Household economics

“ Of the seventy-five families, fifty had fathers working in the mill and only two of these fifty fathers, both overseers, earned enough to support a wife and three young children according to the fair standard, and four according to the minimum. A decent home life for the families of these men would be impossible were it not for the wages of the children or the income from boarders. The great variations in incomes from week to week would increase the difficulty of planning household expenditures even when the average indicates a living wage. ”

“ Knowing my incompetence for the task, I have no intention in this paper of trying to decide on how small a sum it is possible to maintain a family in this luxurious age. I only wish to say a few words upon what I consider to be the secret of the economy which has need to be exercised in these days in the largest household as well as in the smallest. ”

“ The American worker enjoys his present high standard of living because modern business methods have been introduced into the manufacture of his food, his clothes, his household goods, his education, his recreation, even of his luxuries, and there is every reason why the same efficiency should apply in housing, which, next to food, is the largest item in the wage-earner's budget. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But not only is the exchange directly and indirectly of value to producers, it is of equal importance to consumers. It simplifies many housekeeping problems in families where there is more work than can be performed by one domestic employee and not enough for two, by making it possible to purchase for the table and other [193] household purposes many articles made out of the house of the consumer. ”

“ This would make but the moderate sum of $50 a month for each workman, which, under the most thrifty system of household economy, can not be considered more than enough for the support of an American family. ”

“ We will suppose that it is necessary to use strict economy. It is as well to proceed on that supposition, because people can always be lavish in their expenditure, whereas it is not so easy to provide for the household at once well and economically. ”

“ Though the cost of living might be increased, it is a price many would be glad to pay for a release from the friction of a retinue of domestics in the home. When it has become the custom for families of wealth to have few or no domestics under their own roofs, the great problem of how people of limited incomes can have comfortable homes will be solved.
The second objection is the fact that it would take from the women of the household much of their work. ”

“ A glance at our periodical literature does indeed show unusual interest in all questions affecting domestic life. Economists are asking why the wages paid for domestic service are higher than those paid the average woman in other occupations, and why, in spite of this, the demand for household workers is greater than the supply. ”

“ The higher life.—There are other needs of family life for which money must be spent besides the material ones of food, shelter, and clothing. In the division of some family incomes little thought is given to this phase of living. After the income reaches a certain amount, it is possible so to plan that education, recreation, philanthropy, and savings all figure in the division of expenditures. Some writers say that 25 per cent of the income of $1000 to $5000 should be spent in this way. ”

“ Unless the housewife be really poor, or unless the money be doled out to her irregularly, it will invariably pay to buy in quantity things which are not perishable, and which the household wears out and, therefore, habitually needs. ”

“ In a word, whatever arguments can be advanced in favor of profit sharing in productive industries can be used with equal force in its favor in domestic service.
The application of the principle to the household is simple. It is possible to allow a fixed sum, as $50, $100, or $500 per month for living expenses, which shall include the purchase of all food for the table, fuel, lights, ice, breakages, and the replacement of worn-out kitchen utensils, and to allow a pro rata amount for guests during the month. ”

“ And in the household budget rent is a less important item than food and cleansing. Now, the raw materials of the stuff necessary to keep a household healthily alive cost more in France than in England. ”

“ To the wage-earner with a large family, who must of necessity husband his resources, there is in our hypothesis a suggestion of material gain not to be disregarded. The money thus saved might be expended for the education of the children, for the purchase of household treasures tending to elevate the moral and mental state of the occupants, or in many other ways that the imagination can easily supply. ”

“ Or to put the same thing in another way, the industrial world is run to make a profit; the household, on the contrary, is kept up by the contributions of its members, and exists to provide for them the necessaries and comforts of life. None the less is the work of cooking, cleaning, and serving of real economic value 177 when carried on within the household, as people discover when they have to pay for the organisation of the same services in hotels or boarding-houses. ”

“ That in large cities $900 to $1000 a year is necessary to bring up a family to live decently and enjoy human happiness. Much depends upon how this income is divided as to whether results will tend to develop efficiency in the members of such a family. As the income increases from $1000 to $5000 it is possible to apportion the income and indicate certain percentages which represent wise family expenditures so as to include the higher intellectual and emotional life as well as the physical welfare of the family. ”

“ In these days when both sexes work, there are often more than one wage-earner in the family. Also, a family may enjoy additional income from savings, from investment in securities or real estate, from inheritance, or from the custom of taking boarders into the home. Clearly, the discrepancy between family income and the wages may be great, and may vary greatly as between families in the same wage group. For this reason it is family budget, not the wage, which is the true index in housing finance. ”

“ This means that there is a limit to the money spent per capita per day for food, below which we cannot go and maintain life with even sufficient efficiency for unskilled labor. Figure 77 shows that a $900 income gives about 45 per cent to323 food. An expenditure of thirty cents per capita per day for food in a family of five with an income of $1500, is 36.5 per cent ”

