WAYS AND MEANS 259 



The Ill-to-do . . . Love of the deep, far woods, and a desire to find rest 

 and peace there, is an impulse surpassing class distinctions. The man with a 

 million-dollar inheritance and the dollar-a-day farm and mill hand may 

 each find his greatest happiness in the peace of woodland. The major 

 difference is that the farm and mill hand can seldom afford it. 



If it is good for the rich to get a change of scene, and rest, it is also good 

 for the poor. Unfortunately, the ability to get to the forest bears no relation 

 to need. The public forests are there, free, open to all. But it takes some 

 money to get to them, and some more money to subsist during a vacation 

 there. Not much money; just a little extra money. And not everyone has 

 that extra money. 



Sometimes you will hear a man with a yearly income of as much as 

 $5,000 remark: "I might be able to afford it, if only I were rich." Actually, 

 he is very rich compared to the great majority of his fellow men, even in the 

 United States today. A $5,000 income places him among the top 2 l / 2 percent 

 of our population. 



Nearly half of the families or independent single individuals in this 

 country have an income of $1,000 a year, or less. A recent study of the 

 distribution of consumer income, made by the National Resources Com- 

 mittee, estimated that some 116 million people living in 29,400,000 family 

 groups and an additional 9,700,000 men and women living by themselves 

 constitute the national income-spending units. The total distribution of 

 the American income ran as follows during 1935-36: 



Of 39,058,300 income units in the United States, 47 percent had $1,000 

 a year, or less; 35 percent had between $1,000 and $2,000; 11 percent had 

 between $2,000 and $3,000; 4% percent had between $3,000 and $5,000; 

 and only 2 l / 2 percent had $5,000 or more a year. 1 



Nearly half of the consumer units of this country receive, then, an 

 income of $1,000 or less a year. How much of that can be spared for forest 

 recreation, or for recreation of any sort? Very little; no more, certainly, than 

 one-tenth. Studies by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Home 

 Economics, covering the budgets of thousands of families in urban and rural 

 America, indicate that the average family with an income between $750 

 1 A more complete tabulation is appended on page 293. 



