II.4. How the Worker Lives

If, then, the American worker draws a money wage two to three times as high as the German, while procuring the same quantity of necessary means of subsistence is not substantially dearer than with us, how is the standard of living of the American actually shaped, that is, what use does he make of his surplus income: does he save more? or does he satisfy his “necessary” needs (food, housing, clothing) more amply? or does he spend more on “luxury”? For those are surely the three possibilities open to him.

So far as I see, and the material before us lets us recognise, he makes use of all three possibilities, most amply perhaps of the second.

As the most important sources the household budgets now come into their own. What matters is to set against each other budgets that are tolerably comparable. For America we have the often-cited inquiry of the Washington bureau, which put together its figures from 25,440 workers’ budgets. To supplement it, and to be able to check the results of that inquiry, the investigations of the Massachusetts labour bureau of 1902 may be added, which relate to 152 working-class families (no. 16a of my “Survey”). The average income of the families investigated by the Washington bureau was 749.50 dollars; that of the 2,567 families for which especially detailed data are available, 827.19 dollars; that, finally, of the 152 families from Massachusetts, 863.37 dollars.

We now recall that our wage-statistical comparisons had led us to the result that money wages in the United States are two to three times as high as in Germany. German working-class families with an income of 1,574, 1,737 and 1,813 marks would thus correspond to those American families whose budgets we know, if we put the income of the American worker at only twice as high, but of 1,050, 1,158 and 1,209 marks if we reckoned it at three times as high. Accordingly it is excluded that the collections of German workers’ budgets that I have drawn on for comparison belong to a relatively lower sphere than the American; with the second and third the opposite is rather the case. They are, however, the following, which I consider the most valuable among the newer compilations and the most usable for the purposes of this investigation, and some of which I have already mentioned in passing:

Let us consider first how income and expenditure behave towards each other in the budgets that stand here for comparison, and how the chance of saving stands in the one case and the other:

May: of 20 families, 5 make savings of on average 92 marks each;

Nuremberg: 32 families have a surplus of on average 125 marks each, 12 a deficit of 82 marks each;

Berlin: 399 households have a surplus of on average 53 marks each, 464 a deficit of 79 marks each.

Massachusetts: in 96 families receipts exceed expenditure, by on average 85 dollars each (357 marks); in 9 they balance; 47 thus close here too with a deficit of on average 77 dollars (323 marks), though it is to be noted that two deficits alone together amount to 710.85 dollars.

Washington: 12,816 families have a surplus of on average 120.84 dollars each (508 marks), 4,117 a deficit (on average 65.58 dollars = 275 marks); the remaining 8,507 families balance receipts and expenditure.

The Americans are thus somewhat more favourably placed; but still by no means to the degree one ought to expect. The number of families that save something from their yearly income is not substantially greater than with us (one-half against four-ninths in Berlin, if one is willing to regard the other figures, because of the smaller number of cases, as rather accidental). So the American worker too spends just as often all (and more than all) that he takes in. He must accordingly live considerably better than the German worker. And that he does so cannot be doubted.

I have said already: he uses his so much higher income above all to satisfy the “necessary” needs of life in more ample measure; that is, he lives better, dresses better, feeds himself better than his German colleague.

On the different shaping of housing conditions in America and Germany I have already remarked what is needful. One may assume that the dwelling of the American worker there has on average 4 rooms, where that of the German has not yet 2. The 908 Berlin households, which surely represented rather an above-normal type, had after all on average a dwelling of about 1.4 rooms, while the number of rooms occupied by the 25,440 American families averaged 4.67 so far as they lived in rented houses, and as much as 5.12 so far as they had houses of their own. But the inner equipment of the dwelling too is incomparably more comfortable in America than with us. The better workers’ dwellings over there make altogether the impression of the dwelling of a German middle-class burgher: they are amply furnished with good beds, comfortable chairs, carpets and so on. The difference does not come out so plainly if we consider the cost of acquiring the furniture. According to reliable data, the urban worker in America spends about 100–150 dollars (420–650 marks) on the first furnishing; in Germany 300–400 marks. On the other hand, the amounts set down in the household budgets for renewal, repair and so on of the furniture differ very strongly. In the German households they are mostly ridiculously low in comparison with the corresponding sums in the American budgets. It thus seems as if the American worker (like our middle class) only completes his furnishing little by little, while the German has to content himself with the first acquisition and the most necessary repairs.

Thus the 44 Nuremberg families spent on furniture and furnishing rooms only 635.36 marks in all (= 1.05 per cent of total expenditure), on furnishing the kitchen 169.33 marks (= 0.28 per cent), that is, on average 18–19 marks for house and kitchen. The 908 Berlin households spent about 20 marks each on furniture, removal and so on (1.2 per cent), the Karlsruhe ones 23 marks (1.5 per cent), May’s 18 marks each; whereas the workers in Massachusetts spent 22.94 dollars (2.71 per cent), the 2,567 families of the great inquiry 26.31 dollars each (3.42 per cent); they thus use five to six times the amount of money for the renewal and upkeep of their household furnishing, for which they surely obtain a multiple of real comfort.

