32 
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES 
B. Minimum Health and Comfort 
Level Date 
Minimum Budgetary Estimate for 
Pacific Coast Workers, Doctor 
Jessica B. Peixotto, University of 
California ....ceeeeeeeeeeess..1917 $1,476.40 
Budget Awarded in Seattle and 
Tacoma Street Railway Arbitra- 
tion .... .1917 1,505.60 
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The contrast in the costs as well as in the fundamental 
conceptions of the two standards is apparent. The sig- 
nificance obviously consists in the accompanying demand, 
in connection with the higher standard, that the alleged 
law of supply and demand should not be permitted to 
force wage-rates to a mere physical level of existence, or, 
in other words, to a point where they would not yield 
sufficient earnings to enable a wage-earner to support his 
family in health and with reasonable comfort. 
Tae THEORY OF INCREASED PRODUCTIVE EFFICIENCY 
During the period immediately preceding the Great War, 
or during the years 1913-1915, another wage theory was 
also developed, which, altho then unaccepted, had a funda- 
mental and far-reaching effect upon future thinking and 
action. It was known at the time, and later, as the “theory 
of increased productive efficiency.” When first put for- 
ward it was attacked as “academic” and “visionary,” but 
later it was accepted by organized labor as the funda- 
mental feature of its constructive wage policy, and finally 
became the basis of the revolutionary program of industry 
itself after the World War. For these reasons its origin 
and development are of great interest. 
The minimum subsistence and health-and-comfort stand- 
ards of living and compensation, as advocated in the pre-