Practically all the families live in company houses for which they pay a low rent, usually $.75 to $1 a room per month. A typical house is “a one-story frame, built upon brick piers instead of a solid foundation. It is rectangular in form and divided into four rooms. The rooms are about fourteen by sixteen or sixteen by sixteen feet, and they are ceiled instead of plastered. Two rooms have fireplaces or grates, a third is arranged for a cooking stove, and the fourth has no means of heating. The flooring is of a single thickness and, as it is seldom carpeted, furnishes little protection against the cold.” Most of the homes are but meagerly furnished and only partly heated.
In the discussion of food, the menus and daily expenditures of many families are given and repay careful study. As a standard for judging the adequacy of the food supply, the dietary for the federal prison in Georgia is used (20.5 cents per man per day). Eleven of the twenty-one families fell below even this meagre diet. “Corn bread, biscuit, pork and coffee form a large part of the diet of all families.”
In the matter of clothing the study is detailed and brings out some interesting points as to the different standards of dress for various members of the same family. The daughter who works in the mills spends many times as much on clothes as does the mother who works at home. In some cases, at least, the mother wears the cast-off clothing of the daughter. One such mother spent $1.98 for clothing in an entire year, while her daughter of twenty-one who was married that year spent $113.84; another daughter of nineteen spent $77, and a third girl of sixteen spent $86.
After giving the budgets of these twenty-one families in full, the investigators attempt to formulate a “minimum standard” and a “fair standard” of living. For the former the food cost is based on the prison dietary; the housing standard on the rent of a mill house; and the other items—clothing, furniture, fuel, light, and sundries—on the least amount spent by any family for each item, excluding those that were manifestly impossibly low. On this basis the “minimum standard” for a family consisting of a man, his wife, and three children under twelve was reckoned as possible at an expenditure of $408.26 a year. This amount, the authors state, is “so low that one would expect few families to live on it.” Frankly, from the description of what is included, I should be inclined to say that no family could:
“If the family live upon this sum without suffering, wisdom to properly apportion the income is necessary. There can be no amusements or recreations that involve any expense. No tobacco can be used. No newspapers can be purchased. The children cannot go to school, because there will be no money to buy their books. Household articles that are worn out or destroyed cannot be replaced. The above sum provides for neither birth nor death nor any illness that demands a doctor’s attention or calls for medicine. Even though all these things are eliminated, if the family is not to suffer, the mother must be a woman of rare ability. She must know how to make her own and her children’s clothing; she must be physically able to do all of the household work, including the washing. And she must know enough to purchase with her allowance food that has the proper nutritive value.”
Such a “standard of living” cannot be considered adequate, falls far short of being scientific and it seems to me doubtful wisdom to consider as a “standard” at all a program so bankrupt of actual family needs.
The “fair standard” is worked out on a similar scheme. It includes somewhat more generous provision of food and allowance for certain other factors which “these people have come to regard ... as essential to their every-day life.” This “fair standard” is estimated at $600.74 for the average family.
CHART OF THE WEEKLY EARNINGS OF ONE OF THE TWENTY-ONE SOUTHERN FAMILIES
A series of novel diagrams is presented showing, for each family, their earnings from week to week, their average earnings for the year and a comparison of this with the minimum and fair standards.