QJU.. From the collection of the n m PreTinger i a JLJibrary p San Francisco, California 2006 GETTING AND SPENDING AT THE PROFESSIONAL STANDARD OF LIVING THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO GETTING AND SPENDING AT THE PKOFESSIONAL STANDAED OF LIVING A STUDY OF THE COSTS OF LIVING AN ACADEMIC LIFE BY JESSICA B. PEIXOTTO, PH.D. PROFESSOR or SOCIAL ECONOMICS, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA gotfc THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1927 All rights reserved COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and printed. Published August, 1927. Printed in the United States of America by J. J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK "The truth, nearly all the truth, and very little but the truth." PREFACE Up to the present, with rare exception the precise terms of the getting and spending of professional people has been shut away in the romantic and shadowy domain of home life, " hopelessly private," ' ' sacred. " Conventions in high repute, a code of behavior that opposite habits of mind will style discreet or foolish, at present shroud in silence the details of what professional families buy. Canons of conduct run almost unquestioned to the effect that it is bad form to ask details of domestic ex- penditures or to give them. Indeed, many persons see something vulgar, ridiculous or unseemly in any exact showing of the way family income goes. The study herewith presented represents a break in this conventional silence. What follows displays in considerable detail the getting and the spending of careful professional families. The data add, it is believed, to a very small stock of evidence in a part of the field of consumption wherein lie some of the most relevant questions of economic theory and business practice. The schedules analyzed all ex- press the complexities of modern expenditures, at what is commonly called a "comfort" standard. The spending goes on at a level of income that per- mits choices in wider range than the majority of "budget" studies show. The data should therefore vii viii PREFACE aid to formulate both the terms of the typical Ameri- can standard of living and of the theoretical Ameri- can "demand," with greater respect for the verities than has hitherto characterized the attempt. This examination of a reasoned professional standard should also contribute facts to answer the more immediate and practical question, what does the American standard of living cost a family of man and wife with the "standard" family of two growing children? The facts of this investigation and others the author has not yet published suggest the answer to be : It costs about $7,000 a year. The statement that a comfort standard spells desires which cost from $7,000 to $10,000, may at first thought seem to have in it more than one element of absurdity. Yet to the author, the pretension seems a sobering truth. The research here reported leads to this statement as a major conclusion. True, current statistics tell us that in our prosperous United States only one percent of the nation can command an income of $10,000 or more; that scarcely three percent of our people have $5,000 or over to spend. But the question is not of income. $7,000 is the sum needed to satisfy a set of desires for goods and services, desires that at the present time influence widely and profoundly the way men earn their money and the way they spend it. The unswerving faith of our time in the social value of a rising standard of living; the growing belief es- pecially among wage earners in a universal "right" to a comfort standard ; above all business influences persuasive, — these are forces pri- PREFACE ix mary in shaping this American standard that costs at least $7,000. Because emporia, admirably equipped and stocked, lure consumers as the fairs of other days did, not annually or quarterly as in those other times, but daily and hourly through the press and the shop window, every man and his wife or perhaps more exactly and more compellingly, every man's son and his daughter, learn a new scale of wants. Cheapened imitations of luxury goods and installment selling do the rest. Business, ac- claiming the thriftiness of budgeting to meet its new credit methods, brings into the average consumer's list of purchases, articles his theory of income and spending never before included in the possibilities. Credit methods now complete the work of develop- ing a $7,000 theory of use goods. Thus the new single standard that presses on earning power is developed; industrial unrest is the reflection of this rising demand for a comfort standard. Those who read the following pages are asked then to consider seriously the hypothesis that the items and costs of family expenditure the 96 families included in this study have reported, express the stock desires of the average American consumer in income classes other than the very wealthy and those who try to keep up with the rich. About this single standard, the mass imagination circles. The several "lower" standards most often considered are actually planes of living but not standards of living. In this study, the standard in question is designated a professional standard for reasons ex- plained later. Is it a "high" standard? By what x- PREFACE test? Custom wants? High total costs? Ethical values? More light is certainly needed before de- ciding. Not only the student of standards of living but also the searcher after an art of spending, may find something of interest in these expenditures at a pro- fessional standard. It would be a satisfaction, if in addition to making a rift in the darkness now surrounding the nature and the real costs of current spending habits at the professional American standard, this data should in however slight degree, serve to swing discussion of the art of spending from the abstract and normative foundations on which it now rests, to a more concrete and positive basis. Without passing judgment upon the charac- ter of the expenditures hereinafter shown, it is still possible to be somewhat enthusiastic about them as promising means for a reasoned examination of ac- credited theories and practices in the use of purchas- ing power, to consider them in fact, examples of what those who do pronounce upon the art of satis- fying wants call "wise spending. " This picture of the distribution of the "satisfactions" gained in the use of incomes that range from $1800 to $16,000 is certainly some index of what spending methods are like when they are both "rational" and in con- formity with the accepted canons of reputable spending. In particular, the schedules give special opportunity to inspect and discuss those "wants for higher goods" generally and traditionally taken to be the criterion of the consumer's rationality. Economists will then, it is hoped, find in the fol- PREFACE xi lowing pages more than an inquiry into the suffi- ciency of salaries. The study that follows is none the less in first instance an investigation of the costs of living an academic life, — a description of the way the several ranks in a university faculty follow, on the one hand, the dictates of an academic standard of living and on the other hand try to "pay as they go" while making and using incomes ranging from $1800 to $16,000. Primarily and principally, the study sets forth the goods and service aspects of living an academic life at Berkeley and the costs thereof in 1922. As a cost of living study, its immediate service- ability seems to be to show decisively that the sala- ries offered the faculty of the university under investigation, and in all probability the faculties of most universities, are below the amount required if an accepted standard of living for professional men is to be paid for out of those salaries. The incentive to make this study of the way academic families live undoubtedly included an emotional interest. However, in plan at least, the investigation excluded both propaganda and special pleading. The controlling objective has been to gather the facts by methods calculated to give a reflex of reality and to interpret the data without bias. In short, the aim has been to let exact methods tell a story. It is believed this purpose has been consistently carried out. But the author is of the profession under investigation. In greater or less degree, this fact may have frustrated an honest in- xii PREFACE tention to treat the data dispassionately. The reader is at least assured of an earnest wish to interpret the findings without bias. It is hoped the study will seem as exact and free from partiality as it is intended to be. In any case, the tables per- mit each reader to draw his own conclusions. J. B. P. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, November, 1926. NOTE: — Those lacking the time or the interest to read all the supporting details of this study will get the main pur- poses and the findings of the investigation by reading Chapter I and Chapter IX. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author is under many obligations. A word of deep appreciation is eagerly offered to the fam- ilies who furnished the data that is the basis for this study. Those 96 professional families who generously consented to break through conventions, in doing so, have done more than give the details of how they used their incomes, given more than the facts about the direction, the relative occurrence and the emphasis in academic expenditure. They have brushed aside prejudice; they have courageously stepped beyond a traditional rule of conduct. Also they took great pains to supply the facts analyzed here. The families themselves did not have at hand the precise knowledge the schedules called for. To get it and to give it required time and effort. Both were freely and competently given to help in displaying reality. First of all then, my sincerest thanks to the hus- bands and wives who filled out the schedules. In particular, Mrs. G. P. Adams, Mrs. J. T. Allen, Mrs. C. H. Bell, Mrs. H. L. Bruce, Mrs. S. B. Freeborn, Mrs. I. M. Linforth, Mrs. Guy Montgomery, Mrs. T. Peterson and Mrs. E. C. Tolman, the nine wives who wrote the article on academic spending have been my prime aids in this modest endeavor to show things as they are. xiii XIV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Indebtedness is likewise cheerfully acknowledged for statistical and secretarial aid. In developing the facts the schedules contained, my most direct obliga- tion is to Miss Mary Gorringe, statistician of the Heller Committee for Eesearch in Social Economics. Her work in making most of the computations and in preparing the first draft of the data though done under my direction has been so helpfully done that certain paragraphs dealing with the figures raise embarrassing questions of authorship. Miss Martha E. Burrill has ably and conscientiously supervised the revision of the computations. Finally, very generous pecuniary help has made both the field investigation possible and paid for the laboratory computations. Every search for new truth represents appreciable costs and in social research fairly high costs. The considerable sum necessary for the field and laboratory work has been generously given by interested friends. Mr. William Denman and Dean Lucy Ward Stebbins contributed sums that first encouraged the undertaking. Other- wise, the considerable expense has been paid for through an allotment from a fund for research in social economics generously given in 1923 to the Department of Economics by Mr. and Mrs. E. S. Heller of San Francisco as testimony of their ap- preciation of the importance and the necessity of social research, and made available for the author's use by the Committee in charge of the fund. With- out the help of these sympathetic and discerning friends this study could not have been made. CONTENTS PREFACE ....... . . . ... * ••, » c ... vii INTRODUCTORY — THE PAY CHECK AND THE PROFESSOR 1 I. The low pay of academic faculties a public interest 1 II. The cost of living only one among several causes for a feeling that salaries are too low 3 III. The influences making for the prevalent low pay . 