32 COST OF LIVING IN THE UNITED STATES
States Bureau of Labor Statistics for the country as a whole
in 19013! another pre-war budget was one of Chapin’s in
New York in 1907.2 To offset these, if any modification were
needed to bring them more nearly in line with conditions in
1914, budgets collected in 1915 and 1917 were combined with
them.? The result, although largely weighted by the Bureau
of Labor Statistics budget of 1901, because it covered the
largest number of families, was sufficiently different from it
to reflect changes in the intervening years and very fairly
depicts the relative importance attached to the different
TaBLE 2: PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTION OF EXPENDITURES
For THE Principal ITEMs IN THE ANNUAL BUDGETS
or Wace Earners’ FaMiLIES
Authority, Date, Locality Covered,
Number of Families
United States Bureau of Labor
Statistics
1901: United States,
11,156 families... ...
1917: New York City,
608 families. .....
1917: Philadelphia,
512 families. .....x
United States Railroad Wage
Commission
1915: United States,
265 families. .....
Dallas Wage Commission
1917: Dallas, Tex.,
50 families. .....
Robert C. Chapin
1907: New York City,
31 families with in|
comes $1,000 to $1,099
Average, weighted according
to number of families... .
Food
Shelter
5 Fuel and 3 All
Clothing ! Liane | Sundries | Teams
43.13
18.12
12.95
14.84
15.07
£60
70.11
100.00
100.00
100.00
45.01
12.91
4.61
12 63
43.31
17 04
| 4095
23974
220 |
20.0
15.0
60
M10
100.00
45 O01
14.51
12.87
0112
18 20
100.00
44.7 | 18.1 | 155 | es 172 | 10000
13.13 | 17.65 13.21 | 5.63 | 20.38 | 100.00
s Includes expenditures for ice, telephone, water and laundry, as well as for fuel
and light.
b Includes Dallas, Tex. Excluding Dallas, the average proportion of the total
expenditure for fuel and light is 5.61%.
1 Eighteenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, op. ¢it., p. 101,
2 Chapin, op. cit., p. 70.
_ & Monthly Review of the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, March, 1918, p. 112;
ibid., April, 1918, p. 152; United States Railroad Administration, Report of the
Railroad Wage Commission to the Director General of Railroads, Washington,
1918, pp. 87, 91; Dallas Wage Commission. Report of the Survey Committee,
Dallas. 1917. ». 5.