Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1948-08-25
Living Costs Hit
New Peak, Up
9.7% in Year
Food Prices Decline
Slightly Here With
Drop in Vegetables
By Chalmers M. Roberts

BY Chalmers M. Roberts
There are plenty of figures
today to show the cost of living
is still going up.
From the Labor Departments
Bureau of Labor Statistics and the
Agriculture Departments Bureau of
Agricultural Economics these facts
emerged late yesterday:
l. Nationally. the Labor Statistics
Bureau consumers price index for
all purchases by city families
reached new high on July IS. top
ping the previous high of June Is
by IL per cent. The index is UP 81
per cent in a year and 30.3 per cent
since June, l946.
2. In Washington, the index for
food alone decreased one tenth of
j per cent because declines in
such things as fresh fruits and vege-
tables, down as per cent in the
month, just managed to offset the
continued rise in the meat-poultry-
flsh group, up l.8 per cent, and
other rises. for eggs, dairy products,
fats and oils, sugar and sweets and
cereals and bakery products.
Motors, Insurance Pay Boosts.
3. The rise in the price index
brought an automatic wage increase
of cents an hour to some 265, 900
employees of General Motors Corp.
under its contract with the CLOS
United Auto Workers. The en-
ployes are entitled to quarterly
raises of / cent for each LA points
the index rises.
A similar wage increase will 90 to
242 employees of the Government
Employees Insurance Co. of WASH
ington. Employees will receive a
l per cent pay raise for each 2-point
rise in the BIS index. beginning
September /, on quarterly basis.
The raise is effective on the first
$500 of monthly pay.
4. The Agricultural Economics
Bureau market basket" cost figure
for June was up more than / per
cent from the previous high month
of January, 1913. The figures show
that in June it cost $705 to buy the
average annual farm food products
used by a family of 8 average con-
sumers back in the 1858 period.
The cost in June was lot per. cent
above the 1858 period.
Once again. food is the most in
flated of all living costs, Nationally,
it took $2.l6 to buy what 81 used
to buy in 1858. To buy what 81
used to buy in other goods. and serv-
ices, this is what the labor bureau
figures show was needed as of
July Is:
Apparel, S1.97; house furnishings,
$ls6; fuel, gas and electricity, $1.35;
rent, Sill, and miscellaneous, $3.50.
NJ Price Increases Here.
7 In Washington, the Labor De-
partment figures showed such in
creases in one month as these:
Whole ham, up So per cent to an
average of 71.7, cents a pound;
cheese, up Sc per cent to It's cents:
eggs, up per cent to 70 cents a
dozen; rib roast, up 6 per cent to
1877 cents; pork chops, up 40 per
cent to 857 cents. These were av-
erage figures. Pork chop prices
varied all the way from SO cents
to Sl.05 pound, for example.
The big decreases which resulted
in the fractional overall decline for
foods came in apples, down 23.8 per
cent; carrots, down 1872 per cent;
onions. down 173 per cent, and
potatoes, down 81 per cent. Or
anges, however, rose Al per cent as
the supply switched from the Flor
ida to the California variety.
In Detroit General Motors said
the Scent wage adjustment for its
265,O0o hourly employees will be
effective for the months of Sep
TENDER, October and November.
Another $1,000 salaried employees
will receive $24 in September, repre-
senting a cost-of- living adjustment
for the past three months.
The head of the auto unions's
GIN division, T. S. tombstone, said
in Detroit that the union members
welcome the increase but they
know that the cost of living rise
from which this wage increase flows
marks another defeat for all Amer
lean consumers in the long fight
against imitation"
The Bureau of Agricultural Eco
nomics figures for the family mar
ket basket showed that declining
share of the consumers dollar is
going to the farmer. OF the s705
it would have cost in June to fill
the basket for a year. 81 per cent
went to the farmer, the rest to the
professor, transporter, wholesaler
and retailer In May the farmer
received exactly so cents out of each
dollar.
The June figure was the lowest
for the farmer in five years, but
was ahead of the prewar 1858
average when the farmer received
40 cents out of the dollar spent at
the store.
Meat was the biggest item in the
basket, consuming $213 of the S705.
In prewar days the same meats
we're purchased for only $50.