The nation's most carefully watched economic indicatorthe Bureau of Labor Statistics' cost of living index, to which the wages of 2.5 million U.S. workers are tiedwill appear this week in a new statistical form. It has undergone the first major changes in a decade, to make it better reflect the expenses incurred by a modern family.
Some 75 new items are included in the revised 400-item index, as a result of a survey of 12,000 families in 66 cities. Among the new items: funeral costs, home-and auto-finance charges, hotel-motel rates, snack prices, parking fees, college tuitions, and the prices of textbooks,...
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