152 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES 
came the platform, so to speak, of the “living wage” move- 
ment, which has been vigorously carried forward to the 
present day. 
This standard of living not only makes provision for 
the physical needs of wage-earners and their families, but 
provides also for social needs—such as some degree of 
recreation, some reading matter, the essentials of health 
preservation, decent clothing for social intercourse, and 
the minimum amount of life and health insurance. 
2. The Savings or American Level of Living. This 
budgetary level marked another step in advance of the level 
of the health-and-comfort standard. It arose from the 
contention, after 1922, that a mere “living wage” was not 
sufficient for American workmen, and that they should 
be enabled to look forward to the ownership of a home, 
tHe reasonable education of their children, the freedom of 
action to develop individual ability, and a margin of sav- 
ings for protection against sickness, unemployment, old 
age and death. In its most generally accepted form, this 
budgetary level represented the minimum health-and-com- 
fort level plus the opportunity to save. It may now be 
said, so far as general acceptation goes, to have super- 
seded the health-and-comfort level as the irreducible 
minimum. 
3. The Cultural Wage or Standard of Living. This 
conception of what should be the real status of the wage- 
earner and his family has recently been put forward by an 
industrial executive of national and international repu- 
tation! It goes beyond the satisfaction of physical and 
social needs to the means of meeting the cultural require- 
ments of the wage-earner and his family. It also lays 
down the dictum that men must be economically as well 
"1 See quotation from address of Mr. Owen D. Young, chairman of the 
Board of Directors of the General Electric Co., pp. 122-123,