CONFLICT AND RECONSTRUCTION 59 
decency” for the average family of a Government clerk 
in the City of Washington, 
This task was accomplished with the greatest scientific 
care and accuracy, and with proper reference to the pre- 
vious investigations made by the Bureau as to actual living 
costs of wage-earning families. The first budget, pub- 
lished in 1919, was tentative, but it was revised in 1920 
after further investigations by the Bureau, and by the 
findings of a sub-committee of the National Conference 
on Social Work with special reference to the industrial 
worker. 
The level of living which it was aimed to establish in 
this budget may be best described in the words of the 
Bureau’s own explanation, as follows :! 
Previous studies of the subject have analyzed the concep- 
tion of budget level and have distinguished several levels. 
Some of the more important of these are as follows: 
{a) The pauper or poverty level. This represents roughly 
a standard of living just above where families receive aid 
from charity or where they run into serious debt. 
(b) The minimum of subsistence level. This is based 
essentially on mere animal existence and allows little or 
nothing for the needs of men as social creatures. 
(¢) The minimum of health and comfort level. This rep- 
resents a slightly higher level than that of subsistence, pro- 
viding not only for the material needs of food, shelter, and 
body covering, but also for certain comforts, such as clothing 
sufficient for bodily comfort and to maintain the. wearer's 
instinct of self-respect and decency, some insurance against 
the more important misfortunes—death, disability, and fire— 
good education for the children, some amusement, and some 
expenditures for self-development. 
Inasmuch as the primary aim of this study was to furnish 
L United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, Washington, 1920.