4 IV. The influences acting to raise standards of living in contemporary academic life ....... 10 V. The risks attendant upon a continuation of the present low appraisement and low pay .... 22 VI. Whether better salaries can be found and how . . 24 CHAPTER I. — ECONOMIC UTILITY OF THE STUDY ... 28 I. A cost of living study .' . 28 II. The study also shows a standard of living relatively infrequently analyzed ., . ....'. . . 29 III. As a description of a standard of living, the details show a standard 1 1 higher ' ' than that of most pre- vious studies, a standard of living that may profit- ably be regarded as a ''comfort" standard, but definiteness is gained by calling it a middle-class, professional, American standard of living ... 33 IV. The academic standard of living as described by certain academic families themselves 37 V. Whether the standard that academic faculties ascribe to themselves is one they are entitled to and whether they spent "wisely'' 43 CHAPTER II. — THE METHOD OF INVESTIGATION. . . 46 I. Schedule 46 II. Collecting the data 46 III. Eeliability of the data 47 IV. The price level 48 V. The method of selecting the families 48 VI. Nature of faculty representation 50 XV xvi CONTENTS PAGE A. Relative number of total married persons in- cluded 50 B. Representation of the 96 families included by pro- fessional rank 54 VII. General applicability of the findings 56 CHAPTER III. — THE SOCIAL DATA 59 I. The number in the study : sex and maturity ... 59 II. Age 60 III. The family type 62 A. Size and composition of the family .... 62 B. Size of family in relation to the age and the income of faculty members 63 IV. Place of birth 65 CHAPTER IV. — ANALYSIS OF SALARIES AND INCOMES . 70 I. Salary and income 70 A. Salary range . * . , 71 B. Income range 72 C. Salaries and incomes compared 74 II. The sources and nature of supplementary income . 78 A. The general findings about supplementary income 78 B. The supplementary income of the 96 families from work 80 C. Income from property 101 D. Income from gifts and miscellaneous sources . 103 E. Non-pecuniary income 106 CHAPTER V. — GENERAL CHARACTER OF EXPENDITURES lie I. The standard of expenditure 116 A. The method used 117 B. The standard of living and expenditures . . . 118 II. The total expenditures 119 III. The relation between the major divisions of the household expenditures 121 A. General relationships 121 B. The proportionate expenditures according to ex- penditure levels 125 C. The allotment of expenditures according to aca- demic rank 135 D. Summary 139 CONTENTS xvii PAGB CHAPTER VI. — FURTHER DETAILS OP THE EXPENDI- TURES FOR FOOD, CLOTHING, SHELTER AND HOUSE OPERATION 148 I. Food 148 A. Amounts allotted for food 148 B. Food and the size of the household .... 152 II. Clothing ...... \ 156 A. Expenditures of husbands and wives compared . 156 B. Costs of clothing and gifts . . . .... 158 C. Expenditures for clothing and academic rank . 159 III. Shelter 162 A. Further details of costs of shelter .... 162 B. Owners or tenants 163 C. Academic Bank and Tenantry 163 D. Eelative costs of owning and renting .... 164 IV. House operation 169 A. Light, fuel and heat . 171 B. Ice . . . . . . . .. . ., ... ^ .. . 174 C. Telephone and telegraph ....... 175 D. Service . . . . 175 E. Garbage removal . . . , .„- . „ . . . 179 F. Personal cleaning supplies . . ....... . 181 G. House cleaning supplies 181 H. House laundry . . . ...„...,. ,r 182 I. Furnishings 183 J. Stationery and postage . . . 184 CHAPTER VII. — INTENSIVE ANALYSIS OF THE ITEMS OF MISCELLANEOUS ., ., .. .. 187 I. The direction, the relative occurrence and the changes in the direction of miscellaneous . . . 187 II. The relation of the items of miscellaneous to total expenditure and to the total for -miscellaneous . . 188 A. Investments, insurance, savings 188 B. Automobiles 196 C. Eecreation 198 D. Health . 203 E. Dependents outside the home 207 F. Gifts 209 .G. Education ...mm-* • •• •- - « -. • w 211 xviii CONTENTS PAQB H. Professional expense . . t. ;. . . . . 214 I. Incidentals 217 J. Associations ...... :. 219 K. Church and charity 221 L. Tobacco 223 CHAPTER VIII. — TYPICAL FAMILY EXPENSE HISTO- RIES AT A PROFESSIONAL STANDARD 227 CHAPTER IX. — SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 250 I. The social data 251 A. Bank .....* 251 B. Nationality i ., . 251 C. Age 251 D. Size and composition of families 252 II. Salary and income 252 A. Salary range 254 B. Income range 254 C. Non-pecuniary rewards 259 III. Expenditures 262 A. Making both ends meet 264 B. Total amounts spent 264 C. Allocation of expenditures 264 APPENDIX . . .- . . , 283 I. Tables. (See Index of Tables) 284 II. Survey Schedule, ' ' Standard of Living of the faculty of the University of Calif ornia" 294 INDEX 303 INDEX OF TABLES TABLES PAGE I. Proportion of married and of single persons in each academic rank 50 IA. Proportion of the married members of the various departments who were included in the survey . . 52 II. Number of per cent of representation of the dif- ferent academic ranks in (a) the total faculty of the Berkeley departments, (b) the total married faculty and (c) the 96 families included in the study 55 III. Comparative number and per cent of faculty mem- bers by rank (a) in total faculty, (b) in total married faculty and (c) included in the study . 55 IV. Percentage in each rank among the married faculty members represented in the study ..... 56 V. Total number of persons in all household groups of the 96 families by sex and maturity .... 60 VI. Age of faculty members and helpmates ... 60 VII. Faculty members by academic rank and specified age 61 VIII. Number of children in the academic families studied 63 IX. Size of immediate family according to academic rank . . . . . . . . . **. . . . . 64 X. Number and per cent of natives and of foreign- born among all members of the 96 families studied 66 XI. Place of birth of all members of the 96 families studied ,....,.._. 67 XII. Further details regarding place of birth of all members of the 96 households . . . ... 68 XIII. Relative amount of regular salary and of total income received by the 96 families 76 XIV. Percentage of 96 families who received less than a specified amount of regular salary or of total income 77 XV. Median amount of salary and of total income for given academic ranks 77 xix xx INDEX OF TABLES TABLES PAGE XVA. Mean amount of salary and of total income for given academic ranks 78 XVI. Mean and median amount of additional earnings of faculty members of specified academic ranks . 97 XVII. Source of earnings of faculty members and the mean and median amounts from each source . . 98 XVIII. All sources of income of the families studied and the mean and median amount from each source . 98 XIX. Regular and alternative remunerative occupations of helpmates 99 XX. Median amount of total income showing (1) amount and per cent of income from each source and (2) number reporting each type of income . 104 XXI. Median income of each academic rank according to sources 105 XXII. Mean income of each academic rank according to sources 105 XXIII. Length of service of the 96 faculty members studied 115 XXIV. Academic rank of faculty members related to a specified length of service 114-115 XXV. Mean amounts of expenditure for each rank . . 121 XXVT. Median distribution among different items of ex- penditure for all 96 faculty families .... 122 XXVlA. Mean distribution among different items of ex- penditure for all 96 faculty families .... 122 XXVII. Distribution of the expenditures of the whole group 123 XXVIII. Mean and median amounts and percentages of total expenditures allotted to each item of the budget 124 XXIX. Mean amounts spent for different items of budget by families with a given amount of total expenditures 133 XXIXA. Mean percentage distribution of expenditure among the different budgetary items for a given amount of total expenditure 133 XXX. Mean and median percentage distribution of ex- penditure among the different budgetary itema correlated with given amounts of total expenditure 134 INDEX OF TABLES xxi TABLES PAGE XXXI. Per cent distribution of the mean expenditure among the different items of the budget for given, academic ranks 135 XXXlA. Comparison of faculty allocation of expenditures with that of high school teachers in Bruere study, 1912 .'-,.'" . . . . 141 XXXII. Percentage distribution of expenditure for the main items of the budget for a family of four with an income equivalent to $4,800 per year — the faculty distribution compared with distribution proposed by various organizations. '._'.. . . 143 XXXIII. Comparison of average weekly food cost per capita for faculty families with an estimate by Dr. Agnes Fay Morgan and Professor Jaffa's relief budget by size of family 153 XXXIIlA. Size of family correlated with the amount spent for food 154 XXXIV. Size of family correlated with the per cent of total expenditure for food 155 XXXV. Percentage spent for clothing by the husbands and by the wives of the families studied . . . 157 XXXVI. Mean and median amount of excess of wife's ex- penditure for clothing over that of her husband and vice versa .-«•».,. . . 157 XXX VII. Percentage of total expenditure devoted to housing 166 XXXVIII. Mean and median amounts and percentages spent for shelter for a given amount of total expenditure 166 XXXIX. Eelative housing costs of owners and tenants . 167 XL. Number and proportion of owners and tenants for a specified amount of total expenditure . . . 167 XLI. Number and proportion of owners and tenants for a specified academic rank 168 XLII. Mean and median number of rooms occupied by household of a specified size 168 XLIII. Mean and median number of rooms ocupied by household of a specified income 169 XLIV. Mean and median expenditure for all items of house operation and mean and median percentage to total expenditure 184 XLV. Mean and median expenditures for all items of house operation and mean and median percentage to total costs of house operation 185 XLVI. Families reporting expenditure for furnishings . 