20 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES

who, instead of engaging in outside employment or taking
boarders and lodgers in the home, should have had their
energies free to devote exclusively to their children and
their households. It was therefore apparent that competition,
 or the free play of the forces of supply and demand,
in determining wages for these classes, should be so
checked that the lowest wage-rates should not fall below
the danger point—the point where the wage-earner and his
family could not satisfy elementary subsistence needs.
THE RESULTS OF BUDGETARY STUDIES
Investigations were made to determine what this basic
wage-rate should be. These inquiries consisted of budgetary
 studies for the purpose of ascertaining what the
minimum requirements for food, shelter, fuel, clothing
and lighting of an average unskilled wage-earner’s family
would cost on the basis of contemporaneous prices. Scientific
 analyses were prepared as to the food values necessary
for workingmen and their wives and children of school
age. Computations were then made as to the outlay necessary
 for food ordinarily purchased by wage-earners in
order to provide proper nourishment on the basis of these
scientifically determined food requirements. Direct investigations
 were also conducted in industrial localities to find
out the cost of necessary housing, clothing, fuel, and light
and sundries. These items were then brought together,
and their aggregate cost disclosed the amount of family
income essential to the physical maintenance alone of an
average wage-earner’s family. No allowance was made
for comforts, luxuries, recreation, or savings. The minimum
 budget represented the minimum cost of bare subsistence.


As early as 1901, the United States Bureau of Labor
had made a general study of more than 25,000 families of