FOREWORD 
ARLY in 1926 the Board issued a comprehensive vol- 
ume entitled, “The Cost of Living in the United 
States, 1914-1926.” This volume, besides containing 
an exhaustive review of data regarding the cost of living from 
1914 to the end of 1925, explains in detail the methods 
which the Conference Board employs to collect information 
regarding the cost of living and to compile its index number, 
analyzes the construction of the indexes of the cost of living 
prepared by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Massa- 
chusetts Commission on the Necessaries of Life, and compares 
the results of the three separate studies. Finally, it gives an 
extensive exposition of the index numbers of retail prices of 
various commodities entering into the cost of living as deter- 
mined by investigations of the National Industrial Confer- 
ence Board. 
The present analysis is intended as a supplement to last 
year’s report, and presents the results of the Conference 
Board’s studies for the year 1926. The tables here published 
continue those in the more comprehensive study of last year, 
and a note on each states on which page of the original 
volume information for the years 1914 through 1925 will be 
found. A short explanation of the trend of the cost of living 
for the year, together with the facts necessary to link the 
year 1926 to the previous series, concludes the statement. 
In the volume to which reference has been made it was 
pointed out that “in probably no field of statistical inquiry is 
knowledge of the basis and general nature of the calculations 
so essential to prevent misinterpretation and confusion.” 
The information contained in this survey can, therefore, be 
understood in all its implications only by reference to the 
explanations given in the volume on “The Cost of Living 
in the United States, 1914-1926.” 
This volume is the result of an investigation conducted by 
the Conference Board's Research Staff, under the supervision 
of the Board’s Staff Economic Council. 
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