34 COST OF LIVING IN THE UNITED STATES 
semi-detached houses; in others, two-family houses, flats or 
tenements. In each instance the character of the housing 
listed is that usually occupied by the families of working 
men. In large cities, several types of dwelling may be repre- 
sented. The only common standard beyond the number of 
rooms and sanitary requirements is that they be the cus- 
tomary dwelling of wage earners in that locality. 
Clothing 
This item in the family budget is one of the most difficult 
to standardize, because of well-nigh unmeasurable differences 
in tastes and in the requirements of social, economic and 
climatic conditions. When the Board’s first survey was 
made in June, 1918, a number of lists of clothing require- 
ments at a minimum standard were available! but none of 
these was adequate to measure the needs of average or 
normal wage earners’ families. The necessity for speed at 
that time precluded an extensive survey of the field, but 25 
articles of yard goods? and wearing apparel were chosen 
arbitrarily to represent different types of requirements. 
These alone were not enough, however, to show clothing 
costs, since they meant little without data regarding relative 
consumption. Hence, clothing budgets also were constructed 
as a means of weighting price increases. These budgets 
showed what might be regarded as the clothing bought in 
one year, rather than as the clothing available in one year, 
since ordinarily a person’s wardrobe will include a number 
of articles carried over from one season to another. The 
quantity allowances for the different articles and their basic 
prices were fixed after careful study of all the data available, 
and the final figures were those revised and agreed to by a 
number of wage earners and their families. At first, two 
sets of clothing budgets were made up, one of a somewhat 
better grade than the other, which required a smaller outlay 
1 More, op. ¢it., pp. 235 ff; Chapin, 0p. ¢it., pp. 165-166; Kennedy, op. cit., p. 78; 
New York State Factory Investigating Commission, Fourth Report, op. cit., 
Volume IV, pp. 1519-1530; 1660-1665; Report on the Increased Cost of Wage 
Living for an Unskilled Laborer’s Family, op. ¢it., pp. 20-21; Report of the Dallas 
Commission, 0p. cit., pp. 15-16; “Family Budgets of Typical Cotton Mill Work. 
ers,” op. cit, pp. 145-146; 239-240, 
2 Prices of vard goods are not used in making up the final clothing budgets.