CASH A-COMIN'

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 21, 1992                   TAG: 9202210115
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Medium
CASH A-COMIN'
Over the next few weeks, millions of American workers will see a small increase in their paychecks.
But more take-home pay probably won't mean a salary raise. And it's certainly not a tax cut, say economists who charge the Bush administration with the clever strategy of giving consumers a short-term psychological boost without needing approval from Congress.
The change, effective March 1, arises from an order by President Bush as part of his program to stimulate the economy. It revises the withholding tables used by employers for federal income tax.
The extra cash flow may well be welcomed by individuals and families struggling to keep up with their bills in difficult economic times.
For a single person making $300 a week, for instance, it would amount to $3 per weekly paycheck. A married worker with a salary of $700 a week and biweekly paydays would see a difference of $12. No change at all will occur for workers with annual pay of more than $53,200 (single) or $90,200 (married).
Financial advisers say it would be incorrect for anyone to think of the money as some sort of windfall.
Whatever extra money workers get now will decrease their refunds or increase their balances due a year from now when most people file tax returns for 1992.
"This change is a cynical sort of stimulus," said Susan Hering at the investment firm of Salomon Bros. Inc. "Moreover, the tiny add-on to individual take-home pay would do little to offset the consumer caution provoked by rising unemployment."
As Eric Banfield, an economist at H.C. Wainwright & Co. in Boston, puts it, "We can alter our W-4 forms any time to withhold less tax. We don't need a new initiative."
Banfield, like some other observers, bristles at all the talk in recent economic debates about the government "giving extra money" to people or "putting money into the economy."
"The government has no money," he said. "It gets everything from us, the people who create wealth."

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB