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5
CONFERENCE BOARD INDEX 33
or items in the cost of living by average wage earning
ilies in July, 1914. While no total expenditure require-
1ts are expressed or implied in this distribution, it serves
onvenient purpose if it be assumed that $1,000 annually
divided as follows: food, $431; shelter, $177; clothing,
2; fuel and light, $56; sundries, $204. The budget
tibutions used, the number of families represented and
methods of combining them to obtain the weightings
dted as representative of July, 1914 are shown in Table 2.
'aving determined a representative apportionment of the
cgate cost of living among its component parts in 1914,
not knowing, through the collection and analysis of
umption data, the complete details of the goods and
ices included, nor finding it practicable to collect, as
2 as would be desirable, prices of all the goods and
Ices entering into a complete budget, it next became
ssary to select a number of articles which would ade-
ely represent each item and to determine how these, in
should be weighted to represent the major group itself,
2r
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e determination of housing requirements was based on
al study of prevailing standards and existing housing
imodations, and also of more general considerations,
as the demands of health, safety and sanitation. While,
it, Inquiries related only to “housing such as is usually
ted by wage earners,” by 1920 more definite specifi-
'$ were made. It had been determined, for example,
1ealth and comfort required four or five rooms for an
ge family; that, except under unusual circumstances,’
‘n dwellings for working men are built with bath
; that, except in a few large cities, none of them are
1. The standard adopted in 1920 and used ever since
refore, “a house or unheated apartment of four or
»oms with bath, such as are usually occupied by wage
’s.” Further than that, no specifications are made.
; 0 places the rents secured are for cottages, in others,
1
as cottages in the southern cotton mill
how being built with modern bath rooms.
towns, for example: some of
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