16 COST OF LIVING IN THE UNITED STATES 
graph contained estimates of the necessary minimum cost 
of living annually for a family of five persons, on the basis 
of conditions actually prevailing. The usual method was 
to determine from the expenditures of the families surveyed 
the amount for which a satisfactory standard of living could 
be attained. It was but a step from these studies of what 
real families actually have and spend, to the construction 
of theoretical budgets designed to show what they should 
have and spend to maintain a satisfactory standard of living.! 
It was not until 1915 that an attempt was made in this 
country to estimate the cost of maintaining a minimum 
standard of living on the basis of a theoretical budget for a 
theoretical family, at local prices.” 
Although the purpose of each of the later cost of living 
surveys made on this theoretical basis was to determine the 
minimum cost of living, procedure soon divided. One group 
of estimates was related to conditions locally prevailing; 
that is, to prices of the goods and services actually consumed 
or available for use by families of the type whose minimum 
cost of living was being fixed; the other was on the basis 
of a desirable standard, whether or not that standard 
could be maintained locally.t Since both were spoken of 
ac the minimum cost of living, much confusion resulted.’ 
1 Expenditures by actual families have afforded evidence regarding consumption 
habits. Thus, the kinds and quantities of food consumed in 1901 by 2,567 families 
who were able to furnish detailed records regarding expenditures served until 1921 
as the basis for weighting the retail food prices collected each month by the United 
States Bureau of Labor Statistics for their index number. A similar survey of 
12,096 white families in 92 towns in 42 states in 1918 and 1919 served as the basis 
for weighting the retail prices collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for its 
cost of living index number. (See pp. 68-72 of this volume.) A study by the Phila. 
delphia Bureau of Municipal Research in 1916-1918 was used as the basis for con~ 
structing what was thought to be a fair minimum standard of consumption require- 
ments. Bureau of Municipal Research of Philadelphia, “Workingmen’s Standard 
of Living in Philadelphia,” New York, 1919. 
2 New York City, Board of Estimate and Apportionment, Report on the Cost 
of Living for an Unskilled Laborer’s Family in New York City, submitted by the 
Bureau of Standards to the Committee on Salary and Grades, 1915; #bid., Report 
on the Increased Cost of Living for an Unskilled Laborer’s Family in New York 
City, prepared by the Bureau of Personal Service, 1917. 
3 Report on the Increased Cost of Living, op. cit National Industrial Confer- 
ance Board, Research Reports Nos. 22,24; Special Reports Nos. 7, 8,13, 16, 19, 21, 
4 These are described and summarized in Research Report No. 41, 0p. ¢it., pp. 
11-49. A few wage arbitrations have produced new budgets, but for the most 
sart these are based on new prices of a familiar list of goods and services. 
5 See. for example. Stecker. op. cit., pp. 456-457.