 and 1973, the study said. But in some ways 1973 was the last Good  said for the Industry As a whole excluding Short term Money Market funds net assets under management came to $21b.3 billion at the end of october. This compared with $42.2 billion in 1975 and $58.4 billion five years ago. The fund Industry has had its buying spurts before but never like this. The Heady Market environment of the 1960s, for instance fostered the Rise � 9�-9� Mutual funds. Epitomized by Gerald Tsai s Manhattan and these funds indulged in last in and out trading in an Effort to achieve maximum capital gains. But in the end too Many funds were sold like hot stocks and too Many shareholders got burned said one Industry analyst. Throughout most of the 1970s the fund Industry suffered net redemption holders sold More shares than they bought and seemed in danger of extinction. In the late 1970s, however the sudden popularity of Money Market funds followed by tax exempt funds saved the Industry. Meanwhile professionals Ike Peter Lynch who manages the portfolio of the Fidelity Magellan fund showed that Long term performance gains that outstripped Broad Market averages Are possible in an equity Mutual fund. Even so Bond funds have scooped up most of the new investments in recent years. Double digit yields Are the real Magnet pulling people away from Money Market funds and Bank certificates of deposits where yields have dropped to 7 or 8 percent said John e. Keefe who tracks the fund Industry Lor Drexel Burnham Lambert. The most powerful magnets Are government income funds which invest in Treasury and Agency securities and Glennie Mae funds whose portfolios consist mainly of certificates of the government National mortgage association. Backed by the United states government and issued in $25,000 denominations these certificates Are repackaged and sold Lor minimum investments As Low As $750. In the first 10 months of this year net sales of these two types of funds amounted to $33.3 billion far outstripping other categories. Equity funds showed net sales of $7.8 billion. For tax exempt Bond funds net sales totalled $12.1 billion while corporate Bond funds accounted for net sales of $5.7 billion. Besides he number of new fixed income funds there has been a Proli Levalon of equity funds As Well. These include sector funds that invest in specific industries la e health care or technology social responsibility funds International funds option income funds and regional funds that concentrate their por Follos in geographical areas. The authors University of Maryland Public affairs professor Frank s. Levy and Richard Michel director of the income Security and pension policy Center at the Urban Institute in Washington. In the 1950s and 1960s, men aging from 40 to 50 saw their earnings grow by 30 percent the study said but men who were 40 in 1973 saw their earnings Over the next decade decline by 14 percent. Even More striking Young men aging from 25 to 35, often the years of biggest income increases had averaged raises of More than 100 percent in the previous decades but their inflation adjusted earnings in the decade after 1973 Rose Only 16 percent the study  average 30-year-old in 1973 earned $23,580 in inflation adjusted dollars compared with $17,520 for the 30-year-old of 10 years later. And the 30-year-old Man would have had to pay 44 percent of his Gross earnings to buy a median Price House in 1983 compared with 21 percent in 1973, the study said. What went wrong the authors ask. Their answer is a combination of factors such As the big Oil Price rises of the 1970s and. More importantly. A virtual halt in traditional increases in productivity an occurrence they describe As something of a mystery probably due in part to soaring inflation and a rapidly expanding labor Force. The upshot the authors said is that americans who had already attained Middle class status have generally been Able to keep it thanks to Job seniority and fixed rate mortgages that kept housing costs Low. But for people who had not yet attained the Middle class Standard or who had lost the Standard and were trying to regain it the Standard looked increasingly out of reach the study said. Many women have taken jobs in the past decade greatly increasing the number of two income families. But even with that strategy Many Young families find it hard to match their parents living standards the authors suggested. In the decades prior to the 1970s, children expected Early on to live better than their  they said. Such is not now the  for example they said a Young Man of 18 or 19 sees As he s leaving Home what his father s salary would buy and he keeps the memory As a personal  in the 1950s or 1960s, the Young Man would have quickly measured up. By age 30 he would have been earning one third More than his father earned when the Young Man left Home. But today a 30-year-old Man is earning about 10 percent less than his father earned when the Young Man left  the authors said. The fact that the Young Man s lather owns a House with easy mortgage payments Only Sharpens the contrast in their economic  tuesday january. 1986 the stars and stripes Page 17