20 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES who, instead of engaging in outside employment or taking boarders and lodgers in the home, should have had their energies free to devote exclusively to their children and their households. It was therefore apparent that compe- tition, or the free play of the forces of supply and demand, in determining wages for these classes, should be so checked that the lowest wage-rates should not fall below the danger point—the point where the wage-earner and his family could not satisfy elementary subsistence needs. THE RESULTS OF BUDGETARY STUDIES Investigations were made to determine what this basic wage-rate should be. These inquiries consisted of budg- etary studies for the purpose of ascertaining what the minimum requirements for food, shelter, fuel, clothing and lighting of an average unskilled wage-earner’s family would cost on the basis of contemporaneous prices. Scien- tific analyses were prepared as to the food values necessary for workingmen and their wives and children of school age. Computations were then made as to the outlay neces- sary for food ordinarily purchased by wage-earners in order to provide proper nourishment on the basis of these scientifically determined food requirements. Direct investi- gations were also conducted in industrial localities to find out the cost of necessary housing, clothing, fuel, and light and sundries. These items were then brought together, and their aggregate cost disclosed the amount of family income essential to the physical maintenance alone of an average wage-earner’s family. No allowance was made for comforts, luxuries, recreation, or savings. The mini- mum budget represented the minimum cost of bare sub- sistence. As early as 1901, the United States Bureau of Labor had made a general study of more than 25,000 families of