2 58 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



dogmatic answer."^ The family to which these conclusions referred is 

 a " normal " family, consisting of a man, wife and three children under 

 fourteen years of age. 



In the same report appears an analysis of one hundred workingmen's 

 families in Buffalo, with the conclusion that before they were applied to 

 Buffalo, the New York figures should be reduced by $150,^ and this 

 estimate is probably confirmed by a later Buffalo study.* 



In Homestead, a suburb of Pittsburgh, a recently completed study 

 covered ninety-nine families, from whose budgets the investigation 

 concludes : " It is not until we cross the $20 (a week) mark that we feel 

 that the family is well provided for and need, if provident, have no fears 

 for the future." 



A report of the Maryland Labor Bureau contains the following 

 statement relative to Baltimore : " A family of six living in any large 

 American city on less than $1,000 will wear neither diamonds nor 

 velvet, nor will their children get the benefits of high schools nor tech- 

 nical colleges; indeed, they will not have more than the necessities 

 of life." 



The available authorities are, therefore, in practical agreement that 

 an efficiency standard of living can be maintained in the cities of the 

 Middle States on from $750 to $900, varying with the family, the 

 nationality and the city. Accepting these conclusions as a basis for 

 further argument, we must next inquire how the wages actually paid 

 compare with this efficiency standard, since the relation of workingmen 

 to efficiency standards is, in the last analysis, measured by the wages 

 which they receive. 



How many men earn from $750 to $900? In other words, how 

 many workmen receive sufficient wages to enable them to rear three 

 children, give them enough nourishing food, warm clothes, a decent 

 house, an education to their fourteenth year, and a legitimate amount 

 of recreation? An answer to this problem is best sought in the able 

 statistics of American wages. 



The available statistics of classified wages, which are, in the last 

 analysis, the only really valuable wage statistics, permit of conclusions 

 regarding the wages paid to both males and females. The following 

 table, containing a brief summary of the available data on the wages of 

 adult males, furnishes the most accurate available answer to the ques- 

 tion " What are wages ?" For brevity, the table covers only five income 

 groups, for each of which the cumulative percentages are set down. 

 Throughout the table, these statistics are remarkably uniform. About 

 one half of the adult males receive less than $13 per week ($600 per 



"" Supra, p. 246. 



'Supra, Appendix V., prepared by John E. Howard, Jr., pp. 315-17. 

 * ' * Decencies which a Laborer 's Wage Denies, ' ' Frederic Almy, The Survey, 

 Vol. XXIV., p. 368 (June 4, 1910). 



