The following report summarizes the results of a study undertaken to determine the cost of maintaining a minimum American standard of living in Fall River, Massachusetts, in October, 1919, and also the cost of maintaining a somewhat more liberal standard. At the same time, an attempt was made to ascertain the increase in the cost of living at identical standards during the five-year period beginning with October, 1914.
Method
For the purpose of this study, the cost of living was estimated with reference to the needs of a man, his wife and three children under fourteen years of age. No attempt was made to secure family budgets from representative wage-earners. Instead, the amount of food, clothing, fuel, heat, light and other items needed to meet the requirements of a decent standard of living was carefully estimated on the basis of several budget studies made by other authorities, and prices of these various items were obtained. Thus, while the final estimate of the money cost of maintaining a definite standard of living is not based on actual family expenditures, but rather is a hypothetical budget designed to maintain a hypothetical family at a specified standard, it should closely approximate the true conditions. In practice, expenditures for the different items in the budget may and undoubtedly will vary considerably to meet the needs or tastes of individual families, but although the sums allowed for the total cost of living may be distributed in a large variety of ways, the averages given are as nearly representative as any that can be reached. It should always be borne in mind, however, that the figures are averages, even though they include a large variety of data.
The investigation covered a period of one week in October, 1919. A study was made of available statistical data relating to Fall River, and various sections or "villages" of the city were visited to obtain a picture of the home surroundings of the people. The latter were observed on the street, as purchasers in stores, at work in the mills, at a dance for women wage-earners, and, in several instances, in their own homes.
Visits were made to the headquarters of the various social and community agencies of the city, from which much valuable information on the cost and standard of living was secured.[1 ] To obtain the cost of the various items entering into the family budget and the increases in cost over a five-year period, figures were collected from retail food and clothing stores, coal dealers, and other corporations, associations and individuals in close touch with the local situation.
Fall River and its People
The population of Fall River in 1915 was approximately 125,000, of whom 75,000 were native born and 50,000 foreign born. A large percentage of the native born are of foreign parentage. French Canadians and Portuguese are the leading foreign nationalities and are represented in approximately equal numbers. Together they comprise over half the foreign-born population. The English are next most important in numbers, approximately 10,000. Over 4,000 were born in Ireland, over 3,000 are Poles and some 2,000 are Russians, the majority of the latter undoubtedly Jews.
The people originally settled in neighborhood groups of a single nationality rather than around the particular mills in which they were employed. There are, in fact, ten different villages, so called, into which Fall River outside of the center may be said to be divided. The nationalistic character of these villages, however, is now to some extent breaking up, owing to decreased immigration, the Americanizing effect of the war, and the efforts of the Immigrant Aid Committee and other local social agencies, so that French, Portuguese, Irish and other foreign nationalities are coming in closer contact one with another.