ACCEPTANCE OF NEW THEORY 137

In addition to this need for families of three children,
 the fundamental question, it was also pointed
out, was not really a statistical one. Statistical averages
 included young married couples with as yet few
or no children and also married couples with all their
children grown and fully self-supporting. The question,
 however, concerned rather the average size of
the average family at a particular, but very important,
point in their career. It also embraced the opportunity
 for a single man to be able to be married and to
pass successfully over this acutely stressful period of
family development.
As to the ability of industry to pay a living wage,
it was shown further by careful analysis, based on the
Reports of the Census Bureau and the National
Bureau of Economic Research, that the output of industry
 was sufficient to pay all unskilled workers a
living wage, and also corresponding increases in differentials
 to those above the grade of unskilled laborars.


[n this connection, it was emphasized further that
the living wage was concerned solely with adult male
heads of families, and that it did not directly apply to
women or children gainfully employed ; to proprietors
and others engaged in business of their own; to professional
 people, to those engaged in anti-social work,
or to chronic idlers or incapables. With these fundamental
 reservations in mind, it was then shown that,
according to the United States Census of 1920, there
were 41,609,192 persons, 10 years of age and over,
engaged in various gainful occupations, but after
sliminating the classes described in general above to
which the living wage would not apply—women, proprietors,
 officials and managers, children and appren-