Family Income

Jackline Tessmer provides a case study in the operation of Medicaid "spend-down." The mother of two, her sole source of income is a disability payment of $801 a month - well above the $434 limit for her to qualify for Medicaid coverage. Her children get full Medicaid coverage; children can be covered when family income is up to three times the poverty level, or $45,072 a year for a family of three. An adult above the income cutoff, however, can be covered if she is classified as "medically needy," says Debbie I. Chang, deputy health secretary.

Last month, the National Coalition on Health Care released studies that examined the issues of cost, access and quality of health care.The problems identified in the three studies are:* Health care costs are increasing at twice the rate of inflation and consuming an increasing share of national spending.* Despite one of the greatest periods of economic growth in U.S. history, the number of uninsured people continues to increase, with more than 40 million Americans without health care coverage in 1995.

MOSCOW -- A Disney experience it's not.The roller coaster ride amounts to a 45-second once-around, its rusting superstructure scarier to look at than to ride. The public toilets cost as much as some rides -- more if you want toilet paper. And there's plenty of soda pop -- most of it Russian-style warm.But Gorky Park is where the kid in everyone wants to be when Moscow turns green with spring.The universal amusement park essence -- popcorn smells, the sweaty anticipation of flight, or speed, or fear, and that morning-after sensation of "where did all the money go?"

Homes in Carroll and Howard are least affordable compared with median family income, while homes in Baltimore City and Harford are most affordable.

The conventional wisdom is that allowances make children responsible money managers as they learn to budget so they don't run out of cash. But Lewis Mandell, professor emeritus of finance and former dean of business at the State University of New York in Buffalo, says that's not always the case. In fact, says Mandell, who has studied financial literacy, certain allowances may even be hurting kids. According to Mandell, high school students who didn't get an allowance performed better on a financial literacy test than those who did, especially teens who received stipends with no strings attached.

The Columbia Association has received approval from the Public Service Commission to discount fares on Columbia buses (ColumBus) for teens enrolled as full-time students in the county school system.A one-year identification card will entitle students to 25 cents off the fare.The total family income must meet the Housing Urban Development Section 8 guidelines.

BOSTON -- Despite rising incomes, Roman Catholics are far less willing to dig into their pockets to support their churches than members of other religious denominations, according to a recent report.The average Catholic family contributes $386 annually to its church, compared with $1,696 for families in the Assemblies of God, the denomination with the highest level of giving, according to studies by Catholic University in Washington.Average annual family contributions for the other three denominations included in the report were $1,154 for Southern Baptists, $1,085 for Presbyterians and $746 for Evangelical Lutherans.

"Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower and the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused" (Crown, 273 pages, $23) In the year 1637 in the Dutch Republic, a single tulip bulb sold for 5,200 guilders, more than 20 times the annual family income of a reasonably respectable artisan. Mike Dash has written a lovely book about one of the loveliest of flowers -- and about the madness than can, and did, seize that most rational of human institions: the market. The characters and the horticulture are as richly fascinating as the insane economics.

Kokomo, Ind., was the nation's most affordable housing market in the second quarter as lower interest rates on home mortgages helped drive housing affordability across the country to its best levels in more than a year, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Nationwide, families making the median income of $52,500 could afford to purchase 63.4 percent of homes sold in the second quarter, according to the NAHB's quarterly Home Opportunity Index. In Kokomo, households making the median family income of $57,600 could afford 94.7 percent of homes sold there.

THE ISSUE At a recent discussion about affordable-housing strategies in the red-hot Howard County home market, one developer said that buyers of expensive homes "are very nervous about moderate- income buyers in their community." The county's current guidelines define "moderate income" as a family of four with an income of up to $57,720 - and officials are considering boosting that to $74,350. In a county where the median family income is nearly $90,000 a year, how does economic diversity - or the lack of it - affect the character of the community?