186 XX11 INDEX OF TABLES TABLES XLVII. XLVIII. XLIX. L. LI. LIT. LIII. LIV. LV. LVI. PAGE Families reporting expenditure for service . . . 186 Mean and median amount and percentage of total expenditure devoted to different types of invest- ment and insurance 195 Median amount and percentage of specified items of miscellaneous to total expenditure .... 225 Median amount and percentage of total miseelle- neous allotment spent for specified items of mis- cellaneous 225 Number and percentage of families with a given amount of total expenditure who reported ex- penditures for certain specified items under mis- cellaneous 226 Expenditures of professors' families (mean amounts). (Average size of families: four per- sons) . . . ' '-. . . 279 Table showing number and percentage of families with a given amount of total expenditure for miscellaneous who reported expenditure for the different items under the general heading of mis- cellaneous 284-285 Table showing number and percentage of fam- ilies with a given amount of total expenditure who reported expenditures for the different items under the general heading of miscellaneous . 286-287 Table showing mean and median percentage of the total expenditure spent for the different items under the general heading of miscellaneous by families with a given amount of total expend- iture 288-289 Table showing mean and median percentage of the total expenditure for miscellaneous spent for the different items under the general heading of miscellaneous by families with a given amount of total expenditure 290-291 LVII. Table showing mean and median percentage of the total expenditure for miscellaneous spent for the different items under the general heading of miscellaneous by families with a given amount of total miscellaneous expenditures 292-293 LVIII. Table showing mean and median amount spent for the different items under the general heading of miscellaneous by families with a given amount of total expenditure facing p. 294 GETTING AND SPENDING AT THE PROFESSIONAL STANDARD OF LIVING GETTING AND SPENDING AT THE PROFESSIONAL STANDARD OF LIVING INTRODUCTORY THE PAY CHECK AND THE PROFESSOE The purchasing power of the academic man is low. To say this is to underscore the obvious, to state the already known. What is new in the pres- ent situation is the sound of objection. Hitherto, to all appearances, academic faculties have not resented a salary scale notably dispropor- tionate at the top to that of the successful in other professions. Today definite protest is plainly and generally audible. Evidently this question of the rate of pay of all classes of instructors on academic faculties has interest for every citizen, an interest more than personal, occupational or industrial. Long ago, this nation committed itself to the program of university education. As time has gone on, particularly in the West, the idea has gained immense headway. It is a commonplace in the thinking of all but a few conservatives that high-grade universities should 1 2 GETTING AND SPENDING be found everywhere offering the best education free for as many as could use it to advantage and maintaining the highest standards attainable. Deep- rooted among our national traditions of democracy and its implications lies the belief in an educa- tional system captained by members of the academic profession, persons dedicated to a scholar's love of learning, even to a scholar's aloofness, but also quickened by the desire and the power to stimulate the thought and the imagination of youth. Also hitherto as today it has never been questioned that, given current methods of instruction, the grade of instruction depended upon the character of the facul- ties in the universities. The type and the standards of university faculty members determine the quality of the teaching. Appraisement of this kind notwithstanding, and in an age whose social theory runs to the effect that the rate of earnings registers the social evalua- tion, university authorities pay small salaries. Those who may be called our captains of education get compensation that at best falls below what men with the same recognized competence can readily earn in other professions or in business. The sala- ries of the most accredited university teachers barely pay the costs of their way of living. Supplementary earning or vested income is a necessity. Why are academic salaries always thus compara- tively low? Why relatively speaking has the pro- fessor been patient under low pay? Why does he begin now to resent that which for so long he accepted as appropriate or inevitable? THE PAY CHECK AND THE PROFESSOR 3 II Any individual will find his salary lessened if it remains unchanged (1) when prices rise, (2) when standards of living alter, (3) when new opportuni- ties at higher pay present themselves. The price fluctuations since 1913 brought to aca- demic men the same exasperating sense of economic insufficiency that all the rest of the world felt. The rapid rise in the cost of living which made the dollar of 1913 sixty cents in 1926 worked the same change for academic faculties that it made for all other classes of breadwinners. Kising prices have taught many hitherto ignorant of the distinction to appreciate the difference between money income and goods and service income, a -concept until re- cently a commonplace for the economist only. But with regard to rising prices, the academic world has simply suffered along with all others living through the Great War. Always and by ritual the members of this class have saved. As prices rose, they tried to save a little more. Relatively speaking, most members of academic faculties accepted the fall in income through rise in prices with more patience than either organized workers or other salaried classes. Their expression of unrest comes later than other displays of impatience. But it has come. Why? The chief causes of the present discontent lie less in the high cost of living than in a changed stand- ard of living and in the appearance of opportunities 4 GETTING AND SPENDING to do, at better pay, the type of work faculty people like best. The traditionally low salary rate in academic cir- cles connects easily with certain elements in an habitual standard of living. So far as the faculties themselves are concerned, low salaries in universi- ties derive, in part at least, from the typical aca- demic man's theory of spending and from his will and power to make a bargain, that is, his capacity for estimating and asserting the social value of his work, — his occupational self-respect, so to speak. Ill Let us examine first a little more fully the effect upon the salary level of the accepted academic theory of spending, obviously that theory implied by the old canon of " plain living and high think- ing." It is well known that in university circles the elu- sive term, the "simple life," describes customarily the accredited way of living. The concept associates closely morality and low income. Further, it in- cludes a standard of spending that estimates highly any successful struggle to make both ends meet, irrespective of whether or no the ends are a fair dis- tance apart. This spending standard is really obso- lescent. However, verbally at least, it still has wide vogue among faculty people. All traditions in aca- demic circles are colored by the fact that the profes- sion began in the cloister where the rule of an iso- lated life consecrated to an appointed task modified THE PAY CHECK AND THE PROFESSOR 5 /all other aspects of conduct. Thus, the precepts handed down to the men and women who go into academic life today imply in general a renunciation of " worldly " spending. In particular, this origin accounts largely for the well-defined doctrine of 'ex- penditure still ' ' standard ' ' in academic circles. This theory needs no elaborated statement. Everyone knows the "rational" doctrine of spend- ing that colors the average academic man's discus- sion of the use of goods, a theory that deprecates personal display, that scorns quantity consumption, above all competitive consumption. By conscien- tious scruple as well as because of income limits, most academic traditions about spending remain loyal in whole or in part to that reasoned code for the use of income most extensively and elaborately set forth by Alberti and most simply by Franklin. Theoretically at least, the professor is by and large a buyer with a reasoned scale of wants. If tradition in academic circles makes it "undigni- fied ' ' openly to demand more income, this is in part at least because it is not usually good ethics to admit either the need for a large income or the obligation to spend freely. On the contrary, as has been said, spending proceeds upon the assumption that the supreme obligation is to try to "make both ends meet" however near together fate draws the "ends." If professors are not in the van with that effective minority who today' aim to force income continuously upwards to meet a scale of wants that by formula grows legitimately in volume and inten- sity, this is because their formal allegiance goes 6 GETTING AND SPENDING to Poor Richard. Loyalty to a creed that ties suc- cess in the search for truth with simple living, breeds patience with a scale of living that the suc- cessful in the business and professional world about them dub poverty. First of all then, the professor bargains badly because he advocates simple living. In the next place, he is handicapped in bidding for better pay because native aptitudes draw him to the academic life. By and large, men and women offer themselves to universities because they see in university life a much desired chance for pioneering into the un- known. The vast majority of those who go into it feel a genuine "call" to the work. The rewards lie within the processes and the products of a chosen task. This occupational group evidences the good psychological foundations of Fourier's belief that talent will be content with the wage equivalent of merely basic needs if only the way is opened for self-expression in work. More than 'pay, members of academic faculties covet time to work and a place to work. Finally, a divided estimate of the teacher in gen- eral and the faculty man in particular plays no mean part in keeping salaries low. The astonishing fact is that faculty men themselves assess uncertainly the human qualities, the services and the social utility of the profession. The employing class, the public, including the boards of trustees of universi- ties, evidence the same divided state of mind. The attitude in question can readily be noted within the profession. Indeed, ironical appraisal of THE PAY CHECK AND THE PROFESSOR 7 their own occupation is a favorite form of intellec- tual sport among professors. " Freedom " and the "self-sufficiency of the individual " are cherished watchwords. Certainly the best academic man is not lacking in "proper pride " but, to all but a minority, group action looks like a repellant duty to be avoided as far as possible. In face of innu- endo or bald statement about the professor's lack of prestige or fair income, most academic