The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1909-06-02

to Be Drawn--At Least 22 Cents
a Day For Food is a Necessity
Wives the Mainstayin Making
Incomes Go as Far as Possible.
X X X X
In a volume just issued By the Rus
sell Sage Foundation, Professor Rob-
ert Colt Chaplin, of Beloit College,
presents the results of a study Of
THE Standard Of Living Among
Workingmen's Families in New York
City" Full and in~telligently handled
returns were secured from 391 fam
lilies out of the thousand to whom
schedules were sent. These families
were of the average size-from four
to six persons, and represented YER
age workingmen's incomes. These
comprehensive and infinitely detailed
schedules were tabulated and very
carefully studied and analysed, and
trom them Professor Chaplin reaches
The conclusion that a workingman in
New York City can maintain a family
Of average size in a decent fashion on
5000 a year.
Even this amount, which is, per-
haps, $500 larger than the gross aver
age wages of workingmen, appears
20 be sufficient to maintain a physical
standard, to provide enough food and
clothing and a fairly sanitary and
comfortable dwelling, but will not
suffice to give much chance for recre-
alton and the higher life"
The report states that 1.-The results
Of the investigation indicate that
while the personal factor operates in
The case of every family, both as re-
CARDS the habits of the father and the
managing ability of the mother, the
limits within which it may affect the
actual sum total of material comforts
chat make up the living of the family
are set by social forces.
How Standard is Set.
"These social forces find express
sion, on the one side, in the income
which the family receives-that Is, in
the rate of wages received by the
father and others who are at work;
on the other side, they are expressed
In the prices that have to be paid to
get housing, food and kindred needs.
The actual standard that prevails is
set primarily, therefore, by the wages
paid and the prices charged"
This study upholds the conclusions
reached by former investigators, that
when incomes increase, expenditures
for rem and clothing remain static
for some time, while the amount for
food is increased. The expenditure
for rent Is found to remain the same
through quite a considerable increase
In the income, indicating that the
amount spent for food under the
smaller income has been less in pro-
portion to the total expenditure than
Is normal. Often a family will con-
:inue to live in poor quarters while
spending a larger amount for such
food and clothing than may seem
necessary, failing to recognize the
Importance Of sanitary apartments
even when within their income.
The average amount spent for
clothing is found to be 800. This
will barely suffice to provide decent
covering for a family Of five. In the
majority Of cases the small expendi-
lure is made possible by the fact that
the mother is dress-maker, tailor and
cobbler for the family. Very often
clothes are bought at secondhand
stores and rummage sales for very
small sums.
Expenditures For Food Alike.
The expenditure for food is singu-
1arly alike in the budgets Of the same
groups of incomes. Even in the
groups of high incomes the main diff
ference is in quantity rather than va
riety. Necessity may be said to be
the mother of domestic science. The
thrifty housewife is forced to work
out for herself a budget that will
yield the biggest results in nourish-
ment for the smallest amount of
money.
Even when the housewife is in no
way a dietician, the laws Of supply of
money and demand of appetite work
out results that prove to be almost
Identical in score of family budgets
of similar u Nearly half of
the total expenditures of the 391 fam
lilies is for food. The $500 families
spend on an average of $290.10 a
year, and the families of the $1,000
group average s451.46. An analysis
Of the budgets by Professor Under
hill, of Yale, would indicate that suf-
icient nourishment cannot be OBJ
tanned for less than twenty-five cents
a day per adult man.
The families with incomes between
S400 and $500 spend twenty-seven.
per cent. of their incomes for rent.
Those with incomes from $500 to
$500 average twenty-six per cent,
while the average from 5000 to $1,000
is only nineteen per cent. The rents
are higher in New York in proportion
to the number and grade Of rooms.
Out of 115 families with incomes
from 5000 to $500, seventy-one per
cent. have only three rooms; of the
ffty-eight families in the $500 group,
forty-eight per cent. have not more
than three rooms, and Of the seventy
families with incomes between $500
and $1,000, t%hirty-nine per cent. have
three rooms or less.
Can't Afford to Be Sick.
The average expenditure for health
.- q 1920 Co.. ~ fo~o;1;or