while not quite one-sixth of them had a deficit (4,117), averaging $65.58, while just about one-third of them came out even.1

As we have noticed, 1,480 of the 2,567 families had a surplus; 491 of these kept a surplus on hand, 682 in the bank; 63 had it invested in a building and loan association, 42 in real estate; 5 had shares of stock, and 3 had loaned money, while 60 used it to pay previous debts. Of the 507 families which had a deficit, 244 obtained credit, 94 used former savings, 13 borrowed money.

It is not difficult to imagine that many of these families had considerable difficulty in making any provision against "a rainy day." There were others, perhaps, who could have done so, but failed to do so. Both were on "the ragged edge of poverty." Many of them did not have a standard of living that their welfare demanded.

SUMMARY

Thus, socio-economic factors affect vitally the welfare of the family. Factors affecting the income-death or disability of the breadearner, whether due to industrial or community conditions; adverse industrial conditions, such as accidents, or occupational diseases and fatigue; unemployment, pre-natal, natal, or post-natal conditions adversely affecting children, and lack of proper wage-render the family incapable both directly and indirectly of meeting the economic and social responsibility of life, and create poverty and pauperism.

These are supplemented by factors affecting both the income and expenditure, such as congestion of population on a given area, and housing, unsanitary conditions in the home, community and factory, the labor of women and children, and faulty education resulting in reduced income and unwise expenditure. Again, in the complex of conditions, appearing now as cause and then as effect, are certain factors tending toward poverty and pauperism through their effect upon the expenditures of the family. Among these are traditions, customs, and habits touching taste in food and dress, thrift and standards of living; lack of proper training in household economy-food and clothing values, and the proportioning of the budget so as to secure the most value for the expenditure-and inadequate provision against crises, such as sickness, unemployment, old age, etc., by means of insurance, savings and investments.

1Eighteenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1903, p. 369.

TOPICS FOR REPORTS

1. Disease and Dependency. Fisher in Report of National Conservation Commission, Senate Document, No. 676, 60th Congress, 2nd Session, Vol. III, p. 742.

2.

Accidents and Poverty. Hoffman, Bureau of Labor Statistics, U. S. Dept. of Labor, Bul. 157.

3. Unemployment and Poverty. Lescohier, The Labor Market, pp.

102-IIO.

4. Income and Infant Mortality. Infant Mortality, Children's Bureau, U. S. Dept. of Labor, Bureau Publication, Nos. 9, 20, 29, 37, 52.

5. Income and Poverty among American Families. Meeker, "What Is the American Standard of Living," Proceedings, National Conference of Social Work, 1919, pp. 164 ff; or, Monthly Labor Review, U. S. Dept. of Labor, Vol. IX, No. 1, July, 1919, p. 5 ff.

CHAPTER VIII

CONDITIONS OF POVERTY AND DEPENDENCY:
SOCIO-ECONOMIC FACTORS (Continued)

F more fundamental importance are the economic and social relationships which prevent the lower economic classes from having an adequate income. Some of these are remediable, as society is at present organized, while others will require somewhat radical social reconstruction in order to eliminate them.

MALADJUSTMENTS IN THE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF
WEALTH AND INCOME

Even if all born into the world were of good native ability; even with a perfect educational system training children and youth to make a living, to save and to spend wisely; if by means of workman's compensation or social insurance we should be able to spread over society the economic results of the death or disability of the bread-earner; if we should provide work for every man who desires a job; and should we by means of preventive medicine obviate the evil conditions which affect children and adults adversely, we might still have poverty. All these things are necessary, but insufficient; they do not go to the root of the economic causes of poverty. As was indicated in the previous chapter, the most widespread cause of dependency and poverty is inadequate income. Often this inadequate income is due to the conditions enumerated. However, other causes which affect wages are of more fundamental importance.

1. Sudden Fluctuations in Prices. Fluctuation in prices disturbs the relationship between the income and need. Wages and prices do not vary in direct ratio. Many families, able to get along without distress under static conditions, find themselves reduced to dependency, or even to destitution, by reason of the rapid changes in prices.