men prefer a proud humility to a retort. A sense of their social value clashes with an embittered feeling that they are overlooked, rated second to athletic coaches within the university and to other profes- sions in general. The solac'e of work takes prece- dence of any struggle for a more assured status or for a better money equivalent of the services they render. In this habit of an uncertain, paradoxical or quiz- zical rating, the public meets' the professor more than halfway. Particularly of late, publications, occasional, periodical and daily, give the academic faculty member a kind of prominence that indicates a curiously complex and contradictory attitude to- ward the professor, his personality, his powers,, his duties, his ultimate usefulness and his money value. Undoubtedly, all professions are looked at from different angles. The greater number of persons see in the lawyer a supreme, steadying social influence. Many thinkers not to be despised have however de- clared his real social role to be that of the mean panderer to controlling interests. By opposite dicta, the doctor is pictured both as the patient preserver 8 GETTING AND SPENDING of the lives of thousands, and the commercial quack preying upon weaknesses he deliberately fosters or for which at best appraisal he can do little. But this dual slant of opinion affects faculty mem- bers most often. Two widely divergent evaluations of this profession are always in evidence. All esti- mates of the academic profession, its social status and its measure of pay, are tinctured with one of two assumptions, or more intriguing still, with a blend of both. One habit of speech places academic teachers where the Chinese have in all times ranked their scholars, — the world 'a leaders in thought. There is no lack of paragraphs wherein academic faculties are respectfully saluted as pioneers of knowledge, brave spiritual souls who for the sake of research separate themselves from the world, to dwell apart in companies of scholars, drawing about them a younger generation to walk presently in their foot- steps. The other way of thinking patronizingly regards the academic teacher as a respectable type of public drudge, a creature removed from realities whose single undoubted merit is a special stock of infor- mation, more or less useful. The long-standing scorn the man of action and the dilettante have for the aloofness and eccentricity of a life removed from the main business disciplines and devoted to specialized and painstaking research, is still cur- rent and just now quite popular. The novelist, the dramatist, the cartoonist and a wide following in the press more often than not picture the professor THE PAY CHECK AND THE PROFESSOR 9 to a tittering public as an "absent-minded beggar," stored with special knowledge perhaps but ludi- crously ignorant of reality. Habits of speech fre- quently make it seem that what the professor offers in the classroom is the penalty collegians pay for the "real" advantages of college life, social activi- ties and athletics. "Literary" circles delight in de- picting academic faculties as assemblages of unin- spiring pedants, men and women of the passive type isolated by native propensities, useful in a world of action for little beyond perpetuating that which is in good repute; dubiously serviceable even in their own rut. At worst, there is the Shavian formula that the professor does not act, he teaches and teaches outworn truths at that. At best, the profes- sor figures in this version as the means whereby society gets its active "college bred" men and women. Thus, the public and the profession itself oscillate between extremes of characterization. The market value of the scholar is the result. The community treats this professional who higgles rarely or not at all as it always treats the meek, especially those meek whose additional peculiarities lead them to be primarily interested in arranging and explaining known phenomena or absorbed in the search after new contributions to knowledge. Accepting old canons out of the Greek world that ally pioneering for facts with My Lady Poverty and laud the alliance as the gospel in regard to goods and services, the professor and the community en- dorse the creed that poverty is opportunity; the 10 GETTING AND SPENDING public comfortably assumes that academic life is inherently inexpensive. Mild disdain on the one hand or high estimate of spiritual sufficiency on the other both lead easily to thinking that as a matter of course low salaries suffice for this cloistered life. The two lines of rea- soning bring the same conclusion. To dwell apart in pleasant places and in "academic calm" need not cost very much. Incarcerated by the terms of his occupation in classrooms and laboratories, the professor's require- ments in commodities and services are evidently few. Even if valuable, the type need not be too highly paid. IV But things have really changed. Effective minori- ties of the profession and of the public have out- grown this habit of mind. In reality the situation is not actually what this ideology of the literati or of the conservatives of the profession conceives it to be. Institutional influences have made both the assump- tions of simple living and of academic isolation be- lated and untrue to the main facts. The professor's ways of living tend now toward the standards and the ways of the world at large. For better, for worse, he moves out into the gen- eral life or the public comes to him. In the world, " academics " hitherto relatively isolated, meet the so-called "upward" trend in the standard of living that has touched all of us. Whether advisedly or not, whether to his and to his contemporaries' ulti- THE PAY CHECK AND THE PROFESSOR 11 mate advantage or disadvantage is not the question. The fact is that the average faculty man is caught by the same influences which, to a greater or less degree, draw all effective members of modern demo- cratic life into " standardized " ways of living. In the first place the professor is no longer a celibate. As often as the rest of the world, he is a married man. His salary must pay not only his own living but also the rising costs of family life, and these are rising costs for more reasons than the rise in prices. Family life in universities takes on continuously more of the pattern of the common life. The facts now belie the thesis that professors live more secluded than the majority whom the business discipline chains inside an assigned task eight or ten hours daily. But even were the thesis true, even though the professor might be "shut in," his family is not. The academic man 's wife and children have become participating members of the community. Going or gone are the days of gown separatism. As often as not "Town and Gown" meet now both in civic affairs and in social life. The public school, not education at home, fixes the aspirations of the professor's children. As consumers, these children learn the "new" plane of living that all who instruct about American economic life present so enthusiasti- cally for the national delectation. The professor himself may still pay homage to Franklin; but his family takes over contemporary world habits of spending. As consumers, professors' families now come near to sharing the common lot. Their desires for goods and services are scarcely less tangled than 12 GETTING AND SPENDING the demand of all those others who exercise con- sumers' choices today. With the world at large, the professor and his family have capitulated in greater or less degree to the standardizing influ- ences that play unremittingly upon the purchasing public to extend their wants. The lure of industrial enterprise has caught even this small class of ra- tional spenders. Here is indeed the type of consumer universally classed as " highest, " the consumer who exercises individual and group choices, who is aware of alter- natives and reasons about them. But it requires little reflection to recognize that even consumers who, like those of the academic world, choose to think, find themselves in their endeavors to be ra- tional torn by the two conflicting canons of spending that are just now the vogue all over the world, canons of spending that complicate and confuse thought and action. When any of us think about a rationale of expenditure, which is not often, a theory about "thrifty" spending competes for place with a code of " reputable " spending. At one and the same time, a dual respect engages the imagination. On the one hand, current rules arrest the attention, rules about the way men should satisfy their wants, whether the wants of the wage-earning class or any other class. All these admonitions are so many neat phrases exhorting to thrift and saving as the means to wealth. In the main, all precepts about expendi- tures now appearing in black and white urge stout resistance to new needs and praise a careful absti- nence in the interests of saving against hazards and THE PAY CHECK AND THE PROFESSOR 13 for new accumulations of capital. The professor's spending code thus accords with that of the public moralists, — and just now, not only teachers but the government, bankers, insurance men, and. store- keepers are among these public teachers of thrift. But there is another convention about spending wholly contradictory, possibly stronger. Blended curiously with this announced respect for abstinence and saving, runs a fine faith in the grand gesture of easy spending. The conviction that spending freely is a practical means to win material pros- perity is a belief dear to youth and to business. It seems true to the facts to assert that belief in the positive value of material prosperity, and a continu- ous show of it in ways of living is gaining upon the opposite position. It seems permissible to maintain that the essential characteristic of the American standard of living is not belief in abstinence, but rather this exuberant creed that the scale of wants of individuals and families must and should increase in volume, in variety and in intensity ; that expanding and varying wants spell increase of personal happiness and gen- eral well-being. Undoubtedly, it can be said that, explicitly or implicitly, this idea appears in every land touched by the dreams the industrial revolution has stirred. All economists sponsor the doctrine. With less emphasis and explicitness perhaps than Bastiat but by implication at least, in all schools of economic theory we find this belief in the beneficent effects of an expanding scale of wants usually called a rising standard of living. 