The Cost of Living Among Wage-Earners

The accompanying study of the cost of living among wage-earners in Fall River, Massachusetts, aims to establish the cost of maintaining a wage-earner's family at a minimum but reasonable standard of living in this textile manufacturing center; also the cost of maintaining such a family at a somewhat better standard.

The Board has already made several broad surveys of changes in the cost of living in American wage-earning communities since the outbreak of the World War in July, 1914. These cover the entire country and are designed to bring out the extent of change during the periods studied, not the actual cost of living. The results of the present investigation in Fall River, made independently of these broader surveys, throw an interesting sidelight on the wider studies and also permit of a valuable check on them.

It is intended to make similar intensive studies from time to time in other representative industrial communities.

The Cost of Living Among Wage-Earners

Fall River, Massachusetts

October, 1919

PURPOSE OF THE INVESTIGATION

The following report summarizes the results of a study undertaken to determine the cost of maintaining a minimum American standard of living in Fall River, Massachusetts, in October, 1919, and also the cost of maintaining a somewhat more liberal standard. At the same time, an attempt was made to ascertain the increase in the cost of living at identical standards during the five-year period beginning with October, 1914.

METHOD

For the purpose of this study, the cost of living was estimated with reference to the needs of a man, his wife and three children under fourteen years of age. No attempt was made to secure family budgets from representative wage-earners. Instead, the amount of food, clothing, fuel, heat, light and other items needed to meet the requirements of a decent standard of living was carefully estimated on the basis of several budget studies made by other authorities, and prices of these various items were obtained. Thus, while the final estimate of the money cost of maintaining a definite standard of living is not based on actual family expenditures, but rather is a hypothetical budget designed to maintain a hypothetical family at a specified standard, it should closely approximate the true conditions. In practice, expenditures for the different items in the budget may and undoubtedly will vary considerably to meet the needs or tastes of individual families, but although the sums allowed for the total cost of living may be distributed in a large variety of ways, the averages given are as nearly representative as any that can be reached. It should always be borne in mind, however, that the figures are averages, even though they include a large variety of data.