in that the wage statistics employed are incomplete. The cost of living discussions would be of far greater value could they promise some general wage facts.
The same statement holds true in the discussions of the "standard of living," a sum of economic goods large enough to permit a family to maintain its physical efficiency. At the very outset the necessity arises of establishing some relation between the wage received and such an amount of economic goods as will maintain efficiency. In this endeavor, success obviously depends upon the ability to place side by side a statement of the amount of goods necessary to maintain efficiency and of the amount of wages which families receive. A number of recent studies have shown, pretty clearly, what amount of economic goods is necessary to maintain a standard of efficiency. It remains, however, to ascertain what portion of the wage earners in the community receive wages sufficient to maintain such a standard.
Whether, therefore, the discussion is of the relation between wages and the cost of living, or between wages and a standard of living, the
question must finally be answered; "What are
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