14 GETTING AND SPENDING In the United States, however, the creed of the personal and social utility of a "rising standard of living " applies more " democratically " ; that is to say, it reaches wider circles. Impelled by its maxims, low income groups strain for " higher " standards. Almost without knowing it, the " reason- able " spender is also touched by it. His rationale of spending implies more goods and services and thus a desire for increased income wherewith to purchase them. Those who above all others believe they spend by rational standards, that academic world which is possibly the last stand of the "rational" spender, have also succumbed to the spender's theory, more slowly but quite as certainly. So true is this that, perhaps more than any other class in the community today, professors' families express the meeting of these two trends of influ- ence. To the writer at least it seems but slight exaggeration to hold that the academic way of spending is the American method of expenditure per se. The story of spending shown in later chap- ters evidences plainly a theory of using income that neither frankly accepts the standard of free and easy spending, nor yet whole-heartedly en- dorses the old cautious standard of an exact and continuous calculus of thrift. Rather it is a curi- ous combination of the two. Poor Richard's atti- tude toward goods and services still gets high en- comium from the academic world as it does from all of us, though more especially from the well-to-do whose marginal spending is least affected by the THE PAY CHECK AND THE PROFESSOR 15 rule. But in reality, even in academic circles, praise of Poor Richard is now much of it lip service. As it concerns use of goods and as far as income will permit, the economic behavior of professors and their families responds, even though with a percep- tible lag, to the precepts of the economist and the practices of business. However they may talk about the matter, like the effective minority in all income classes of our contemporary world, many profes- sors as well as other folk see merit and even service to society in striving to be well-to-do and in spending somewhat as the dominant income classes spend. This shift in the theory and practice of spending, first perhaps on the part of the professor's family and from them to him, accounts in great part for the growing sense of an acute disproportion between income and needs. A word to avoid misconception. Those who believe that men find knowledge and wisdom best through dwelling apart from the world, will look with regret or disfavor at this suggestion of a change in the academic situation. Believers in the high merit of the medieval disciplines of seclu- sion in poverty and humility may think low salary the best means of attracting the class of men who find knowledge and keep wisdom. Their position is tenable. But a discussion of what ought to be the main- springs for the consumption of goods is not to the point here. Neither the theory that celebrates the uses of adversity nor the opposite doctrine of the close relation between material prosperity and 16 GETTING AND SPENDING sound thinking is intentionally advocated. A trend of things is explained. The situation described may or may not be what ought to be. What appears above is only the writer's explanation of the "hard irreducible fact" that a new standard of living has come into academic circles. Certain other factors besides this change in the theory of expenditure affect the erstwhile modest needs of the professor. Certain alterations in aca- demic duties that conduce to widened human rela- tions also tend to extend the scale of wants and thus add to the costs of living. The busy world now comes to the professor in various guises, forcing him out of his study. The student body grows larger and more diversified, more insistent in its calls for "contact." An out- side public enters university "enclosures" with in- creasing frequency. Adults as well as adolescents make their way to these "halls of learning" asking for * ' adult education, ' ' adding a complementary and alluring task to the regular instruction of youth. To these same "academic shades," all classes come for "expert" counsel on every conceivable subject. In reality most successful universities are no longer cloisters; rather they are market places. And into these market places there enter also the world's prevailing spending ways, a more complex standard that calls for more income. Another influence that has changed the faculty member's way of living and increased its costs is the fact that the field wherein research goes on THE PAY CHECK AND THE PROFESSOR 17 has widened. Every one knows that university curri- cula now include new departments of inquiry and in- struction. The social sciences set up laboratories; the applied sciences jostle the abstract sciences. Even the arts and crafts knock boldly at the sanctu- aries of "culture for culture's sake." Often they have already entered in. In face of a conservative opposition, new groups of specialists appear in uni- versities. The technician and the social scientist are now alongside the classicist, the mathematician and the physicist, dealing eagerly with "things in their complex entanglement. ' ' Responding to a well- defined utilitarian bias of mind, both with respect to modern inquiry and modern education, one-half at least of the work of the majority of faculty mem- bers now consists in training the younger generation to meet the practical, the immediate in modern life. Before he can explain current issues accurately, the instructor must understand them himself. Un- less he touches the life that he interprets as cap- tain of education, he risks failure. The erstwhile closet philosopher must go out into the world; he does go out, to learn that he may instruct. And it is not only as teacher and inquirer that he hears the call to leave his study. Democratic in- stitutions today ask citizen service from all men and women. The times exempt no one worth while from a score of new civic duties and pleasures. For some time past democratic notions about self-gov- ernment within the university have forced even the would-be recluse into faculty committees and other administrative work. Now comes public service, a 18 GETTING AND SPENDING fourth aspect of the academic " job" often conceived as research and instruction at most. Custom now summons all loyal citizens to add social relation- ships, occupational or political, to the once para- mount duties and pleasures of hearth and home. In many cases the academic faculty member admits the pressure of these duties reluctantly. Sooner or later, however, in one form or another, any faculty member who has made good, finds himself drawn into the general run of things, giving time to some- thing called "public service. " This certainty of more frequent meetings with men and affairs is note- worthy here particularly because it brings an almost unavoidable alteration in spending habits and adds new items to the cost of living. To sum up. World notions about the "neces- sary" items and quantities of food, clothing and shelter alter; custom adds new items to the list now sometimes called "social needs"; the general tendency to the upward standardization of consump- tion passes even the barrier of university life and men and women on faculties become for the most part subject to the rising standard of living, that delight of the economist and the nation. And they do it whole-heartedly. The world trend that refuses to tolerate the eccentric or caste ways of living is rapidly changing the appearance of uni- versity life. Traditions notwithstanding, the pecu- liar way of living regarded as "normal" for the intellectual of other days now falls slowly perhaps but certainly into disrepute. Unless he is a genius, THE PAY CHECK AND THE PROFESSOR 19 and as a mattei of fact not then as a rule, the pro- f^ssor, American or any other, no longer allows him- self to be characteristically a " queer" man, his head in the clouds, his clothing peculiar and neglected, his family restricted or differentiated in its way of living. Indeed, it may safely be asserted that the successful professor of our time is most often typi- cally an alert man of affairs. Even though the aca- demic man studies the stars or the electron, for the most part he steps readily and adaptably from his laboratory into everyday life; he can face reality without blinking. Though they strive to contem- plate the eternal verities, the humanist and; the natural scientist both will today commonly be found seeking these verities where Socrates, Erasmus and the great of all times have looked for them, — in fre- quent meetings with all sorts of men the world over. In terminology here to the point, the " aca- demic " now purposes meeting the current conven- tions of consumption squarely. To the question, "To be a professor, should a man live the cloistered and ' simple 9 life I ' ', the pro- fession itself and the world at large now answer with increasing frequency and conviction, "No." Long ago, Longfellow said the scholar should live "in the dark grey town." In growing numbers the scholars of today repeat this belief in the value and the stimulus of a life that is "liberal" in human relations as well as in its educational aspirations. Wherefore, while it may still be said that the uni- versities draw seekers after truth, by the terms of that which many of them study and because of the 20 GETTING AND SPENDING current trend in codes of behavior, " seers " will not live their lives too much apart; they mix with the world and the world with them. The new factors in academic life now briefly re- viewed all have place in a discussion of the ade- quacy of salary levels because each new influence indicates some added expenditure. This nearer ap- proach of the common life to the professor and of the professor to the common life; this widening of the theory about the appropriate field for factual inquiry and where a man must go to do his re- search, have done much to emphasize the narrow limits of the professor's salary. As the world is now constituted, "associationism" unavoidably costs, in organization dues, in meals away from home at public functions and the like. Not only be- cause costs of living have risen but also and more because the intercourse with the general world al- ters and '"raises" the standard of living, does the professor now feel underpaid. Social life, even when the term in no sense implies what is com- monly known as society life, is dearer than the do- mestic life, much more costly than the cloistered life. Pecuniarily speaking, wider contacts involve in- creased expenses. If, in addition to research and teaching, professors are to do extension work; so- cial research; public service; citizen service; — in- creased income becomes a necessity. It seems fair to believe that in principle at least the world agrees to this change. Even when paying THE PAY CHECK AND THE PROFESSOR 21 lip homage to one or another of the traditional con- ventions about the profession, the public in general and the American public in particular really want college professors and want to think of them as de- sirably men of the world even though also " ahead of it" or " above it." Not only does the public want the class ; it wants the members of the profession to look like other people; to behave like other people; to take their place on even terms with other profes- sionals. Indeed, the professor who in the universi- ties of today elects to lead a strictly domestic and sequestered life can scarcely expect his public