CHANGES IN THE COST OF LIVING 129 
ments. The analysis covers a period of eleven and one-half 
years, from July, 1914 through December, 1925. 
Tre GENERAL TREND 
At the end of 1925, the cost of living as a whole was in 
about the same position as compared with the pre-war level 
of prices as it had been early in 1921. There were these 
differences, however, that in 1921 the average increase was 
made up of large advances for some items and smaller 
ones for others, whereas in 1925 all major items were at 
nearly the same level with relation to the common base of 
July, 1914. In 1921, also, with the exception of rents, prices 
of the more important items in the family budget were sliding 
rapidly downward, whereas at the end of 1925, the only 
noticeable movement was a slight tendency toward a decline 
in average rents, and an advance in food prices.! Food 
prices, exclusive of seasonal changes of no great importance, 
were fairly stable from the middle of 1921 to the middle of 
1925. During the last months of 1925, however, the advance 
expected at that time of the year brought retail food prices 
to a higher level than at any period within the preceding 
five years. Clothing prices, which reached their lowest point 
in the summer of 1922, moved upward again almost im- 
mediately but in 1924 and 1925 changed but little from 
month to month. The sundries group, made up of a number 
of items of which changes in cost affect the index number as 
a whole, had not changed to amount to anything, since the 
end of 1922. Fuel and light costs were difficult to measure 
at the end of 1925 because of the strike in the anthracite 
industry and the resulting lack of coal for general distribu- 
tion. Until that time, the recorded peak of coal prices was 
in November, 1920. A decline to the middle of 1922, and 
another advance at the end of 1922, maintained through the 
early part of 1923, was followed by a steady decline in coal 
prices to July, 1925. Gas and electricity costs had likewise 
fallen as the cumulative advances allowed the various utili- 
! Coal prices were, of course, mounting tremendously but a satisfactory record 
of this movement could not be made because of the absence of anthracite in sufficient 
quantities to supply the market, and the difficulty of comparing the cost of substi- 
tutes with the cost of anthracite previously used.