CONFLICT AND RECONSTRUCTION 59

decency” for the average family of a Government clerk
in the City of Washington,
This task was accomplished with the greatest scientific
care and accuracy, and with proper reference to the previous
 investigations made by the Bureau as to actual living
costs of wage-earning families. The first budget, published
 in 1919, was tentative, but it was revised in 1920
after further investigations by the Bureau, and by the
findings of a sub-committee of the National Conference
on Social Work with special reference to the industrial
worker.
The level of living which it was aimed to establish in
this budget may be best described in the words of the
Bureau’s own explanation, as follows :!

Previous studies of the subject have analyzed the conception
 of budget level and have distinguished several levels.
Some of the more important of these are as follows:
{a) The pauper or poverty level. This represents roughly
a standard of living just above where families receive aid
from charity or where they run into serious debt.
(b) The minimum of subsistence level. This is based
essentially on mere animal existence and allows little or
nothing for the needs of men as social creatures.
(¢) The minimum of health and comfort level. This represents
 a slightly higher level than that of subsistence, providing
 not only for the material needs of food, shelter, and
body covering, but also for certain comforts, such as clothing
sufficient for bodily comfort and to maintain the. wearer's
instinct of self-respect and decency, some insurance against
the more important misfortunes—death, disability, and fire—
good education for the children, some amusement, and some
expenditures for self-development.
Inasmuch as the primary aim of this study was to furnish
L United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, Washington, 1920.