Cost of living

“ We are accustomed to grumble over the increase in the cost of living. But the enhancement of price in the necessities of physical life is nothing compared to the increase in the cost of the higher life. ”

“ When there is no reference to a physiological minimum, the cost of living may be regarded as the cost of maintaining the standard customary to the social or occupational class concerned at a given time and place. ”

“ The cost of living is measurable by a standard adjustable to individual taste, wants and perceptions. The expenditure of a little manual labour supplies the omissions of and compensates for the undirected impulses which prevail, and the pursuit—not the profession—leads one to ever-varying scenes, to the contemplation of many of the moods of unaffected, unadvertised Nature. ”

“ Our experience with the control of other prices during the past few months has brought out one important fact—the rising cost of living can be controlled, providing that all elements making up the cost of living are controlled at the same time. ”

“ To found and maintain a home, therefore, with these rising standards of living, and also within the last decade or two with the rising cost of living, requires such a large income that an increasingly smaller proportion of the population are able to do this satisfactorily. ”

“ Wages are recognized as resulting from the necessary cost of living in any given community. The cost of subsistence for an average family determines the rate, and it is for this reason that single men can save more if they will. ”

“ If the condition of the working classes has immensely improved, the cost of living has not stood still. A householder informed me that prices of provisions, servants' wages, house rent and other items of domestic economy have tripled within the last twenty years. ”

“ Wages in all branches of industry are still very low, and the cost of living is rising. But living conditions, even at their worst, are much better than with us among corresponding classes. Weavers, dyers, and spinners receive from ten to twenty cents a day, while a streetcar conductor gets five or six dollars a month. ”

“ And so we can see that the so-called high cost of living is chargeable to the cost of "high living", to the abandonment of the simple life, to the change in habits of the later generation, not counting the extravagant wants now so prevalent that was unknown in pioneer days. ”

“ Wages increased two per cent, while the cost of living, based on the price index of essential commodities, dropped 39 per cent, a most gratifying development. Verily, the rising level of earning and the decreasing cost of living are converging upon a point of economic stability favorable to the great masses of our people. ”

“ COST OF LIVING. Till recent years the phrase “Cost of Living” was only used loosely by economists when the balance between movements of wages and prices was in question, but from 1914 onwards during the World War the need of a measurement of the rise of prices gradually resulted in making the expression prominent in industrial and statistical discussions. In popular parlance it has since become a recognized economic problem. ”

“ When we have considered the cost of living, it will be seen how wholly inadequate these wages are, and how inevitable it is that the consequences of this insufficiency should show themselves in the physical and social conditions of the wage-earning classes. ”

“ Increased{405} wages usually produce higher rent and higher cost of living; the increased cost of living makes marriage and home life more difficult, and from this women as well as men ultimately suffer. ”

“ Rent in the chief cities and towns has increased twofold; the cost of living has risen with it. This falls heaviest, of course, on the middle and lower classes, so that we are not surprised to hear, that the rate of living having increased 60 or 70 per cent. ”

“ Asquith has asked us poor people to economize. Instead of spending three shillings a day, we must only spend two; and our average wage is but a bob and a half. The high cost of living is nothing to the cost of high living. ”

“ There are, however, other factors which complicate and increase the cost of living. At present the exorbitant cost of labor, cost of fuel, etc., and the amount of the housewife’s time consumed are all important factors to be taken into consideration. ”

“ The present high cost of living raises questions in the theory of the economic aspect of life that have compelled the attention of the public. The theory of money, interest, savings, foreign investments, the place of gold in the world's economy is carried a step further and is popularly more extended. ”

“ We must be nourished and protected from the elements by shelter and clothing, and an income must at least provide for these necessities to be a living wage. Yet we justly claim something more from our income than mere existence.
In most families there is a fairly definite income. When the amount is not known it is wise to estimate upon the minimum income and have a surplus, rather than to expend too much. Seventy-five years ago things cost less and incomes were less, to-day the incomes have increased and cost of living is growing higher. ”

“ At the present moment, when the high cost of living is a subject which engages the attention of the economist, politician, and householder, as it did that of Diocletian and his contemporaries, the curious reader will wish to know how wages and the prices of food in 301 A.D. compare with those of to-day. ”

“ To avoid the popular error of attributing an increased cost of living to all persons under a regime of rising prices, and to reveal the actual effect of prices on costs, it is necessary to determine whether the majority of the population is included among those whose incomes have failed to respond to advanced charges or among the beneficiaries of high prices. ”

“ The laborer’s demand for an increased wage was always based upon an increased cost of living, which was itself chiefly due to increased cost of production from reluctant concessions of his former demands. ”

“ Although price and cost may, in conventional phrasing, be interchangeable without confusion of ideas, the discussion of changing commodity prices and concurrent costs of living necessitates a discriminating use of the terms. As a matter of fact, an increase in the average of prices may be no proof of change in the average cost of living during the same period ”

“ Since all buy in the same market, a part of the population possesses an increased proportion of cash to the prices which must be paid, and the exchequers of the less fortunate are inversely affected. In other words, persons identified with one economic class may experience an actual decrease in their cost of living, despite rising prices, while others must carry an increased burden, and, possibly, a third group may be affected not at all. ”

“ The high cost of living is everybody’s problem. This book presents the reason and stimulating thoughts upon the solution. It treats the problem from the producer’s, the middleman’s and the consumer’s viewpoints. ”

“ The relation of wages to the cost of living is seldom alluded to by contemporary writers, but a pamphlet published in 1706 says of a labourer’s family, “a poor Man and his Wife may have 4 or 5 children, 2 of them able to work, and 3 not able, and the Father and Mother not able to maintain themselves and Families in Meat, Drink, Cloaths and House Rent under 10s. ”

“ Although the Government has been in office for more than eighteen months nothing has been done to reduce the cost of living, which presses so hardly on all classes of the population. Every housewife knows prices still tend in an upward direction. ”