October 1, 2000

Article on impact Midtown Direct and other commuter rail service upgrades are having on New Jersey housing market; photos; maps (M)

Number of low-wage jobs, paying less than $25,000 a year, is growing much faster than number of middle- or high-wage jobs in New York City's rebounding economy; study, conducted by team of economists from government agencies and nonprofit groups, finds number of low-paying jobs has climbed 22 percent, nearly four times as much as jobs paying more than $75,000; notes that pay for low-wage service employees, like restaurant workers, security guards, day care workers and home attendants for elderly do not pay enough to support family; finds that median wage for city's low-wage workers actually dropped by 2 percent from 1989 to 1999, after taking inflation into account; study fucuses on largely overlooked cracks in city's economic boom; photos; graph (M)

Article on Tennessee Titans preparing for game against New York Giants; photo (M)

Movie and television industry is in panic mode over threatened strike by formerly weak and divided unions; Writers Guild of America, representing 11,000 writers on East and West Coasts, sets strike for May 1; Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, representing 135,000 actors, schedules its strike for June 30; Hollywood is beset by issues that go beyond simple wage increases; growth of foreign markets for films and televisions series, expansion of video and DVD industries and, more recently, Internet explosion have left writers, actors and directors with deep grievances about their pay and status; threatened strikes are expected to define issues that will shape entertainment industry's labor relations for decades; strike could mean lost wages of $680 million a month in Los Angeles for 272,000 people working in entertainment industry (M)

Dream Team Wins Gold; Jones Adds Two Medals The United States men's basketball team came through with the gold medal it was expected to win and Marion Jones finished the Sydney Olympics with five medals by winning her third gold and second bronze. SPORTSSUNDAY