This conclusion is based upon scientific facts regarding the number of calories of heat and grams of protein necessary for the human body. It is only one and by no means the most trustworthy of several logical methods of reaching a minimum estimate.

Another and more trustworthy method of approach to such a conclusion is to price a list of foodstuffs necessary for an American family of five. Following this method, an itemized food budget was taken from Dr. Chapin's book on "Standard of Living in New York City" and was submitted for criticism to dietitians and social-service workers, with the result that the list was slightly inodified. In order to find the prevailing cost of the modified list in New York City, foodstuffs were priced in the places where unskilled laborers would naturally buy; that is, municipal markets, push carts, cooperative stores, and regular neighborhood grocery and butcher establishments. (For this food budget used in field work, with prices for 1915 and 1917, see Appendix A.) This method of approach led to the conclusion that $7.381 per week or $383.812 per year would be the minimum requirements for 1915.

In securing facts as to the increased cost of food for 1917, this same list of foodstuffs was again priced at markets, pushcarts, and stores of the same type as before and the average amount of increase ascertained. From this investigation it was learned that the cost of exactly the same foods is at the present time $9.469 per week or $492.388 per year, showing an increase of $2.088 per week or $108.576 per year over the cost for 1915. It may be noted that it is possible to sustain life on a less varied and less expensive diet than that considered in this report, but, as stated before, this study is based upon standards of living consistent with American ideas.

4. Clothing. The clothing estimate was made in the same way as that for food. A list of the clothing needed by a family of five was taken from Dr. Chapin's report and considerably modified. The prices of the various articles in this clothing budget were obtained from the type of stores at which workingmen would naturally buy. (For copy of this list of clothing, with prices for 1915 and 1917, see Appendix A.)

It is difficult to make exact statements about the expenditure for such an item as clothing, in which there are so many personal considerations. Basing our estimate, however, upon average common-sense requirements and upon prices prevailing in 1915 for these requirements, we concluded that $104.20 for our assumed family of five was the exact clothing cost for that year. Prices for this clothing list were again obtained in February, 1917, in the same way in which food prices were checked, and were found to total $127.10 as against $104.20 in 1915.

5. Fuel and light.-The fuel and light estimate of $42 for 1915 was based on facts submitted by the Consolidated Gas Co. and by public and private relief organizations, and on past studies, taking into consideration, however, the prevailing prices of coal, wood, and gas. (For supplementary data see Appendix A.) All of the estimates submitted were in the neighborhood of $40 to $45.

Our conclusion for 1915 was a fair mean and allowed for the following approximate consumption of fuel and gas :

Fuel.-During the winter months, three bags of coal per week at 25 cents a bag, and six bundles of wood per week at 2 cents per bundle, resulting in a weekly expenditure of 87 cents. During the fall months, two bags of coal per week at 25 cents per bag, and four bundles of wood per week at 2 cents a bundle, resulting in a weekly expenditure of 58 cents. Assuming 18 weeks for the winter and 13 weeks for the fall the total expenditure for fuel amounted to $23.20 for 1915.

Light and gas used for fuel.-Light, assuming the use of gas during the 18 weeks of the winter at 25 cents per week, 13 weeks of the fall at 35 cents per week, and 21 weeks of the summer at 50 cents per week amounts to a total expenditure of $19.55. During the fall and summer gas is used for cooking. Thus the consumption is increased.

The estimate for 1917 is changed only by an increase in the cost of coal from 25 cents to 30 cents a bag. This rise causes an increase in the total yearly expenditure for fuel to $27.20 as against $23.20 in 1915.

6. Health. The problem of arriving at a minimum for health expenditure is necessarily involved. Several studies have been made upon this subject which for our purposes are quite satisfactory. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., in connection with its welfare work, has considered health expenditure in more detail than has any other organization. Dr. Lewis I. Dublin, their statistician, who has studied this problem from an insurance standpoint, concludes that a

workingman will average five weeks' illness once in every three years, or that one out of every three workingmen will be sick in each year. A prominent benevolent society, organized in St. Louis for the special purpose of establishing health insurance, has arrived at the conclusion that an adult requires 50 cents and a child 25 cents a month for health expenditure. This totals $21 a year for our family of five persons. Prof. Irving Fisher, of Yale, who has devoted considerable study to health insurance, states that the average expenditure resulting from illness and death in workingmen's budgets is $27 per annum. This amount is agreed to by the United States Commissioner of Labor (1912) and by Dr. Dublin, although Dr. Dublin supplements this by stating that even at this rate the family will to some extent be dependent upon charity.