to consider him a success. Consciousness of this fact gives one more prod to the desire of the younger generation of faculty members, and to their wives perhaps more than to them, to have the pecuniary chances of those in other professional occupations. The new restlessness under traditionally lagging salaries is then only an aspect of that tendency to standardization of consumption and to a rising standard of living which our age views on the whole with the greatest complacency. Like the rest of the world, faculties are now touched by the fact that the scale of wants of all income groups has shifted, intensified, and increased in volume and that adver- tisers see to it that new temptations to "wise spend- ing " replace older canons of thrift through going without. When academic faculties begin to expect to live as most men live, when they become imbued with the average American's ideas of self-support, of family responsibility, of ways of living and of 22 GETTING AND SPENDING the duty of social relationships, the desire for the income necessary to lead such a life becomes acute and is justified by prevailing concepts. The pro- fessor and the professor's wife have not responded to market influences as quickly as other consumers ; their change in standard has moved more slowly; their choices are still relatively speaking more care- fully considered. But the change has taken place. The consequence of this new urge to live as other professionals live is the sharp irritation about the salary scale now evident all over the country. The risk that, suitable income failing, young men will turn from academic life is no fanciful one. Standing at the cross-roads and comparing the op- portunities in university life with other openings, young men are heard to say with alarming fre- quency, "I want to stay but I can't afford to"; "I can't ask a woman to make the sacrifice necessary if I adopt this career where even success promises so little pecuniary return as compared with the possi- bilities elsewhere." If the upper levels of salary at least are not shortly made comparable in some degree with the best pay in other professions ; if the services of the first few years are not soon paid for with a sum that will buy the minimum of a professional stand- ard, it seems easily demonstrable that universities stand to lose their most able and aggressive teachers. THE PAY CHECK AND THE PROFESSOR 23 For the means to search for new truth are now obtainable outside academic life. Opportunities to satisfy the research impulse that is primary in de- ciding men and women to lead a university life pre- sent themselves with increasing frequency. Com- petition for good research workers is active.. Pub- lic and private foundations for research increase in number, annually bidding generously for those who love to probe into the unknown. These foundations for special research in medical and social problems also set enviable standards of opportunity, work and pay. Business enterprise is entering just now upon investigations of many sorts requiring full-time work on problems of true research and, as is the way of business when seeking talent, is offering more attractive pay. Public service, too, presents similar openings. Excepting in the government bureaus and lately even in some of these, the salaries outside universities are uniformly higher than those paid within the universities. Association with re- search foundations has the additional advantages that, in the first place, apparatus, secretarial service, books, all the modern facilities for investigation still largely lacking in the vast majority of the colleges of the country are made available without stint, and that, in the second place, neither teaching nor administrative work interrupts the search for new facts. Admitting the correctness of the position sketched above as to the shift in the standard of living and adding these considerations about the new oppor- tunity at better pay, it is evident that the universi* 24 GETTING AND SPENDING ties must meet this new competition or research agencies will draw men of imagination and initiative away from the colleges, leaving the conduct of uni- versity education to classroom plodders. VI If the picture now roughly sketched is true, if the standard of living has risen and salaries paid now are insufficient to meet a "fair" professional stand- ard of living, what is to be done about it? Can ways and means to assure reasonable income through earnings be devised, or is the provision for salaries to those who adopt this profession so in- alterably fixed by custom and by available funds that the average professor must unquestioningly accept the low amounts now offered him or leave the pro- fession? Are the communities that support univer- sities going to keep their complex attitude toward the profession and select through a low payroll only those willing to continue to try to drive upstream to medieval simplicity? or are they going to accept the results of enforced conformity to the ways of the world and pay the costs of that conformity? Ordinarily, in medieval times, scholars had no income, no fixed earnings. The church, some pri- vate foundation or a wealthy patron provided for the personal and professional needs of the members of the profession, usually celibates. From one or all these sources the seeker after knowledge unhesi- tatingly accepted gifts of any size obtainable. Far into the nineteenth century scholars and teachers THE PAY CHECK AND THE PROFESSOR 25 connected a celibate life, even a cloistered life of dependence, with the "search for truth." Must the source of adequate support for the "poor scholar" and his research be the bounty of the wealthy, a source that is often kindly and generous but usually insecure? or will the general public de- cide to pay the present real costs of a professor's living as determined by the usual influences con- trolling costs of living? In the old world and on the Atlantic coast, in an- swer to this query we are often told that adequate pay ^ impossible and that those who select this pro- fession must be "independent" members of society. Either, it is argued, aspirants to academic life should belong to the propertied classes and thus bring some vested income to their work, or they must marry wealth. The proponents of this position maintain that salaries can be considered only as payment for part-time service, a sort of retainer in return for loyalty to a given institution. But this solution fits no modern theory of due re- turn for effort. Our times call for pay that at least meets "the overhead" costs of the worker and holds that salary shall not be advisedly called a subsidy. Universities are no more entitled to the benefits derived from the independent resources of faculty members than any other class of employer is so en- titled. If the facts of this study are as typical as there seems warrant for believing, evidently no large percentage of the faculty members in our universi- ties really brings personal incomes or the incomes of rich wives to 'subsidize their living costs. As a rule, 26 GETTING AND SPENDING the profession comes to its work from all income groups and should be assumed so to come. Only the small proportion common to the general population can count on vested income. Like the world at large, most faculty members must earn their own way. The outworn notion that universities are jus- tified in obtaining services paid for only in part must therefore be discarded. There seems room for some optimism. In other directions when it has become plainly evident that money is needed, slowly but certainly, with suf- ficient pressure, public and private appropriations have been increased to meet the need. For example, the call for funds to support research has been so clear and resounding in recent years that more en- dowments and in larger sums than ever before are now available to carry on such work. The call to consider the question of the salary scale of academic faculties has possibly not yet been made explicitly enough. Thus far, the question of the professor's pay check has been discussed either with sympathy or with "loveless pity" by certain empty-handed persons in the community, or with intermittent petulance or characteristic irony by members of the profession who have either be- come embittered in it, are about to leave it or have left it. Evidences of another period are in sight. Al- ready the alumni of a few universities have raised specific funds to meet the situation. The advantages resulting for both professor and institution are de- THE PAY CHECK AND THE PROFESSOR 27 monstrable. The business man and the taxpayer must see the question clearly as a public issue ; then they will act. When every citizen will ask himself some pertinent challenging questions concerning the reality of his respect for faculties in universities, this soul-searching must bring an answer. If a nega- tive opinion of the social value of the class results, not more money should be spent, rather less; or none. Given such a decision, the millions now be- ing set aside for the purpose are wasted. But if the time-honored status of the profession can be re- affirmed, if public opinion emphasizes once again older doctrines about the social serviceability of academic faculties, then increased allotments for salary should and will become available. With clearer sense of the professor's utility and the new truism that cheap labor is dear labor as fur- ther guide and stimulus, the informed citizen will look to his public finances. In war-time, ingenuity raised vast sums. In peace-time as well, with con- viction crystallized, the necessary sum whatever its size can also 'be raised. If opinion can be shaped and fortified by fact, the academic world will be paid enough to meet the requirements of modern life, and the return for academic services will no longer be the two-thirds subsidy which this study suggests most salaries now represent. CHAPTER I ECONOMIC UTILITY OF THE STUDY What follows is an inquiry into the costs of that type of professional living which academic life typifies at present. Along with the costs, the study shows in detail the main classes of goods and serv- ices that 96 faculty families bought under the influ- ence of customs, conventions, fashions and opinions that shaped their " academic " standard of living in the year 1922 and in the city of Berkeley where the University of California is situated. The central problem to be answered was this: What is the cost of the way of living that, following current American conventions, college faculties as- cribe to themselves? Does the prevailing salary scale meet these costs? This inquiry is thus first of all a cost of living study. The data herein given should be, and are believed to be, a fair index of a standard of con- sumption, the costs of that standard and the rela- tive sufficiency of certain salaries in relation to it. It is fully recognized that a cost of living study is only one among several means to measure the adequacy of a wage or salary scale. Given prevail- ing conventions, a display