In 1969, the poverty line for farm families rose from 60 percent to 70 percent of that for nonfarm families.

The Sixties

The consumer movement grew rapidly and in 1964, the President appointed a Special Assistant to the President for Consumer Affairs. The War on Poverty along with other programs addressed the economically disadvantaged.

A series of articles reported findings from studies that collected information about the household management practices of women "who have accepted work away from home." (During the fifties, working women were called "economically active.") The purpose was to discover what might be the economic implications of their employment.

Articles concerned with employed wives included "Estimating net income of working wives"-work-related expenses consumed 40 to 50 percent of wives' earnings; "Paid services used by employed wives in Georgia and Ohio"women most likely to use paid services and spend the most for these services were mothers of preschool children; and "Clothing expenditures of employed wives"-in groups of families with husbands at about the same income level, wives with paying jobs spent about twice as much as those not employed. Also, a Cornell University study on homemakers' time in housework was partially funded by the Family Economics Research Group and later reported in FER.

There was widespread concern about the possibility of nuclear war and the possible need for bomb shelters. USDA and the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization prepared a publication listing suggestions for planning a food and water stockpile, summarized in FER.

Consumer interests were paramount. Reports on consumer interests in the White House featured the Consumer Advisory Council, the Special Assistant for Consumer Affairs, the President's

Commission on the Status of Women, and the Committee on Consumer Interests. FER described the "truth-in-lending" section of the Consumer Protection Act and published other articles on credit and budgeting.

Data from the 1955 Survey of Family Living Expenditures of Farm-Operator Families and the 1955 Nationwide Household Food Consumption Survey were used to develop a method of estimating economies of scale. Food costs per person for each household size group were calculated with adjustments made to account for the age/sex composition of different household sizes. Results suggested a 5-percent cost differential per person for families from two to six persons.

The "War on Poverty" and the development of the poverty guidelines began in the sixties. In 1969, the poverty line for farm families rose from 60 percent to 70 percent of that for nonfarm families. The income for determining the poverty line for farm families had been set lower because many farm families had nonmoney income in the form of food and housing from their farms in addition to money income. The 1955 Household Food Consumption Survey showed that 40 percent of food consumed by farm households was home-produced; the 1960-61 Survey of Consumer Expenditures showed this proportion had declined to about 30 percent.

The 1960-61 Survey of Consumer Expenditures provided data on patterns of families' incomes and expenditures. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, collected data from urban areas, and USDA sampled about 5,000 rural farm and nonfarm families. USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and Economic Research Service (ERS) conducted the first nationwide food consumption survey of individuals in 1965. We developed estimates of the cost of raising a child

from birth to age 18. Four articles published in 1966 and 1967 reported a home freezer management survey of almost 500 families.

In 1960, we conducted a survey of FER readers concerning subject-matter interest. The Outlook for Family Living and the outlooks for food, housing, equipment, and clothing rated high with Extension personnel, who accounted for 80 percent of readers. Articles about income and expenditures of families and individuals; laws related to consumers; and standards, grades, and labeling received favorable comments, so these topics continued throughout the decade. Extension workers used FER primarily for their own information and in talks and lessons; professors also used it for student reference material. In 1968, FER commemorated its 25th anniversary with a new cover design. Contents included articles comparing families "then and now" and looking ahead to a focus on consumer issues.

The Seventies

Social Security payments were linked to the cost of living, providing elderly Americans with a better living standard. In 1973, oil embargoes caused an energy crisis. Energy prices increased dramatically, and rapid inflation occurred worldwide. Beginning in 1978, deregulation affected various industries, including the airline, banking, and telephone industries.

Americans were showing concern about the relationship between health and diet. About 40 percent of the articles published in FER during the 1970's were about food and nutrition-food costs, food preservation, food patterns of various population groups, nutritive value of foods, nutrition labeling, food cost plans, children's diets, or costs versus convenience comparisons.

2Selected speeches presented at the Annual Agricultural Outlook Conference were printed in Wartime Family Living, Rural Family Living, and Family Economics Review between 1943 and 1989.

Between 1974 and 1979, nine articles related to energy appeared in FER, reflecting the 1973 oil embargo that caused energy prices to escalate dramatically. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for fuel oil and coal increased by 66 percent between August 1973 and August 1974; gasoline prices increased by 40 percent during the year. Energy conservation and other environmental issues became very important to most Americans. The U.S. Department of Energy was created; the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 mandated energy-cost labeling of major consumer appliances.

Although first researched in the mid1960's, the Cost of Raising a Child evolved into a long-range project. It became one of the most widely used products associated with the Family Economics Research Group. Several articles appeared in FER during the 1970's on this and related child-care costs.

One issue of FER was devoted to "The Economic Role of Women in Family Life." Among the articles published were: "Employment and Earnings of Women," "Time and Its Dollar Value in Household Work," "Mothers in the Labor Force," " Women and Homeownership," and "Women and Credit." The Supreme Court upheld the right of mothers with young children to participate in the labor force. Also, the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued guidelines for employees, labor unions, and courts that stated: to dismiss or to refuse to hire a woman because of pregnancy violates Title VII of the amended 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The Consumer Product Safety Act of 1972 empowered the Consumer Product Safety Commission to develop and enforce uniform safety standards and to ban hazardous products. FER published several articles concerning the flammability of clothing and house furnishings.

Americans were showing concern about the relationship between health and diet. About 40 percent of the articles published in FER during the 1970's were about food and nutrition...

Contents of FER continued to reflect the variety of research that was supported or conducted by our research group. We developed clothing budgets that incorporated both cost and quantity from the 1960-61 Survey of Consumer Expenditures and separate clothing budgets for farm children and adults, using data from the 1973 Farm Family Living Expenditure Survey. Consumer debt and use of credit by young husbandwife families were investigated and reported. We developed new estimates of the service life of household appliances and published them in 1975 and 1978. When compared with estimates prepared in the 1957-61 period, servicelife remained about the same for most items acquired new.

The Eighties

Inflation slowed. High interest rates benefited savers but made buying a home more difficult. Individual retirement accounts (IRA's) became available to all employees in 1982; deductibility was curtailed in 1986. Homeless families were a national priority.

Concern regarding high interest rates and high inflation had carried over from the late 1970's. FER published several articles on family budgets, trends in household wealth, income taxes for two-earner couples, inflation measures, family financial planning, savings, and measurements of family income.

The content of FER during the decade of the 1980's focused less on food and nutrition, although one in four articles still concerned this subject. Two USDA surveys, the 1977-78 Nationwide Food Consumption Survey and the 1985 Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals, provided data for several articles. Other food-related articles concerned the 1983 Thrifty food plan, food stamps, national nutrition monitoring,