Family Budgets

This text was taken from pages 142-143, from the chapter titled "Life at a $1.65 a day.

The expenditure for clothing among the ten families considered was below what Mr. Chapin estimated was essential in New York, though it formed a slightly larger percentage than in American families in the same income group. No money was expended for furniture; a fact borne out by the utter barrenness of the two-room homes of many of the laborers. With the exception of insurance, the value of which as we shall see is fully appreciated, and the comparatively high expenditure for liquor, these figures surely indicate that life measured in terms of possessions is at a low ebb among these Slavic laborers. There was but $ .41 left for amusements, for church, for education. And what had become of the margin which was to make possible the attainment of that old-country ambition, a bit of property or a bank account ? Some other means must be found to achieve these ends.

What that device is we saw in our study of the 21 Slavic courts, when we found that 102 families out of 239 took lodgers.* The income from this source is no mean item. Of the 102 families, three-quarters received from lodgers a sum at least the equivalent of the rent, while a fifth received twice the amount of the rent or more. If we compare the income from lodgers with the man's wages, we find that in over half it added 25 per cent or more to the family's earnings. A glance at the sources of income of the budget families suggests that among the Slavs themselves the wages of an unskilled laborer are considered insufficient to support a family, even according to the standards of the Second Ward.
 
 *The ways by which families increase their income in order to get ahead are indicated by these notes of the Slavic investigator in regard to families which had bought homes.

''John C . Woman goes out cleaning and cooking. By doing this she has been able to add her earnings to her husband's so as to pay for the property they now own."

"The mother took boarders till too old. Now the daughter does not prove to be a good housekeeper" (perhaps because this was poor training for the future).

"Mrs. Y. since her marriage has gone out to work by the day, and then done washings in the evenings—she also has a boarder who pays $18 a month. But she no longer goes out to work since they have paid for their home."