MEET THE MEDIAN FAMILY

Monday, Jan. 29, 1996 By ANDREW HACKER

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THIS IS A STORY ABOUT CAROL AND PAUL MEDIAN, she 32 and he 34, married for one year and living just south of Bloomington, Indiana. They are as average as can be. Last year Paul earned $28,449, and Carol made $23,479, precisely the midpoint paychecks for men and women their age. It also happens that their part of Indiana is the population center of the U.S. Since no real-life couple is truly typical, however, I have created the fictional Medians, going by Census figures, to give a sense of the exact middle of American life. In ways good and bad, the Medians' life is far different from the previous generation's. To gain some perspective, one must look back to 1970 to see how their parents lived when they were about the same age.

Both Paul and Carol have full-time jobs. She works for a large book manufacturer, supervising a team of compositors, who tap copy into computers. As it happens, her dad once did that job, which then required casting hot lead. It was considered "men's work." As was common at that time, it paid a high union wage, and Carol's mother never worked. Today there are mainly women at the consoles, and they aren't unionized. (In fact, only 11% of private workers are, down from 28% in 1970.) Carol loves what she does, and her boss just told her she will soon be promoted.

Paul's situation is dicier. He's a loan officer at a local bank. On paper, he is listed as management. But there may be some title inflation here: a recent Department of Labor report found some 16 million people listed as managers, executives or administrators, which means most of them must be fairly far down the ladder. And that really describes Paul. His problem is that in the last year, half the people in his department have been let go.

It's not that business is bad. In fact, the bank is prospering. For efficiency's sake, it has installed LOANEX, a software system that supplants much of Paul's judgment. It is an "experience-based" program containing far more data than any loan officer could have in his head. Would-be borrowers type in answers to questions that appear on the screen. Credit reports are then factored in, after which the software says yes or no. Only if it prints out maybe is Paul's input needed, and this seems to be happening less and less. Nor do things look better higher up the ladder: his bank is in the midst of being absorbed by an out-of-state firm with a reputation for thinning executive ranks. Paul, a college graduate, never thought he might one day be applying for jobless benefits. His father spent his entire career in the same company, where his security was never in doubt. The firm always found a niche for him. No one talks or acts that way in the milieu Paul knows.