Our conclusion of $20 is based upon the fact that there are more facilities for conserving the health of a family in New York City than elsewhere and that $27 under these conditions would be too high. We realize, however, that it is impossible to establish beyond criticism a definite amount for health expenditure. This amount, first established in 1915, remains unchanged in 1917. 7. Insurance.-Insurance is found to be an almost universal item in budgets of workingmen's families. The expenditure of $22.88 in our minimum estimate is based upon the assumption that the head of the family should be insured for $500, the wife for $100, and that the children should each have the smallest amount of insurance which can be obtained. This is merely industrial insurance and does not provide for sickness, accident, or property loss.

Interesting studies have been made in this connection showing that the kinds of insurance vary with the different nationalities. Some peoples are more apt to insure upon life than upon property, and vice versa. Americans, Germans, and Irish insure members of the family more frequently than they do property. On the other hand, Russians and Hungarians favor property insurance. In this report the personal-property item is so small that property insurance can reasonably be ignored.

In industrial insurance weekly payments are the rule. For a $500 policy the premium is 25 cents a week, for a $100 policy 10 cents a week, while a minimum of 3 cents is required for the policies of children—a total weekly payment of 44 cents, or a yearly expenditure of $22.88 for the family. Our estimate is based on the rates offered for those policies considered most satisfactory by the three insurance companies which specialize in industrial insurance. This amount remains the same in 1917 as in 1915.

8. Sundries.-The item "Sundries includes recreation, reading, general household expense, church contributions, etc. It is unnecessary to defend the fact that a family in order to maintain a normally happy and self-respecting existence must have proper amusements. For recreation, therefore, we have allowed occasional trips to the beach, incidental car fare, moving picture shows, Christmas and birthday presents, and miscellaneous amusements. For furniture, utensils, fixtures, moving expenses, and general maintenance $18 is allowed, although this amount could be legitimately increased. Five dollars is allowed for church contributions. Incidentals, including soap, washing material, stamps, umbrellas, and other miscellaneous items are totaled at $5. For reading a 1-cent daily paper is allowed, with a Sunday paper almost every week. The resulting $73 expenditure for sundries is a fair minimum. This amount, fixed originally in 1915, is allowed to remain unchanged for 1917, although some slight increase could legitimately be made.

EXTRACTS FROM REPORT OF SURVEY COMMITTEE TO THE DALLAS WAGE COMMISSION, AND SUBMITTED BY THEM TO THE HONORABLE MAYOR AND BOARD OF CMMISSIONERS OF THE CITY OF DALLAS, APRIL 25, 1917.

PURPOSES OF THE WAGE COMMISSION.

Early in February, 1917, Mayor Lindsley asked a number of citizens to serve as an investigating body to inquire into living costs. Their findings were to serve the board of commissioners as a guide in determining what wage advance to city employees might be justified.

The wage commission met with the mayor on February 14 and organized. A special survey committee was appointed. This committee prepared record forms and arranged with 71 families to keep careful accounts for 30 days. Five students of economics of the Southern Methodist University gave most valuable service as field workers, visiting and conferring and advising with the families. Fifty families made complete and careful records for the required

30 days. Mr. Dan Hennessy, auditor, prepared the statistics from the card records. The survey committee compiled from these and from other research the report embodied in this pamphlet. The final meeting of the wage commission, survey committee, and field workers was held with Mayor Lindsley and Chairman Edgar L. Flippen on Tuesday, April 24, at which time this report was adopted and ordered submitted to the board of city commissioners.

Net findings.

Average annual living costs as reported by 50 Dallas families.
Safe normal living cost, family of five-
Lowest "bare existence," family of five.
Food costs have increased since 1914_.
Clothing costs have increased since 1914.

-per cent__

69 cents bought the same food in 1914 as $1 buys now.

$1, 134, 55 $1,081. 72 $747.00 45. 1

35.8

74 cents bought the same clothing in 1914 as $1 buys now.

80 cents paid same total family expenses in 1914 as $1 pays now.
$62.50 per month lowest wages to allow bare existence for family of five.
Salary $90 per month 1917 buys same as salary $72.50 in 1914.

