EKING OUT A WEEKLY WAGE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 316, 4 July 1912, Page 4

EKING OUT A WEEKLY WAGE.

The Labor Department of the Board of Trade have been engaged for two years past in endeavoring to obtain typical examples of the yearly and weekly budgets of wage-earning women; anil it is able to furnish an interesting analysis of thirty complete accounts for a year, supplied by thirty correspondents'who have kept records of what they have (says the Scotsman). Among the questions on which these tables arc expected to throw light are, according to Sir G. 11. Askwith's introductory note, "the value of the unpaid service" and other advantages received by the daughter living at home considered apart from cash expenses, the increased cost of living and decreased social opportunities of self-supporting women when excluded from family life"; "the deficiency in the supply of food, clothing, and bright surroundings necessitated by low wages, and the resulting inefficiency of the worker"; and "the relative importance to the worker herself of the present compared with the future; of dress compared with food; of decency compared with warmth; of giving to friends compared with saving for herself." What one may possibly be first struck by in glancing at these wage-earning women's budgets is the proportionately large share of weekly and yearly outlay devoted to dress as compared with food, when the figures are placed beside the corresponding 'budgets of wage-earning men. In seven cases the weekly wage ranges from 21s 6y 2 d to 26s 4'/ a d per week; and dress accounts for a portion of the weekly expenditure varying from 2s Id to as high as Gs 7%d per week. Where the earnings fall below 20s per week, the expense on dress rises in some instances as high as 3s G'/ 4 d, 3s 4s Id and 4s weekly. The highest of these figures was reached by a dressmaker, earning 15s fid a week, and naturally does not include the cost of making; among the investments made out of this slender income—partly, perhaps, for shop reasons —were "a raincoat, a muff (25s Od) and four hats," £2 IGs 2%d for "underclothing, handkerchiefs and aprons"; 12s 4 1 / a A for ''scarves, ties, collars and gloves," and £2 lfe flVid for boots and repairs. Out of a weekly wage of 23s sd, one working woman spent £2 IGs 9d on bicycle repairs, while another, earning 24s 7%d weekly, invested £2 5s during tlis year in a set of teeth. The outlays on "amusements" vary from "theatres and music halls" and "whist drives" to "tutorial teas" and "church socials," while in literature one of the thirty working women laid out money, on "Sermons," two were purchasers of the "Essays of Elia," and quite a large proportion spent part of their hard-earned coin on the publications of the Independent Labor party and the Progressive League. It is pleasing to note, in examples where the week's income only came to 15s, proofs of "rigid self-denial shown in personal expenditure, in striking contrast with generosity shown in giving." Items like "present for baby," "a doll for slum children," "Easter eggs for poor children," '•flowers for church," and a "tie" or a "cigar" (4d) for "Dad," come in not infrequently in the most meagre of housekeeping accounts. In most instances these working women's budgets, unlike those of some modern States, are squared at the close of the year (after payment of insurance sums, varying from Id to »y 2 d per week, to Trade Unions, Sick and Burial Clubs, and other thrift associations), with a balance to the good. Applying Mr. Micawber's famous maxim, one might say of the wage-earner who was paid 12s lfld per week and laid out only 12s 9%d, "result happiness," and of her who drew 17s 6d in wages and spent 17s fi'/ad, "result misery."