• The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.
• Americans have less free time every year

• Americans are being left with inferior service jobs because manufacturing jobs are being shipped overseas.

So reports a delightfully cheery new book, Myths of Rich and Poor: Why We're Better Off Than We Think, by W. Michael Cox, vice president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, and Richard Alm, a business reporter for the Dallas Morning News.

If you thought the rich were getting richer and the poor poorer, the authors state, here's why: The gap between the richest fifth of Americans and the poorest fifth has widened in 20 years. What the pessimists don't add however, is that most people in the poorest fifth don't stay there. Only 5 percent of the people in the poorest fifth in 1975 were still there in 1991, while 30 percent of the poorest Americans in 1975 were among the richest Americans by 1991.

Nor did progress take 16 years: Nearly a quarter of the people in the poorest fifth in 1975 moved to a higher income bracket in just a single year. In other words, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer only if they stay poor. Ninety-five percent of them don't.

If you thought Americans are working harder now, the authors stated, think again. An average American's work hours have fallen to 30.2 a week in 1996, down from 33.5 in 1973, 35.3 in 1960 and 36.6 in 1950.

Thanks in part to labor saving devices and a tendency to eat in restaurants more often than we once did, we even have it easier now once we get home. In 1950 we averaged 4 hours and 12 minutes on housework, but today we spend 3 hours and 30 minutes.

One reason we may think we are working harder is that Americans apparently value leisure more. In 1986, 33 percent of Americans considered leisure important, but 57 percent did by 1997. We're also working harder at leisure. During the last 25 years, American spending on leisure has climbed from 5 percent of consumer spending to 8 percent.

Participation in golf, softball, bowling and other participatory sports is up, as is attendance at pro sports games. Per capita attendance at symphonies and operas has doubled from 1970 to 1994, while Americans tripled their pleasure trips from one in 1970 to three in 1995. And, although Americans watch an average of 3,300 hours of television a year (compared with 2,153 in 1970), the number of books sold in America hit an all-time high of 2.3 billion in 1997.

Cox and Alm also take on the allegation that Americans are becoming a nation hamburger-flippers. Not so, they say. Although the fast-food industry has grown swiftly in recent decades, employing 9,723 Americans in 1948 and almost 3 million by 1997, only 30 percent of America's fast food workers are aged 20 or older. For most, working in fast-food is an introduction to work, not lifetime employment. McDonald's alone, is estimated to have produced the first job for 20 percent of the U.S. workforce.

Citing the 1997 Economic Report of the President, the authors wrote that 70 percent of the new jobs created from 1993 to 1996 paid better-than-average wages. They stated that service jobs aren't necessarily inferior to manufacturing jobs. Although manufacturing jobs paid an average of 20 percent more than service jobs in 1980, today the gap stands at 1 percent. If retail jobs (many of which are part time) are excluded, service jobs are actually an average of 5 percent more lucrative than manufacturing jobs.

In a year characterized by stories about impeachment, bombings and Y2K, Cox and Alm have provided a much needed service.