Special note: Of the 50 families represented in the survey, 17 (34 per cent), father's salary less than $60 per month; 11 (22 per cent), father's salary $60 to $70 per month; 4 (8 per cent), father's salary $70 to $80 per month; 15 (30 per cent), father's salary $80 to $90 per month; 3 (6 per cent), father's salary $90 to $100 per month; 29 families of city employees; 21 families of factory employees.

Character of employment: 24 laborers, 5 firemen, 4 clerical, 4 inspectors and foremen, 3 mechanics, 3 policemen, 6 clerks and salesmen, 1 janitor.

Mr. EDGAR L. FLIPPEN, chairman Dallas wage commission. We submit to your honorable body the following report:

The purpose of this report is to lay before the commission certain facts. These facts have been ascertained through personal investigation by systematic methods.

We offer the following suggestions for the consideration of the commission: Money wages must be figured on basis of annual income, especially with the small wage earner, because of industrial, seasonal, and other conditions that affect steady employment, independent of any fault of the wage earner.

Real wages represent what money will buy for the family. A lowering purchasing power of a dollar reduces real wages where money wages are at a standstill, and even when the latter are increased if the increase is not in correct proportion to purchasing power.

The conservation of the American family establishes a minimum in standard of living. This minimum allows "frugal decency." Those who live in comfort would deny to no American family the following rights, so well stated by John Mitchell:

"The American standard of living should mean, to the ordinary unskilled workman with an average family, a comfortable house of at least six rooms. It should mean a bathroom, good sanitary plumbing, a parlor, dining room, kitchen, and sufficient sleeping room that decency may be preserved and a reasonable degree of comfort maintained. The American standard of living should mean to the unskilled workman carpets, pictures, books, and furniture with which to make home bright, comfortable, and attractive for himself and his family; an ample supply of clothing suitable for winter and summer; and, above all, a sufficient quantity of good, wholesome, nourishing food at all times of the year. The American standard of living, moreover, should mean to the unskilled workman that his children be kept in school until they have attained to the age of 16, at least, and that he be enabled to lay by sufficient to maintain himself and his family in times of illness or at the close of his industrial life, when age and weakness render further work impossible, and to make provision for his family against his premature death from accident or otherwise."

If certain families abuse the use of an income that would admit the above standard, this is no excuse for denying opportunity for such a standard to the larger percentage who would justify it. It is also insisted that denial of opportunity is a poor way to encourage family conservation and higher standards and ideals.

The following, quoted from Social Insurance, by Rubinow, is of peculiar interest in that it is a conclusion arrived at in 1907, 10 years ago:

"As a result of more careful study, a special committee on standard of living of the New York State Conference of Charities and Corrections, reporting in November, 1907, made the following statements:

"It requires no citation of elaborate statistics to bring convincing proof that $600 to $700 is wholly inadequate to maintain a proper standard of living, and no self-respecting family should be asked or expected to live on such an income.

66 6

The committee believes that with an income of between $700 and $800 a family can barely support itself, provided that it is subject to no extraordinary expenditures by reason of sickness, death, or other untoward circumstances. Such a family can live without charitable assistance through exceptional management and in the absence of emergencies, and, finally:

""The committee is of the opinion that it is fairly conservative in its estimate that $825 is sufficient for the average family of five individuals, comprising the father, mother, and three children under 14 years of age, to maintain a fairly proper standard of living in the Borough of Manhattan.'

Cost and percentage table showing normal living cost, April, 1917, Dallas, for family of 5, with percentage increase under each heading since 1914; also a budget for "bare existence," all figured for a family of 5.

The dollar in 1917 has only the same purchasing power as 80 cents in 1914. Wages of $72.50 per month in 1914 need increase to $90 in 1917.

Wages of $62.50 per month in 1917 allow bare existence for family of 5. Miss Mary Gearing, of the University of Texas, in submitting the data on "bare existence table of family cost of living, says, under date of April 20, 1917:

"The data has been very carefully compiled. Every bit of food was carefully worked out from prices current three weeks ago. The clothing is based on actual cash prices, and the house rent fixed after a careful survey of rent houses with various real estate agents. The other items are based on actual expenditures and are, I am sure, minimum.

