Moving and Retirement
The Effort That It Takes to Give Someone a Good Death at Home; Hospice Care Can Badly Strain Families
The for-profit hospice industry has grown, allowing more Americans to die at home. But few family members realize that "hospice care" still means they'll do most of the physical and emotional work. When it comes to where we die, the US has reached a tipping point. Home is now the most common place of death, according to new research, and a majority of Medicare patients are turning to hospice services to help make that possible. Fewer Americans these days are dying in a hospital, under the close supervision of doctors and nurses. more »
The Outlook for Housing: Federal Reserve Governor Michelle W. Bowman at the 2020 Economic Forecast Breakfast
"Before I conclude, I'd like to address two challenges currently facing the housing sector. The first relates to the difficulties that some employers face, including homebuilders, in finding and retaining qualified and skilled workers. To provide some context, the national data show that the unemployment rate in the private construction industry is now well below the rate we observed in the early 2000s, a time when the housing market was booming. In addition, the ratio of job vacancies to unemployment in the construction industry — a measure of labor market strength — shot up to historic highs at the end of 2018, and it has remained near those levels." more »
Horse, Horse, Tiger, Tiger; It's the Tone of the Character That Makes the Word
Ferida Wolff writes: In America, we accept many different pronunciations and still understand what is meant; it is the word itself that conveys its meaning. In China, it is the tone of the character that makes the word and, depending upon which is used, the meaning changes. The character ma, for instance, can mean you are calling your mother, asking a question, naming a horse, or saying something offensive. So, armed with our new linguistic knowledge, we headed off on our own into the shops that lined Nanjing Road, a major shopping area in Shanghai. more »
Stories Behind the Numbers: When Laws Make Divorce Easier, US Census Bureau Research Show Women Benefit
Jeffrey Gray, an economist, argued in the late 1990s that “… any divorce-law change that alters the financial well-being of divorcing women and their children will also impact the welfare of individuals in families that do not dissolve … these indirect effects should not be ignored when designing effective social and economic policies.” Much of the research to date supports his claim. Studying divorce is hard — precisely because pinning down cause and effect is challenging. more »