BRITAIN’S COST OF LIVING

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 January 1941, Page 7

BRITAIN’S COST OF LIVING

HIGH STANDARD REVEALED. [BRITISH OFFICIAL' WIRELESS.] RUGBY, January 15. The Ministry of Labour made public the first results of the national inquiry into the cost of working class living in Britain, which it undertook before the war. After criticisms of the basis upon which the cost of living figure has been calculated since the war of 1914-18, the most important result reveals, in the words of “The Times,” that “the standard of family living in this country is higher than had been supposed.” Budgets were collected from thousands of families, widely distributed over the country, averaging about four persons each, and the outgoings averaged eighty-five to eighty-six shillings a week. The average outlay on food was about thirty-four shillings, and varied little at different periods of the year. One of the most curious details is the expenditure on tobacco and cigarettes, being four times as much as on liquor, but it is pointed out that this item is considered as household expenditure, apart from personal expenditure. A surprise to economists is the weekly expenditure of 25/7 on “other items”'than food, rent, clothing, 'fuel and light. One-quarter of this sum is absorbed in various trade union subscriptions and insurance contributions.

.Although the inquiry is only in the first stages, the Press agrees it is obvious that criticisms •of the present method of calculating the cost of living index figure were amply justified, but any "change in the system will need very careful consideration before adoption. The Ministry of Labour reports that changes in wage rates reported in the first eleven months of 1940 resulted in a net increase of nearly two millions sterling in the weekly fulltime wages, of about eighteen hundred thousand workers.