COST OF LIVING

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 189, 12 August 1931, Page 9

COST OF LIVING

DECLINE IN CANADA BUT RENTS ARE UP VANCOUVER, June 24. A decline of It) per cent, in the cost of living in Canada, compared with the •‘prosperity’’ year of 1929, is officially recorded. It is further stated that the general index of living cost has approached nearer the pre-war level than is the case with Britain or the United States. Comparison with Australia, New Zealand and South Africa is noi practicable, in the absence of this year’s figures from those Dominions. The decline noted may not seem very striking in view of the fact that basic commodities have meanwhile dropped 40 per cent, in price, but it is known that the cost of living always lags behind price movement. In the present instance, .it remained stationary until late in 1930, and the greater part of its fall to date has occurred during 1931. The benefits have accrued mainly to people with small incomes and those living outside the large cities. Canadian prices on the live “necessity’-’ items—food, fuel, and light, rent clothing, and sundries—show the following reductions up to the present:—Food (retail prices? .. .. .. 22.2 Clothing (retail prices) .... 12.4 Sundries 1.4 Kent .. .. .. . . .. Increase 1.8 The failure of rent to come down complicates the picture of living costs because it is a much larger proportion of the worker’s family budget in some areas than in others. Among the pou er classes of Montreal, the largest city in Canada, rent averages 23 per cent., or

more of total living costs; in smaller towns, such as Peterboro, Ontario, or Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, it averages about 12£ per cent. The fall in total living costs varies from 13 per cent, in some cities to less than 8 per cent, in Montreal and Toronto. Analysing “necessity” items referred to, lood. includes meat, potatoes, bread, dried fruit and milk, disregard ing fresh fruit and green vegetables. Kent applies to six-room flats or similar homes in the cheaper residential districts. Sundries does not include insurance, school fees, amusements, water rates, or many other items which the average householder considers as necessities. ft may be taken as well established that, as the income of a particular person rises above the £406 per annum level, up to the higher professional level of £l2OO to £2OOO per annum, the proportion of normal expenditures, which remain relatively unaltered in an ordinary price decline, increases rapidly; conversely, the “necessity” items of food and clothing, in which greatest variation occurs, form a smaller and smaller proportion of the total familv budget.