How the manner of eating differs here and there we can best measure if we know the foodstuffs consumed by their quantities, and can thus set consumption in kind against each other in comparison. The great American inquiry contains usable data in this sense, and of the German ones at least two — the Karlsruhe and the Nuremberg — give partly comparable figures.

It is to be noted that the size of the families is in all cases almost exactly the same: 5.31 in America, 5.36 near Karlsruhe, 5 in Nuremberg. The American measures (bushels, quarts, avoirdupois pounds, loaves) I have converted into kilograms, to make them comparable with the German figures. For the foodstuffs missing, no comparable figures were to be found:

The working-class family consumes in a year on average

Accordingly the American worker eats almost three times as much meat, three times as much flour, four times as much sugar as the German (the high consumption of flour, eggs and sugar points to an ample enjoyment of farinaceous dishes — pies and puddings).

But our table, because a series of important foodstuffs is missing from it, does not yet show the whole distance between the two manners of eating. After all, the expenditure on vegetables in the American families amounted to 18.85 dollars, that is, about 79 marks; with the Berliners, on the other hand, to 23, the Nurembergers 14, the Karlsruhers 9 marks; that on fruit (which has an importance in the American’s household unknown to us) 16.52 dollars, that is, about 70 marks, against 13 with the Berliners, 7 with the Karlsruhers, 8–9 marks with the Nurembergers.

As a check I put together further the sums of money spent on the most important foodstuffs according to the various inquiries, which are to be compared with the price data on p. 108 in order to be correctly valued. There was spent in the year, in marks:

In sum: in the shaping of his food conditions too, the American worker stands much nearer our better middle-class circles than our class of wage-labourers: he already dines, he no longer merely eats.

And that he ranks much rather with our bourgeois middle class than with our working class, as far as the shaping of his standard of living is concerned, is shown most plainly perhaps in his clothing. This strikes everyone who comes to America for the first time. A sketch of mood from Kolb (no. 144 of the “Survey”): “There (in the bicycle factory) many even wore starched shirts; the collars were unbuttoned during work and the cuffs — which were, by the way, sewn on throughout — turned back to the elbow. When the whistle went (whew!) and the people peeled themselves out of their overalls, one hardly saw the worker in them. Many used their wheel to ride home. And many a one rode off in an elegant hat, yellow lace-up boots and fashion-coloured gloves, as smart as anyone. Unskilled labourers with a daily wage of 1¼ dollars.” And then the women workers! The “ladies”, as they are generally called. Here the clothing, especially among the young girls, is often downright elegant: in more than one factory I have seen women workers in light-coloured, indeed white silk blouses; the hat is hardly ever missing on the way to the factory; “les gants blancs étaient de rigueur”, reports Mme van Vorst (no. 143 of the “Survey”) of a working girls’ ball, and describes the get-up of the ladies in the restaurant where (N.B. on a working day, in the midday break during factory work!) they lunch, as follows: “elles arrivaient par groupes, élégantes dans un froufrou de jupes de soie (think of it!), sous des chapeaux chargés de plumes, de guirlandes de fleurs, de toute une montagne d’ornements; violettes de fantaisie, gants de peau, sacs de ceintures en argent, blousettes brodées, boucles ciselées complétaient des toilettes où tout était pour l’effet.”

The question is whether this luxury in dress can be grasped in figures, in order to compare it, say, with other countries. Peter Roberts, who, it is true, looks upon the modern “luxury” of the working population with the eyes of the moralist and the hair-splitter, gives in his investigations into the condition of the coal workers of Pennsylvania (no. 146 of the “Survey”) quite interesting data precisely on expenditure on dress too. While the newly arrived “Slav” woman covers her needs for clothing with 25 dollars a year, the American average woman needs 50 to 60 dollars, and some as much as 100 and 150 dollars. Of the men he reports: the “Hun” pays 5 dollars for a suit, the “Pole” 10, the “Lett” 15. The Anglo-Saxon pays 15 to 25 dollars. Many wear made-to-measure suits. They never go without collar and tie, cuffs and white shirt, pin, studs, gold watch with chain, and seldom without a gold ring. They pay 2 to 3 dollars for a pair of shoes and about the same price for their hat. They never buy at a second-hand clothes dealer’s. For cold weather each has his comfortable overcoat; many of them have two: one for spring and autumn, the other for winter. In contrast to the fresh immigrants, and probably also to the older generation of the native-born, “young America” changes its clothing mightily often. If a suit is somewhat worn, it is discarded. The hat of last year is no longer worn this year. Collar and tie are changed according to the demands of fashion. Much is spent on linen and underwear too. So that the average young man — the average young man of native birth — married or single, may well need 40–50 dollars (that is, 168–210 marks) for clothing. These data find their confirmation in the figures of our household budgets. Throughout, the expenditure on clothing is absolutely, and even relatively (in proportion to income), considerably higher than with us.

