MEASURING THE COST OF LIVING 15
States Bureau of Labor Statistics! studied the income and
expenditures of 25,440 families of wage workers and small
salaried employees in 33 states, for the purpose of finding
out not only how much it cost them to live but also to
learn the sources of income and what part of it was laid
out for each of the various items of expenditures, and
how each of these varied in different parts of the country,
with the size of the family. Mrs. L. B. More collected
and analyzed 200 family budgets in New York from 1903
to 1905 for the purpose of establishing the standard of
living prevailing in the neighborhood. R. C. Chapin in
1907 went a step farther. On the basis of a study of expen-
ditures of 391 families, he attempted to determine the content
and cost of a fair standard of living.* This was to be used as
a norm for measuring the adequacy of poor relief. Miss
Byington attempted by a study of family incomes and
expenditures in Homestead, Pa., in 1907 and 1908 to picture
the household life of a representative steel mill center.®
The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1908 sought
to determine what was a fair standard of living for cotton
mill operatives according to prevailing customs in northern
and southern cotton mill communities.” The Kensington
district in Philadelphia was surveyed in 1913 to 1915 to
establish the prevailing standard and cost of living.
Most of the studies mentioned in the preceding para-
1 The name of the present United States Bureau of Labor Statistics has been
changed several times since its organization as the Bureau of Labor in the Depart-
ment of the Interior in 1885. lts present name, Bureau of Labor Statistics in the
Department of Labor, will be used consistently throughout this volume.
_? United States, Commissioner of Labor, Eighteenth Annual Report, “Cost of
Living and Retail Prices of Food,” Washington, 1903. This is the first important
American study. A number of significant studies of budgets had been made
abroad prior to this; and in this country, both the state and federal governments
had compiled some data on the cost of living.
! Louise Bolard More, “Wage Earners’ Budgets,” New York, 1907.
4 Chapin, 0p. cit.
§ Margaret F. Byington, “Homestead: The Households of a Mill Town,” New
York, 1910.
United States, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Report on Condition of Woman
and Child Wage Earners in the United States, Vol. XVI, “Family Budgets of
Typical Cotton Mill Workers,” 61st Congress. 2nd Session, Senate Document No.
645, Washington, 1911.
? Esther Louise Little and William Joseph Henry Cotton, “Budgets of Families
and Individuals in Kensington, Philadelphia,” Lancaster, 1920.
