Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 291, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 December 1919 — Costs Woman More Than Man to Live [ARTICLE]

Costs Woman More Than Man to Live

Government Investigation Fixe* Budget for Family of Five at $2,262.00

Official estimates for a “health and decency” budget for government clerks place the minimum annual expenses lof a family of five at $2,262; an unmarried woman’at $1,083, and a single man at SI,OOO. These figures were made public recently by Dr. Royal Meeker, chief of the bureau of labor statistics, in connection with the investigation of federal salaries by a congressional committee. The food item In the family budget amounts to $773.93. The clothing bill tor the year is put at $513.72, of which the husband is allotted $121.16, the wife $166.46, eleven-year-old boy 596.60, the five-year-old girl $82.50 and the baby (two years) $47. Housing, fuel and light are placed at $428 and miscellaneous expenses at $546.82, a total of $2,262.47. If the wife was* especially competent in the art of shopping did her own sewing and practiced all household economies the budget might be reduced, it was explained, to a “rock bottom minimum” of $2,025.56. The bureau in compiling those estimates made a hat allowance for the wife of one and a half hats a year, $lO for a winter hat and $5 for a summer one, the winter hat to be worn two years. An item of $8.40 is for a newspaper, held by Meeker to be a necessity. The family amusement appropriation is set at S4O, which also includes magazines, though, in general, such luxuries as the latter, it was pointed out, are to be enjoyed at the public library.