138 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES 
tices, farm laborers, servants, professional persons, 
members of United States Army and Navy, criminals, 
idlers, and inmates of public institutions, and the 
unemployed—there would remain only 17,423,077 
persons to whom the living-wage principle would be 
applicable. Estimating the amount necessary to main- 
tain a living-wage standard according to the budget 
of health and comfort issued by the U. S. Bureau of 
Labor Statistics in 1919, and increasing each unskilled 
worker to the amount his earnings fall below this 
figure, and also adding a similar amount to the earn- 
ings of those in the higher grades of occupations so 
that existing differentials in rates of pay would be 
maintained, it was estimated would add from 22 to 34 
per cent. or from $7,400,000,000 to $11,370,000,000, 
to the national wage bill, according to 1922 conditions 
and the extent to which the living wage was applied. 
As the total amount paid in wages in 1918, according 
to the Bureau of Economic Research, was 33 billion 
dollars and the total national income was 61 billions, 
it was concluded that the national income was suffi- 
cient to stand a practical application of the living wage 
without increasing prices or unduly decreasing capital 
returns. 
The economic result of applying the living-wage 
principle, or, in other words, of increasing the national 
wage bill from 22 to 34 per cent. it was further 
claimed, would not be a dead weight on industry, but 
would be absorbed by other balancing factors; part 
of the expense might be paid out of excess profits, 
or the entire expense might be offset by the increased 
efficiency of labor and management in reducing costs 
of production and eliminating waste. It was not logi- 
cal, it was contended, to assume the indefinite continu-