of the cost of living in 28 ECONOMIC UTILITY OF THE STUDY 29 relation to needs is neither the only criterion nor perhaps, all the facts considered, the fairest crite- rion of the appropriateness of a given rate of pay. The criteria of services rendered, of "productivity, " of bargaining power, and even a simple com- parison of pay in similar occupations still compete for place with that principle of payment according to needs which is the real point of departure of cost of living studies. Indeed, the other tests have on the whole wider acceptance than the test of needs. The utility of each of these tests is fully admitted. But cost of living studies are none the less respect- able aids for both sides making a bargain. If not final determinants of the wage scale, they certainly make valuable talking points. Whatever the logic of the situation, prevailing usage certainly justifies using the cost of living to clarify debates about* the appropriateness of given wage and salary levels. Since the opening of the twentieth century, especially since 1917, as fluctu- ating prices have stimulated a new interest in de- fining the elements of various levels^ of living, budget studies have become an integral part of every dis- pute about the rate and range of pay. Some " total cost" is reached by old or new methods, — by the simple cost estimate, by the use of the account book and the interview, or by the quantity and cost esti- mate. II It is probable that each and all these methods of examining the costs of family life have their un- 30 GETTING AND SPENDING • doubted limitations, just as it is true that, except in times of rapidly rising prices such as the years just past, tests .of adequacy other than the cost of living have right of way: These considerations notwith- standing, this study by the account book and inter- view method should be of some use for more reasons than merely because these budgets show a real dis- crepancy between costs of living and salary income. An analysis of getting and spending such as this, an analysis that shows how 96 families of consumers actually used their purchasing power, — exchanged money for goods, — gives other information besides the cost of living. In addition, the study shows in the first place, and with considerable detail, a sample of the earnings and the supplementary incomes of a professional class. Data regarding the sources, the amounts and the variations of family incomes are still sufficiently scarce to permit the hope that the facts collected here contribute something. Secondly, since the major household wants of pro- fessional families are enumerated and segregated, the tables sample in broad relief professional habits of selecting economic goods and services and show the direction, the relative occurrence and the em- phasis of expenditures at this level of income and standard of consumption. Finally, since these are the expenditures of " ra- tional" professional consumers, the tables have also a certain scarcity value. A moment's reflection will remind the informed reader that the facts now available about habits of spending show for the most part the spending ways ECONOMIC UTILITY OF THE STUDY 31 of two classes of consumers only. The first of these, the largest group in all human societies, are the "masses," the poor, those who live more or less below their own standard of living. The second is a small class of persons set apart by the fact that they are exceptionally desirous of freeing their spending from brainless wastefulness. Another small but outstanding class, the so-called "spenders," a class that includes a varied lot of persons, is an important group about which nothing is known accurately. These are the consumers who get what they want when they want it; who force their income or their credit ever upward to meet needs that are largely dictated by the traditions of competitive display, the love of ease, of comfort, and of rapid change. It is these purchasers who have no standard but a rising standard, an expen- sive standard. The ways of such spenders are a fa- vorite theme of the dramatist and the novelist ; the scenario writer today fixes the envious regard of the masses upon them. Though the "thrifty," whether rich or poor, point at them the finger of scorn ; though as a group such consumers pass gen- erally as highly "immoral" or at least unmoral, none the less, like other criminals and semi-crimi- nals, these spenders are much in the public fancy. Consciously or unconsciously, the imagination of most of us plays around that selection of goods and services dear to such as these. But records of ex- penditures are anathema to this class. Also the class submits to no questioning, rarely even to self- questioning. Thus far the scientist has passed 32 GETTING AND SPENDING them by.1 Only the two other classes have hitherto been the subjects of investigation. The first of the two classes usually studied spends as it goes and as " needs must" forces it. The mass of published household expense histories and " esti- mates " are displays of the goods and services these low-skilled wage workers buy. We know much about the spending ways of the poor because, on the whole, unskilled wage-earners ' families have been less inclined, or perhaps less able, to avoid the questioning of investigators interested in them or in their standards of living. Thus, the major part of the " budget " studies past and present, in- tensive or extensive, in Europe or the United States, shows the distribution of expenditures for those masses of a given population who live at or near the " subsistence " level. At all times, these family groups with low and irregular incomes supply themselves with meager and routinized dietaries, with clothing that is cast-off or common ; with dwell- ing-places equally cast-off and common. "Higher wants" are "satisfied" spasmodically in a short though slowly lengthening list. All these studies of family expenditures are proof that a low level of earning power dries up a deep-set impulse to exer- cise choice. As exhibits of spending ways, this largest class of budget studies permits a generaliza- tion. The facts they assemble show plainly that small and insecure incomes breed a chronic dread of pauperism, accompanied by, if not actually causal to, 1 Except of course as Veblen in his Theory of ihe Leisure Class has paid his respects to them with his well-known brilliant generaliza- tions about conspicuous waste. ECONOMIC UTILITY OF THE STUDY 33 a dull patience that balks the human craving for va- riety which the economist and the business man value so highly. Thus low purchasing power is cause and effect of that " unconscious acquiescence of habit " expressed by "low" and routine ways of living. The second class of budget studies includes in general, persons educated to expend "reasonably" and for "solid satisfactions"; which means, of course, spending according to a tradition well recog- nized though not easy to describe accurately. For this class of spenders the proclaimed object of all purchases is the satisfaction of physical and cultural needs which have after judicial deliberation been selected as "real" or "moral." One leading char- acteristic, the convention of "simplicity," may safely be indicated. The major influence directing choice is essentially a habit of resistance to innova- tion. Canons controlling the consumer's selection pronounce for durability, for costliness whenever it pays and only then; against the whimsical in fash- ion. The point of departure is "get your money's worth." Ill The expense histories contained in this study be- long on the whole to this second class of spenders. The standard of living presently to be shown is thus somewhat apart. The study increases by one a very small group of previous investigations that give precisely the nature and the costs of a year's satisfaction of household needs at a middle-class, professional or comfort standard. Viewed as an earning group, the breadwinners 34 GETTING AND SPENDING studied here are of the class that draws salary. Thus, these families have a flow of income that however small is at least regular and secure as compared with earnings of wage workers, which come in uncertainly day by day, or even as con- trasted with the larger but relatively irregular and uncertain fees of the doctor or the lawyer. But the standard of living that directed the ex- penditure of money in these 96 households is the same as that of the doctor and the lawyer. It is the nebulous though reputable brand of spending theory popularly known as a "simple" or "com- fort" standard of living. The scale of living is a middle-class, professional, American standard of living. The standard of these families may with good reason and without evidence of bias be thus credit- ably labelled. The way faculty families want to live, that is, the "standard" of living they ascribe to themselves has, I think, never raised any chal- lenge of luxury living. On the contrary, it has been usual to recognize it as a scale of living where emphasis falls on wants for that class of needs most commonly indicated by the dubious term, "higher goods." In theory and method, the ways of expen- diture shown in the tables which follow certainly conform to methods of using income most widely considered exemplary; — which is not, however, the same as to say that these are the spending ways generally regarded as the most enviable. The standard guiding these household expendi- tures is not only the "exemplary middle-class" or ECONOMIC UTILITY OF THE STUDY 35 " comfort" standard; it is also the standard of the professional. The isolations and traditions of aca- demic life may " rationalize " it slightly but the scheme of spending probably does not otherwise diverge far from the average in other professional groups. The trend of the times already discussed, a trend that acts with increasing force to lead the professor away from his study, or to direct the public to that erstwhile "closet," rapidly irons out any differences that may still exist between profes- sionals. The professor may, like the minister and government official, be a poor relation among pro- fessionals. Nevertheless he is evidently of the class, subject to the same general vocational disciplines and exemptions and with the same objectives that shape the standards of all professionals. Lastly it seems reasonable to call the standard of living these budgets express, the American stand- ard of living per se. First, this is the American standard because it is a professional standard. The statement that the aspiration of all Americans strains toward the professional life and toward a professional standard of living is surely too obvi- ously true to need supporting argument. What standard but this has American youth been admon- ished to strive for? Perhaps less obviously but at least to the author quite as plainly, this standard of expenditure is American because in the scheme of spending the chief stress is laid upon ' ' higher wants. ' ' American spending precepts always emphasize "wants for higher goods." Particularly the median