With No Light At End Of Tunnel, Storms Draining City Budgets 
Salt. Plows. Labor. As 
The Costs Keep Piling, Many 
City Officials Say They've 
Already Depleted Half Their 
Winter Finances

Ag's Office Says Charity Can't Begin At Home 
Contractor George Derr 
Does Not Want To Give Up His 
Plan To Sell Houses And Help 
The Needy

Monday, January 17, 1994 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Page: 2A QUICK WORDS: WAGE INCREASE DECEPTIVE 





PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Rising wages in many Pennsylvania cities doesn't mean
the metropolitan areas are getting wealthier, a spokesman for the U.S.
Department of Labor said Friday. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 A third of the state's metropolitan areas posted a pay increase that was
higher than the national average between 1991 and 1992, the department's
Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton area posted the largest pay increase in the
state, 7 percent, for an average salary of $25,605 in 1992. Philadelphia
posted a 6.3 percent pay increase for an average $29,355, while wages in
Scranton-Wilkes-Barre rose 6.2 percent to $21,178. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Those areas may have higher average wages because of rising unemployment,
said John Filemyr, a spokesman for the bureau. The three areas either saw no
growth or experienced a decline in employment during the year, he said. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 When people at the lower end of the pay scale lose jobs, "the average pay
to go up without anyone really getting an increase in income," Filemyr said.
"It's not for the reason that you would like to see -- that there is a large
demand for jobs in those areas." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Workers in every Pennsylvania city except Philadelphia continued to earn
less than the national average in 1992, the bureau said. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 The Philadelphia average wage of $29,355 in 1992 was higher than the
average of $27,173 for 320 U.S. metropolitan areas, the bureau said Friday. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "It's just been a historical fact that Pennsylvania has always been just
slightly below the national average in pay levels," Filemyr said. He said he
didn't know what accounted for that. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Altoona-area workers earned the state's lowest metropolitan salary that
year -- $19,989. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Pittsburgh had the second-highest salary in the state, $26,163 in 1991, the
bureau said. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Nationally, pay for workers in metropolitan areas rose 5.6 percent, its
highest increase since 1982, spurred by early bonuses and lump-sum payments
employers made in the fourth quarter of 1992, the bureau said. Employment rose
0.3 percent. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Nationwide, the Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk-Danbury area in Connecticut had
the highest annual pay, $39,006, ranking first for the fourth consecutive
year. Jacksonville, N.C., had the lowest level for the third year in a row,
$15,624.

Wage Increase Deceptive, Say Feds