MEASURING THE COST OF LIVING 19
measure of minimum wage rates, it became necessary more
nearly to approximate reality, and apparently the family of
five as a unit is by way of being abandoned in the near
future.
The Cost of Living of Single Women
Cost of living budgets for single wage earning women, like
cost of living budgets for workingmen’s families, developed
first as a matter of general sociological interest.? The grow-
ing interest in minimum wage legislation in this country in
the first decade of the century produced a further series of
reports on living conditions of women workers? A few
states attempted to collect itemized accounts of expenditures
as a basis for setting minimum wage rates, but for many
reasons these were not entirely satisfactory, and this method
was for the most part abandoned in favor of a theoretical
quantity budget, adapted to different occupations and local
prices.
The standard uniformly followed by all the states was
based on the needs of a self-dependent woman living apart
from a family group, without assistance and without depen-
dents.t The adoption of this standard has sometimes been
! See, for example, Paul H. Douglas, “Wages and the Family,” Chicago, 1925.
# Massachusetts, Bureau of Statistics of Labor, Fifteenth Annual Report, “The
Working Girls of Boston,” Boston, 1884; Louise Marion Bosworth, “The Living
Wage of Women Workers,” New York, 1911; Report on the Condition of Woman
and Child Wage Earners, 0p. cit., Vol. V, “Wage Earning Women in Stores and
Factories,” Washington, 1910.
8 A few of these may be noted as follows: Massachusetts, Commission on Mini.
mum Wage Boards, Report, Boston, January, 1912; Oregon, Consumer’s League,
Report of the Social Survey Committee on the Wages, Hours and Conditions of
Work and Cost and Standard of Living of Women Wage Earners in Oregon, with
Special Reference to Portland, Portland, 1913; Connecticut, Bureau of Labor,
The Conditions of Wage Earning Women and Girls,” Hartford, 1914; Washing-
ton, Industrial Welfare Commission, Report on the Wages, Conditions of Work
and Cost of Living of Women Wage Earners in Washington, Olympia, 1914; Cali-
fornia, Industrial Welfare Commission, First Biennial Report, 1913-1914, Sacra.
mento, 1915; Ohio, Industrial Commission, “Cost of Living of Working Women in
Ohio,” Columbus, 1915; Michigan, State Commission of Inquiry, Report into Wages
and the Conditions of Labor for Women and to the Advisability of Establishing a
Minimum Wage, Lansing, 1915; New York, Factory Investigating Commission,
Reports, especially the Fourth, Albany, 1915, Vols. I and IV; Wisconsin, Indus-
trial Commission, © Cost of Living of Wage Farning Women in Wisconsin.” Madi-
son, May 1, 1916.
# The Massachusetts Commission on Minimum Wage Boards is the only one
that submitted an estimate of the cost of living for a woman living at home as
a part of a family group.
