[An investigation of the working class standard of living in New-York City, undertaken by the Sage Foundation and by the New York State Conference of Charities and Correction, was carried on in 1907-08 under the direction of Robert C. Chapin, professor of economics in Beloit College. The results were published in The Standard of Living among Workingmen's Families in New York City, by R. C. Chapin; Russell Sage Foundation Publications.

A summary of the findings comparing them with data from other sources, was presented by Professor Chapin, Dec. 29, 1908, at a meeting of the American Economic Association. The paper is divided into two parts: I. Variations in amount of income. II. Sources of income. These extracts comprise most of the first part of this paper. (Publications of the American Economic Association, Third Series, Vol. X, 1909, Papers and discussions of the twenty-first annual meeting, pp. 181-188.)]

Engel's law. Ernst Engel has taught us to look at the apportionment of income among the principal objects of family expenditure, and to see just how changes of income work out in changes in the elements of the standard of living - what kinds of things are added as income increases, what are omitted as income falls. On the basis of returns from 199 Belgian families, gathered in 1855 by Duxpetiaux, Engel made out his familiar table of percentage expenditures for Saxon families of three income-grades. He found that the poorest families, whose income was under $300 of our money, gave for food 62 per cent of all that they spent. Families having from $450 to $600 spent 55 per cent for food, and those with from $750 to $1000 spent 50 per cent for this purpose. Hence he made his generalizations that, as income increased, a less and less part of it was needed for food, and that the percentage of expenditure for food was therefore an index of the degree of prosperity attained. He applied this standard in a later work to the wretched English peasants whose budgets had been collected by Eden in 1797, and found that the average of their food-expenditure was 73 per cent of their total expenditures.

Food and other wants. The generalization regarding the tendency of the food-percentage to diminish as the income increases has been verified in many later compilations of family budgets. The Report of the United States Bureau of Labor for 1903, for instance, finds a decline in food-expenditure from 47 per cent among families having incomes between $400 and $500 to 40 per cent for families with incomes between $900 and $1000. Colonel Wright's Massachusetts investigation of 1875 showed a decline of 64 per cent for families having less than $450 a year to 51 per cent for families having over $1200 a year.                           

As the demands of the stomach are more easily met out of the larger income, what expenditures are increased to correspond? Engel's Saxon tables shows a constant percentage for housing and for fuel and light, a slight increase for clothing, and a rise in the percentage allotted to expenditures outside of immediate physical necessities from 5 to 10 and from 10 to 15 per cent as we ascend the income scale. This indicates, that, along with somewhat better provision for food and shelter, it is possible for the family to indulge in more attractive clothing and household furnishings, and to spend something for amusement, for reading matter, and for minor personal indulgences.

Relative saturation point. All reports agree as to the broadening of the plane of living, with rising income, in regard to expenditure for the satisfaction of these culture wants. Not all, however, coincide with Engel's data in regard to a constant percentage for rent and for clothing. Colonel Wright's figures for the United States at large in 1901 show a nearly constant percentage for rent (17 to 18 per cent), but his Massachusetts report of 1875 shows a decline in the first three income-groups from 20 to 15.5 and then to 14 per cent followed by a rise to 17 per cent and a drop to 15 per cent. Recent investigations in New York, that of Mrs. More in her Workingmen's Budgets, and that of the Committee of the New York Conference, agree in showing a steady falling off in percentage expenditure for rent with each increase of one hundred dollars in income. The percentages found in the latter inquiry were 24 for incomes between $600 and $700, and for successive income groups, rising by $100 stages, 22, 20, 19, 18, 16 - the last for incomes over $1100. The congestion of population in New York, fortunately exceptional, doubtless accounts in part for the fact that in that city house rent claims one-quarter of the $600 incomes.

An examination of the percentage expended for food, housing, and other purposes suggests that the proportion of income devoted to each of them may not always move in the same direction as we pass from one income-group to the next higher. The $400 families in the Labor Report of 1903 spend a higher percentage for food than the $300 families. If the comparison is carried far enough upward in the scale of incomes, a point is reached in New York where rent ceases to fall off in percentage expenditure, and clothing ceases to demand a larger proportion than in the group preceding. The fact seems to be that each of the three primary wants takes its turn in urging its claims vociferously, and when these have been pacified, the desires for the things that make life worth living begin to be heard. In regard to each class of wants in turn a point of relative saturation is reached, and a more adequate satisfaction of the next one becomes possible.

Changing ratio for housing. In New York City the most imperative need on the lowest incomes is for housing. Some place of shelter must be provided, and, however wretched, it will not be cheap. Thirteen dollars a month was the average rent paid by seventy-two families whose average income was $650. But this amounts to $156 a year, or 24 per cent of the total income. When the cost of shelter demands a quarter of the whole income, food and clothing must take what is left. But the accommodations obtained as the minimum that can be lived in by the families with $650 a year are practically good enough for those with an income one and two hundred dollars greater. Seventy-three families whose income averaged $846, spent only fourteen dollars a week on the average for rent. But this was only 21 per cent of their larger total expenditure. Meanwhile their food percentage was practically as high as that of the $650 group (44.3 per cent.), representing an increase in average amount expended from $290 to $360.

Changing ratio for food. In food the point of diminishing percentage was not reached until after the $1000 line was passed. The food-percentage increased, as with the families in the United States Labor Report of 1903, on passing from $400 to $500, and from $500 to $600. This may be due in part to exaggeration in the returns of expenditure for food. In part it was due to the fact that until an increase of $800 was reached one-third of the families were underfed. The proportion of the total food-expenditure that was given for animal food increased, and that expended for cereal food diminished. The cost of animal food comprised 29 per cent of the total food bill of the families in the $600 income-group, and 32 per cent of those in the $1000 group. Cereals dropped correspondingly from 21 to 17 per cent. The expenditure for alcoholic drinks increased, taking into account only those families that reported this item, from the average of $27.25, or 4.2 per cent of the total expenditures in the $600 group, to $59.96, or 5.2 per cent., in the $1100 group.