68 COST OF LIVING IN THE UNITED STATES 
Labor Statistics, from which present consumption weights 
were derived, was made in 1918 and 1919.! Expenditures 
and quantity consumption were studied among 12,096 white 
families? in 92 towns in 42 states. These towns represented 
all types of industrial activity in all parts of the country.? 
Families to be scheduled were required to meet the follow- 
ing qualifications: 
“1. The family must be that of a wage earner or salaried 
worker, but not of a person in business for himself. The 
families taken should represent proportionally the wage 
earners and the low or medium salaried families of the 
locality. 2. The family must have as a minimum a husband 
and wife and at least one child who is not a boarder or lodger. 
3. The family must have kept house in the locality for the 
entire year covered. 4. At least 759, of the family income 
must come from the principal breadwinner or others who 
contribute all earnings to the family fund. 5. All items of 
income and expenditure of members other than those living 
as lodgers must be obtainable. 6. The family may not have 
boarders nor over three lodgers, either outsiders or children 
living as such. 7. The family must have no sub-rental other 
than furnished rooms for lodgers. 8. Slum or charity 
families or non-English-speaking families who have been 
less than five years in the United States should not be 
taken.”* The average size of family was 4.9 persons® or 3.32 
equivalent adult males.? 
Schedules containing 474 questions were filled in by 
agents of the Bureau through interviewing the families.” 
1 United States, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletin 357, 0p. cit.; ibid., “Methods 
of Procuring and Computing Statistical Information of the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics,” Bulletin No. 326, Washington, 1923, pp. 6-22. See also National 
Industrial Conference Board, Research Report No. 41, op. cit., pp. 10-12. 
2 Budgets were also collected from 741 colored families, but they have not been 
ased in weighting subsequently collected prices. 
8 These are listed in Bulletin No. 357, op. cit., pp. 2-3; also in Research Report 
No. 41, op. cit., pp. 90-97. 
4 Bulletin No. 357, op. cit., p. 2. Requirement 6 was construed not to refer to 
nor include relatives, servants, nurses, etc., temporarily in the home, who were 
furnished board free. 
8 The size of the groups varied with the income. Iéid., p. 5. 
8 “Equivalent adult males” is the measure used to reduce all of the members 
of a family of different sex and age to a common food-consumption basis, using that 
of the adult male as one. 
7" Bulletin No. 326, op. cit., pp. 6-13.