The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1951-01-11
You'll Be Asked To Help
Revise BIS Price Index

Washington LPA) - A MAI
from the Bureau of Labor Statistics
may ring your bell during the next
few months and ask you more ques-
tions than your wife did the night
she found the blonde hair on youl
lapel.
Answer the questions fully be-
cause they will help shape your
wages and your way of living fol
years to come. The questions will
be asked of 1900 families in 81
cities as part of the Bureaus three
year plan to revise its Consumers
Price Index and give it new look
instead of the patched-together
pieced-together look it now has.
Despite the fact that upwards
of 100000 wage earners are now
covered by contracts providing
wage changes when the price index
changes, the index is still based on
1868 figures and includes many
items which "moderate-income"
families no longer buy.
For that reason Evan Clague,
Commissioner of Labor Statistics,
started survey in the summer of
1949 to modernize the index. How
much it needs revising is pointed
out by the fact that moderate
income" family under the old index
was considered one which made
$500 to $4,000 in 1886.
Clague points out that average
factory earnings now top $50 a
week and that if more than one
person in the family works, income
can soar to figures which would
have been anything but moderate
in 1886. He estimates that the new
"moderate-income" will probably
be from $500 to $4,000 or $4,000.
The Consumers Price Index
measures monthly changes in what
the city family can buy with a
dollar. 1t is based on 200 items of
clothing, food, rent, fuel, house
furnishings, and other odds and
ends. 1t uses the prices of these
things during the 1935-1939 as 100
percent and adjusts today's prices
on a percentage basis so that a tie
that cost $1.50 in 1889 and So to-
day would be listed now at 200 per-
cent in the index.
The index tries to limit itself to
items bought by people who are not
at extreme ends of the income scale
the millionaires, people on relief,
retired and living on a small in
come, etc. 1t does not try to tag
things as "luxuries" or "necessit-
ies", but merely lists those things
for which people spend most of
their money.
The revised index will follow the
same general line, but it will in
clude smaller cities because it wasl
criticized during World War ii forl
selecting only heavily populated
areas.
Clague does not know as yeti
whether this will mean that there
will be an overall index, or whether
it will have to be broken down into
large" cities, "small" cities, orl
possibly into regions. That's one of
the questions he and his staff will
nave to answer when the survey isl
n
They will also have to decided
whether or not to stick to 200 items
and to the "a towns currently sur
yeyed every month. The number
IF towns will probably depend on
he size of the appropriation that
Congress gives the Bureau to work
With, but the number of items can
De juggled around to adjust to
modern day living.
For example,: During the first
quarter of 1851 few changes will
De worked into the index-beer,
,ola drinks, layer cake, baby foods.
'rozen foods, table model television
'ets, group disqualification plans,
md ice cream. There will be less
emphasis on ice and iceboXes and
more on electric refrigerators, less
IN butter and more on margarine.
These, Clague says, are not arbi-
rary decisions but reflect the
buying habits of the Am
,rican people. Other changes which
will be reflected are based on the
act that city families are now buy
ng more meat, poultry and eggs
md less flour and wheat than in
1886. They buy frozen foods, new
chemical cleaning powders, tele-
,ision sets and other things which
we're practically unknown 10 or Is
,ears ago. They spend smaller
for rent and a bigger
share for recreation, medical care
md automobiles.
While theoretically the new in
lex which goes into effect in Aug
lst 1852 should work out exactly
he same as the one now in use,
Jlague suggests that labor unions
md manufacturers include an "es-
ape" clause in contracts using the
Price Index to pegl
wages. He says this will help pre-
'ent industrial disputes growing
'ut of differences which are bound
n uunrk ont in pro atioa