“ Everything has to be bought—clothes, firewood, petroleum, improved agricultural implements, and many other articles which are now regarded as necessaries of life, whilst comparatively little is earned by working in the towns, because the big families have been broken up, and a household now consists usually of husband and wife, who must both remain at home, and children who are not yet bread-winners. ”

“ Whatever money was extorted for rent meant so much less food for the mother and children, for it has been shown that the family income was insufficient for food alone, and left no margin for rent or clothes. ”

“ The question is one to be studied relatively, and the cost of living will depend on the ratio between income and one’s methods of living.
Just what other satisfactions than the merely physical are to be gratified is the great question for the woman who divides the income. The problem is naturally hardest with the smallest income, where the “must be” crowds out the “may be.” ”

“ Each family has to decide for itself what proportion should be allowed for these different expenses, but, with your income of $2200 a year, it is safe to allow fifty cents a day per person for all food. The house rent, so business men say, should not be more than a quarter of one’s income, if possible a little less than that. ”

“ Household manufacturing is confined almost entirely to the preparation of food, with a varying amount of dressmaking and millinery. In the towns and cities the needs of the family are even more completely supplied from without. Children are relieved of all responsibility, women's care are lightened by the stock of material in the shops, and the bakery and restaurant help to supply the table. Family life loses thereby much of its unity of effort and sympathy. The economic task falls mainly upon the male producer. ”

“ When the home is first started the husband and wife should discuss frankly the problems322 of division and should agree on the methods of expenditure. This common understanding between members of a family forms a bond of union, and each feels a greater pleasure and pride in doing his part. The fact that there is a budget and a system brings orderliness in methods of work and freedom from worry and anxiety as well as a saving of money. And this saving of money and strength is the same as an increase in income. ”

“ They proceed logically by the double method of labor and thrift. Every household exhibits an exact economy, and nothing of that uncalculated headlong expenditure which families use in America. If they cannot pay, they do not buy ”

“ Few women when they assume the care of a household know the exact value of the household plant; the amount to be deducted each year for wear and tear; the relative proportions expended annually for rent, fuel, food, clothing, and service; the number of meals served and the approximate cost of each; the amount of profit, waste, or unproductiveness that results from all expenditures made. Every manufacturer, every business man knows the value of his plant, its increasing or diminishing value, the cost of materials used and of service employed. ”

“ Oh, I'm not supposing there won't be a long interval when household property will be in the hands of powerful monopolies, and many millionaires will be made by letting it out to middle-class tenants like you and me, along with the houses we hire of them. I have no doubt that there will be a Standard Household-Effect Company, which will extend its relations to Europe, and get the household effects of the whole world into its grasp. ”

“ The male politicians have too long neglected the grievances of the small household, which is the prey of every profiteering combination.” And this brings us to the answer to our question how far the present orientation of labour satisfies the conditions we have laid down as necessary to worthy social progress. The rigid fixing of the retail prices of household commodities,—the primary necessities of life—plainly substitutes the principle of production for need and use for that of production for profit ”

“ We do not hesitate to lay out money in improvements on our farms. Why, then, need we fear to arrange our dwellings in accordance with principles of true economy, so that the ladies of our families may be able to co-operate with us in advancing the benefit of all? Every family might be its own Economical Housekeeping Company (Limited) , comprising in itself its shareholders and board of directors, realizing cent. ”

“ This spread largely in the country 157 districts, and profoundly influenced home life and the position of women. At the same time both home and foreign trade greatly increased, and “natural economy” was almost entirely replaced by “money economy,” the necessities of life being no longer produced by the family for their own use; men worked instead for payment, and then with the money so earned bought in the market the goods they required. ”

“ What a rich family spends upon the actual necessaries of life, the indispensable food, clothing and shelter, is very little compared with its income. Most of its expenditures are for things that are not necessaries, and may be classed as luxuries, the purchasing of which may be suspended or postponed without hardship. But the poor family, the wage-earner's family, is obliged to spend a very large part of its income from day to day upon food, clothing, shelter, heat and light, that cannot be temporarily dispensed with without hardship. ”

“ All these variations in family budget, in items of housing expenditure, and in the relation of housing expenditure to the family budget, demonstrate the pitfalls which occur in the usual generalizations as to rentals and wages. But they should not be allowed to obscure the truth. The one essential fact which stands out clearly in the situation is this, that the traditional methods of housing production have for several decades at least failed to house acceptably all but the more prosperous wage-earners' families in most industrial districts of the United States. ”

“ It appears then that the income of each member of an ordinary peasant family will be less than Rs. 16 per annum, from which he or she must defray the whole cost of food, shelter, clothing, and firewood. ”