Excerpt from Studies of the Cost of Maintaining a Family at a Level of Health and Reasonable Comfort
Budgetary studies have two phases. The first is the determination of the standards and quantities of things necessary to maintain a family at a certain level of living. The second is to ascertain the cost of the items arrived at as necessary for the purpose mentioned. The determination of the quantity budget is of course the^ more difficult. The pricing of the. quantity budget is a mere mechanical detail, involving nothing more than careful field work.
The ultimate interest, however, lies in the cost of the budget. For the practical value of such studies is to ascertain in what degree a particular group of people are attaining the living standards set up, and this is most readily measured in terms of dollars and cents. On the other hand, it must always he remembered that the cost of a budget is a changing thing, fluctuating with the changes in prices, and that the tests of sufficiency or insufficiency are the items themselves, not their cost.
Budgetary studies of the character referred to had their scientific beginning in this country with Chapin's "The Standard of Living in New York City" (1907) and More's "Wage-Earners' Budgets" (1903-1905). These were followed by other careful investigations, such as those of the New York State Factory Investigation Commission and the Bureau of Personal Service of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment of New York City in 1915.
Recently the growing interest in the subject of a living wage has stimulated a series of studies,, which, because they had the work of earlier students and investigators to build upon, are more comprehensive and more accurate than the pioneer studies could be. The subject is still not upon a plane of absolute scientific precision, but the recently published reports of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, the National Industrial Conference Board and the Philadelphia Bureau of Municipal Research offer material of very great value for a final solution of the problem.
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