Modern Living: Living & Dying

Beginning next February, the U.S. cost-of-living index will include thecost of dying, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has announced.Bestselling Author Jessica Mitford and all the current furor about thehigh cost of dying had nothing to do with it, insisted Bureau AssistantCommissioner Arnold E. Chase. Bureaucracy doesn’t move that fast. Overa year ago, said Chase, the bureau decided to add the cost of funeralsto the 300 items included in the monthly index, along with 50 other newadditions. Among them: legal expenses, installment credit, hotel andmotel rates.