The Washington 2,567 had the following average expenditure in the year:

The Massachusetts families spend on average in the year

The Mrs. Charles Husted More already mentioned has come to a similar result — namely, that in American working-class families expenditure on clothing makes up on average 12 per cent of income.

Now the Germans, on the other hand: they spend on clothes on average in the year:

One may assume that the last two figures come nearer to reality than the first two. In the case of the Karlsruhe families the reporter himself explains the high outlay on clothing by the greater need for footwear (because of the longer way to and from the place of work). Why May’s families should spend so much more on clothing than the Nuremberg and Berlin ones is not to be seen. In view of the small number of cases investigated, chance may play a part. At all events, on the basis of the figures before us one can say: the American worker spends absolutely three times as much on clothing as the German, relatively about one and a half times as much.

The habit of the American worker of satisfying his needs for housing, food and clothing in so ample a manner has had the natural consequence that his “free” income, in spite of the so much higher total income, forms no higher percentage than with his German colleagues. Rather, rather more favourable proportions result for the German workers. Chance may well play its part, and in particular the different method of drawing up the budgets may make itself felt here: but the results of our inquiries can hardly be dismissed out of hand as far as the division of expenditure into the main categories is concerned. According to them, however, for the American there would remain, after covering his needs for housing, food and clothing, only a part of his income that lies nearer to a fifth (in 2 cases) than to a quarter (which is not quite reached in one case), whereas for the German rather more than less than a quarter (nearly three-tenths) would be left over for “sundries”. Here are the figures:

(See the table on p. 122.)

What does the German worker do with his (relatively) so much greater surplus over the “necessary” expenditure? Does he spend more on education? on amusements? on associations? on taxes? on the doctor? None of all these. What he “saves” on expenditure for housing, clothing and food he — drinks. The whole difference between the “free” income of the American and of the German worker — and more than it — is absorbed by the expenditure on alcoholic drinks.

It has often been pointed out lately that the American worker is, to all appearance, less given to alcohol than his German colleague. I am in a position to confirm the correctness of this observation in figures.

Of the 2,567 American working-class families specially investigated, exactly half were wholly abstinent: only in 50.72 per cent was there any expenditure at all on alcoholic drinks. And even among those who indulged in alcohol, the expenditure on “intoxicating liquids” (“intoxicating liquors” is the technical term of the statistics for “alcoholic drinks”) moved within moderate limits. These families spent on average 24.35 dollars a year (103 marks), (the native-born show an average of 22.28 dollars, the foreign-born of 27.39 dollars; the maximum was reached by the Scots with 33.63 dollars and — the Germans with 33.50 dollars). That is 3.19 per cent of total expenditure. But if one reckons the expenditure on alcoholic drinks, as the drinking families made it, on the total expenditure of all the families, there results an average burden on the budget from this item of 12.44 dollars (52 marks), or 1.62 per cent. (The budgets of the Massachusetts families unfortunately contain no separate data on this outlay.)

To judge the German figures set against these correctly, it must be considered that alcoholic drinks — beer in particular — are considerably dearer in the United States than with us. The usual tavern measure of domestic beer holds about 2/10 to at most 3/10 of a litre and costs throughout 5 cents, that is, about 20 pfennigs. The German thus gets for the same sum of money at least twice the quantity of “stuff”, in South Germany probably three times as much. It is true that American beer may be brewed somewhat stronger than South German beer in particular. With this said in advance, I let the figures of the German household inquiries follow. (May contains no separate data for alcoholic drinks.)

Relatively sober are the Berlin families. They spent on average 111 marks a year on beer and spirits, which makes up 6.64 per cent of total expenditure. Even so they drink four to five times as much as the Americans.

But the consumption of alcohol takes on uncannily large dimensions in the South German families. The Karlsruhe families spent on average 219 marks on alcohol, which is more than ⅕ of the household costs and 12.6 per cent of total expenditure. And we also learn in what quantities this sum of money is embodied: the family consumes on average 769 litres of beer, 138 litres of wine and 6 litres of spirits a year. Your good health!

Somewhat smaller is the burden on the budget from expenditure on alcoholic drinks in the Nuremberg families. Still, even of these an average of 143 marks is spent on them, equal to 9.61 per cent of total expenditure, of which beer alone accounts for 9.21 per cent. In view of the cheap price of beer in the beer city of Nuremberg, the quantity consumed will not lag far behind that of the Karlsruhe families. So: the German working-class family spends three to four times as much on alcohol as the American, and so drinks perhaps six to ten times as much as it, and burdens its budget with this item by at least the amount that the American spends more on housing, food and clothing.

It is probable that after deduction of the expenditure on spirituous drinks the income remaining at the free disposal of the worker makes up a larger percentage in America than in Germany. It would, namely, amount for our families to

The surplus that the American gains thereby he spends partly on church and charitable purposes (1.30 per cent), partly on acquisitions for the dwelling (3.42 per cent), while the same remaining residue of “sundries” is distributed fairly evenly, here as there, over the same items of expenditure. Fairly equal are the expenditures on amusements, taxes, books and periodicals, doctor and apothecary, insurance (private over there, public here), purposes of organisation and so on.