"This amount allows for merely the bare necessities of life. It allows nothing for education, recreation, or savings. The house consists of four rooms within walking distance of the man's work and school, so as to make care fare unnecessary.

"Food will require the most careful planning, buying, and preparation, and the elimination of all waste. It is very doubtful if, with the present high cost of food and the ignorance in food values of the average woman, whether the average family will be properly nourished on this amount.

"Clothing was planned with the greatest care and could not well be reduced. if the family maintain any standards of decency."

Scanning this budget amounting to $747, it practically means that everything is limited to the barest means of existence. It means that the greatest skill and most complete planning must be observed in order that the amount allotted for food will buy sufficient sustenance for a family of five.

It simply means that a laborer who earns $2.50 per day must work every work day in the year without loss of a moment's time in order to earn $770, With a minimum cost of existence of $747 this would allow him the slight

margin of $23 per year for any extraordinary expense in the way of accident, sickness, or medical attention. Loss of time through his own sickness would be a double loss, not only loss of wages, but medical expense. Hence this minimum living cost is not merely the border land between comfort and poverty, but would seem to represent the borderland between bare existence and complete misery.

The department of home economics of Southern Methodist University has, by very careful study in the preparation of foods and the buying of foods in Dallas Markets, estimated the food cost that can very properly be allotted to an economical family of five at $481 per year, or $9.25 per week. This is as divided as follows:

Miss Joan Hamilton, of that department, says: "Careful planning and a thorough knowledge of food values, marketing, and food preservation are necessary in order that the above family may live on an income of a thousand to twelve hundred dollars a year."

STATE OF WASHINGTON-COMPARATIVE STATISTICS ON FOODSTUFFS AND FUEL FOR THREE YEARS, AS SHOWN IN A BUDGET OF THE ANNUAL COST OF LIVING OF A FAMILY OF FIVE PERSONS, BASED ON PRICES PREVAILING IN THE MONTH OF APRIL OF EACH YEAR.-APRIL, 1916.

[Compiled by State Bureau of Labor Edward W. Olson, Commissioner, Olympia, Wash.]

Every year sees increases in the cost of living of an average family of five persons in the State of Washington, varying, of course, as to whether they live in the larger cities or the smaller towns, but varying also among the three largest cities and among the three larger subdivisions of the State, and this steady rise in the cost of foodstuffs is graphically set forth in the comparative budget for the years 1914, 1915, and 1916, just issued by the bureau of labor. Early in 1914 the bureau undertook its first survey of the cost of living; at the same period in 1915 it repeated its inquiry, and again this year the same budget was compiled. The result is proof that the family of five persons who spent $418.46 for their foodstuffs and fuel in 1914, if they lived in Seattle, spent $443.72 in 1915 for the same items, and that this year their cost will be $461,42.

Still it is not quite fair to judge the entire State by what has happened to the cost of foodstuffs in Seattle, for the increase has been much greater there than anywhere else. But there has been an increase just the same; from $431.57 in Tacoma in 1914 to $437.35 in 1916; from $424.03 in Spokane in 1914 to $463.50 in 1916, and in a lesser degree in the sectional divisions outside these largest cities.

Southwestern Washington, this table indicates, is the cheapest section of the State in which to live, the cost there to-day, even though somewhat greater than in 1914, being less than in eastern Washington or the northwestern section. Peculiarly, it is the only section in the State in which there has been no increase in the last year, the amount being so slight as to be negligible, though in common with the rest of the State the 1915 budget was higher than the 1914, in this instance $18.96. To-day a family of five persons can live in this section at an expenditure of $424.89 per year for foodstuffs and fuel, where it would cost them $435.78 in northwestern Washington and $435.55 in the eastern part of the State.

Freight rates, rents, and the nature and extent of the competition between dealers doubtless accounts for the variations, while the general increase is probably due largely to the war, and the wonder is that it has not been greater, in view of the large exports of foodstuffs. The higher total for eastern Washington is principally due to the greater cost of fuel, more than any other single item. It may also be interesting to note that, although the grand totals of the budget are higher this year than last, there are a number of items, such as flour, rolled oats, and potatoes that are cheaper than in 1915; while the greatest increases are to be seen in the cost of sugar, butter, and eggs.

The prices upon which the budget was based were obtained from stores in 44 cities of the State, and were the retail prices on these various items when