The last fifteen years have seen a remarkable change in the prices of products. Part of this change was due to the increasing amount

of gold and the multiplication of paper money and credits which take the place of money. Part of it was due to the lessened production and part to American exports for the world's markets. A department of the United States Government is authority for the statement that the price of twenty-two staple articles of food more than doubled from 1913 to January, 1920.1 On the other hand, from 1913 to the spring of 1919, the earnings of cigar makers had increased 51 per cent, and of men in the clothing industry 71 per cent.2

In any period of rapidly increasing prices, wages lag behind an increase in the price of commodities, as shown by an investigation by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. The report of this investigation, comparing the index numbers of average weekly earnings in the New York State factories and of retail prices in the United States from 1914 to 1919, shows this tendency. Wages and prices were nearest together in 1915 when the index number for earnings. was 101 and for prices was 102; the greatest divergence was in 1917 when the index number for wages was 129, while that for prices was 147. In 1918 they were as 160 to 170.3

2. Under-Production. Under-production creates a maladjustment which reacts unfavorably for some of the poor. Under-production may be due either to attempts of entrepreneurs to control the supply and thus the price, or to attempts of labor to control the output and thus "make work." In either case, the limitation of output has the effect of increasing prices. It is claimed that this does not affect the wage-worker adversely because it leaves more work to be done, and therefore creates demand for more workers. Since there are fewer workers than there are customers of the product, the workman profits, in spite of the fact that he must pay higher prices for the particular product upon which he is engaged. That, however, is a very selfish view. In the face of a plea for social justice, it has no ground to stand upon. The longer it takes to produce a given article, the higher must be its price, and any limitation of the output, except that in the interest of the worker's health and efficiency, inevitably raises the price of the product and bears harshly upon the person with small income who must buy.

1

Monthly Labor Review, U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Vol. X, No. 3, March, 1920, p. 35.

Ibid., p. 90.

Ibid., Vol. IX, No. 1, July, 1919, p. 148.

Likewise, the attempt of the entrepreneur to limit the output in the interests of monopoly price, that is, the price which, all things considered, gives him the largest net profit, is a species of under-production that results in raising the price to the poor as well as to the rich, and causes poverty.

The recent coal strike illustrates the possibility of evil in both these directions, if the charges of the operators and miners are both true. It is reported that in the twelve weeks of February, March and April (1919) the working time of the bituminous coal miners was only a fraction over 24 hours per week. Dr. Garfield is quoted as authority for the statement that miners work on an average of only 200 days per year. An official of the United Mine Workers of America is quoted as saying that the average working time of the miners since 1902 has been only 206 days a year. The coal operators during the controversy issued a statement that, on the basis of figures published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the United States, the pick miners in 1919 were earning only 84.5 per cent of the wages that they could earn had they worked steadily during the days the mines offered them work. On the other hand, the miners claim that they want to work more days but that the mines close down often so that they can work only an average of 200 days per year. The mines claim that the cars are not to be had for the loading of the coal. No matter who is to blame in the controversy, the fact is that there is a reduction of output, with a result that the price goes up.

3. Inequitable Distribution of Wealth and Income. Students of the problem of poverty agree with Dr. King that "the problem of the poor is the vital point of the whole question of distribution." The distribution of wealth has a very direct bearing upon the problem of poverty. If a large proportion of the population has very little chance to accumulate sufficient fortune to tide them over crises, like sickness or unemployment, or to keep them in old age, numbers will fall into poverty when such crises arise.

Moreover, the hopelessness which such a situation engenders renders such people less ambitious, less efficient producers in many cases, and makes them less regardful of their responsibility to their children's future.

Dr. Ely has called attention to the fact that in none of the countries studied by him, Massachusetts, the United Kingdom, France and Prussia, "does a larger fraction than two-fifths of the people possess any