ISR in the News

The latest Census Bureau findings show that the U.S. economy has been harder hit than many economists expected, and that workers across all categories have felt the impact in their paychecks. In a September 13 article in The New York Times, ISR researcher Sheldon Danziger said the median income in 2010 for men working full-time was $47,715, essentially the same as in 1973. Men who did not go to college were most affected. "The median, full-time worker has made no progress on average," Danziger said. Slumping income levels, unemployment, and underemployment helped push more Americans below the official poverty line last year; the 46.2 million poor Americans reported by the bureau was the most since it began publishing figures 52 years ago.

Consumer confidence last month fell to one of its lowest levels ever, according to the Reuters/ University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index. In addition, 25 percent of respondents made spontaneous negative references to the government's role in the economy--the most such statements in the history of the survey, topping the previous record by five percent. "Consumers have shifted from being optimistic about the potential impact of monetary and fiscal policies to a sense of despair and pessimism about the role of the government," said survey director and ISR economist Richard Curtin. The overall index, reported in an August 26 article in Financial News USA, dropped to 55.7, lower than all previous measures except for two surveys conducted in the 1980s and one in November 2008.

Volunteering can boost your life span, but you have to be doing it for the right reason. A study by ISR social psychologist Sara Konrath, featured September 7 in The Times of India, concluded that individuals who volunteer live longer than non-volunteers...if their good deeds are motivated primarily by a desire to help others. But those who volunteer for self-serving reasons reap no longevity benefits from the experience. "On the surface, volunteering seems to be a purely selfless act," Konrath says. "But in fact, people volunteer for a wide range of reasons, from getting out of the house and meeting new people to doing something good for people who need help and groups they support." The research was the first to show that what motivates volunteers can have an impact on life expectancy, The Times said.