[60] U. S. Bureau of Labor, "Glass Industry," p. 405, 1911.
[61] U. S. Bureau Lab., "Wage-Earning Women in Stores and Factories," p. 46, 1911.
[62] Report of Bureau of Labor Statistics of New York for 1906, p. XXXI.
[CHAPTER SIX]
INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS: HEALTH
The inevitable result of low wages is poor health. Bad housing conditions and insufficient food must follow upon the heels of scanty pay, unless the wages are supplemented in some other way; and that means anemia, tuberculosis, typhoid, and general physical debility. "In the New York block" bounded by E. Houston, Mott, Prince, and Elizabeth Sts., "one of every nine children born dies before it attains the age of five years. The death and disease rates are abnormal. The death rates for all ages in the City of New York in 1905-6 was 18.35 per thousand, and for those under five years it was 51.5; but in this block it was 24.0 for all ages and for those under five years it was 92.2."[63] "Nothing could be added to or taken away from these homes to add to their squalor." (P. 296.)
The conditions of many workers' homes can be learned in detail from pages 254-259 of the Federal report just quoted. Here only a few of the leading facts can be mentioned. Thus in Pittsburgh 51.1% of the families investigated had as many as three persons per sleeping room.[64] Eleven per cent. of female factory and miscellaneous employees and nine per cent. of store girls are rated as having "bad" housing conditions and bad food.[65] Very few girls doing "light housekeeping" get proper breakfasts (l. c., p. 18), or, indeed, any other meals. It is not because they can't cook, but because they have to keep food expenses to a minimum in order to buy clothes, pay room-rent, doctors, etc.