expendi- 36 GETTING AND SPENDING tures of these families show all the spending aspira- tions conservative Americans permit themselves. The tables show always a standard disciplined by and respectful of the currently preferred commu- nity conventions about using money. Then too, the standard is American because the expenditures show the influence of the dual national standard already described wherein keen respect for thrift competes with approval of a generous sat- isfaction of increasing wants. Many of the spenders in view in the tables presently exhibited, took evi- dent pride in thinking themselves among the few left who tread the Smilesian paths of thrift. Most of them professed allegiance enforced or real to ' l Poor Richard 's ' ' rules of spending. But with rare exception these 96 families illustrate the tendency Veblen first pointed out in explicit terms — the ten- dency for the standard of living to go as high as earning power "with a consistent tendency to go higher." The tables show plainly how, on the one hand protecting its own repute so to speak, this group responds to the levelling-up trend now af- fecting all classes of American consumers, charity levels of living not excepted. The "new known goods" such as automobiles for instance, appear as additions to its scale of wants. On the other hand, thrift, particularly in the purchase of food and clothing, is evidently an inherent part of their scheme of things. Since then these household accounts show thrifty and reasoned spending according to a standard that desires "simple," "comfortable" living and since, ECONOMIC UTILITY OF THE STUDY 37 at the same time, they express the professional's preferences as a consumer, it seems fair to say that, in an exact sense, these tables show spending at the "American" standard of life and that the way of living hereinafter appearing expresses in items and costs 96 attempts to use income according to the national standard of living, the nation 's received theory of spending. IV Naming the general standard these budgets show does not necessarily illustrate precisely the stand- ard which directed the expenditures these expense histories detail. Such exact specifications are rarely available but they are at hand for these budgets. Certain mem- bers of the 96 academic families have put on record their theory about what they considered a 1 1 reason- able" standard of living for their occupational group. Recently, the stock of needs a professor's family may justifiably consider "right and proper" has been worked out. It seems useful to preface the tables that follow with a brief of this analysis of the academic standard. When all is said, the specifications given remain sufficiently and unde- sirably incomplete and subjective. However, as compared with anything else of the kind available, the statement is definite and inclusive enough to merit a brief statement. The immediate circumstance that brought out this analysis of a standard of consumption considered "just" for a professor, — for which read, that stand- 38 GETTING AND SPENDING ard believed to be customarily recognized, — was an article that appeared in the University of California Chronicle of October, 1922. When prices began to skyrocket after 1914, when the rising costs of living emphasized more sharply the fact of lagging salaries, the faculty at the Uni- versity of California, like the academic world every- where, felt the strain upon their habitual standards of living. By 1921 protests at first occasional and mild had acquired force and acrimony. The authorities finally took account of the situa- tion. In 1922 a change in the salary scale was an- nounced. The new arrangement gave instructors $1,800 to $2,200 with promotion each year for three years if work was acceptable; assistant pro- fessors $2,400 to $2,700 on a similar three year pro- motion plan; associate professors $3,000 to $3,900; professors, a minimum of $4,000 and a maximum, for a very few, of $8,000. An article in the University Chronicle 1 reviewed the salary scale announced. Admitting that the raise in pay was neither notable nor one that caught up to the recent rise in prices, it was argued that none the less the salary scale represented a suf- ficiency and that the announced system of advance- ment in rank and salary, on the one hand secured the University against superannuation and incompe- tence, and at the same time gave able men a new certainty of fairness. Expressing the conviction that the "plan was adequate " and might serve to 1 Barrows, David P., What are the prospects of a university pro- fessor? University of California Chronicle, April, 1922. Vol. xxiv, p. 197 ECONOMIC UTILITY OF THE STUDY 39 draw and hold men of "patience, courage and sobri- ety/'— those men who loved "quiet for research and writing, " the essential opportunities of a pro- fessor 's working life, — the author said he believed the new salary scale "promised outside the work hour, wife, children, a few books and freedom from the anguish and humiliation of debts. " This essay and especially, I think, the "simple/' sober, unpopular standard of living it implied, aroused strong feeling in certain quarters. In par- ticular, the professor's wife raised her voice. Col- laborating with eight other wives of the faculty, Dorothy Hart Bruce published a protest.2 These nine wives of faculty members, all in excellent stand- ing, give their answer to the important question, what is a college couple warranted in considering a legitimate way of living and what are the necessary costs of such a standard of consumption? In brief, their theory of this professional stand- ard and the amount it would cost runs about as fol- lows : College professors may justifiably claim: — food of the simplest with very occasional meals away from home ; clothing of a quality sufficiently good to keep from being ' l ashamed " ; a house large enough to make it unnecessary "to move again before the birth of the second baby/' — a house with at least two bedrooms, — desirably with a study, and some quarters for help. The house operation allotment, a Bruce, Dorothy Hart, What are the prospects of the university professor's wife? University of California Chronicle, October, 1922. Vol. xxiv, No. 4, pp. 508-531. 40 GETTING AND SPENDING it was decided, ought to be enough to include pay- ments for water, light, fuel, laundry, repairs (in- cluding the garden and its upkeep), and some sur- plus for service. Income ought to furnish at least a minimum for savings, set at 10%. Maintenance of health was set at a minimum cost of $120, ex- clusive of special illnesses or special dental work, which it was recognized might suddenly run nearer a thousand. The right to satisfy a modest desire for books, music, the theatre, travel and entertain- ment of friends was taken for granted. The " academic " standard of living having been thus outlined at a minimum, it was then bluntly asked: "Can the University salary scale satisfy these requirements even in their most modest ex- pression 1" "Given the salary scale proposed, what has the wife of a professor to expect of life?" "What can a university couple do with the amount the man receives in return for his engrossing work at the university?" These questions were answered after (1) talks with ' ' a number of the most intelligent, capable and level-headed" of the faculty wives; and (2) a re- view, on the part of these nine wives, of their own experience with the current costs of living. A rough-hewn quantity and cost estimate testified to what the authors believed represented in Berke- ley, and in the year 1921, the unavoidable expenses of a faculty family of two adults. This estimate led to the conclusion that "the least sum by which this type of family by 'extreme hard work' and 'due sacrifice ' can meet their entirely legitimate and rea- ECONOMIC UTILITY OF THE STUDY 41 sonable expenses " was $248 or $258.85 a month, that is, about $3,000 a year. Moreover, it was held that the sum of $3,000 a year would be enough only on condition that (1) there were not debts as was so often the case, money obligations holding over from the long period of training absolutely required before a man can get the post of instructorship ; (2) that no dependents outside the home, neither parents nor other rela- tions, were to be cared for; (3) that there were no children. The arrival of a child, it was estimated, would cost $500 3 and therefore it was declared, a couple desiring two children must be able to set aside $20.80 a month for four years to provide for their coming. When a total is given that does "not allow a dol- lar for books, for the doctor, for medicine, for the dentist, for any amusement, for any vacation nor for the birth, food, clothes or care of a child, " the student of "minimum" estimates recognizes in this " estimate " a close relation to the many others where a "total" was made up before including the costs of imperative social needs. In the way described these wives concluded that 3 Estimates of the cost of being born become slowly available. One estimate recently made by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Com- pany sets the average costs of the birth of a child at between two and three hundred dollars for medical and hospital charges alone. An estimate made by the Heller Research Committee of the probable costs, if the doctor's requirements at the present standard of health care are respected, proved to be about $375 including a layette already made and the services of a specialist at $100. A careful record of the arrival of her first baby, October, 1924, handed me by a young mother who kept her accounts accurately, put the figure at $888.26. This figure however included the purchase of a new washing machine at $150. 42 GETTING AND SPENDING with the salaries now offered them, unless they had outside incomes, instructors and even professors could not meet the scale of living that habit and cir- cumstance justified. Failing income from property, they declared that the low salary scale forced a faculty member to do outside work, overtime work, in order to supplement income ; that such work fre- quently reacted adversely upon his health and teach- ing; even more frequently affected his progress in re- search and thus his status in the University and the world, while at the same time it balked his native propensities. Further, they found that all overtime efforts of the man notwithstanding, these low sala- ries could not ordinarily be sufficiently supple- mented to make it possible to pay for domestic service. As consequence it was stated that perforce academic men's wives dedicated themselves unre- mittingly and for years to household tasks. Since as a group, women who married into the profession were specialized women "of education, refinement and good taste," with traditions that lead them to the more ladylike pursuit of the fine arts and of hospitality rather than to routine domestic work, these years of strain, of trying to content themselves with being "nothing more than a good cook, house- maid, seamstress, nurse and washerwoman," it was asserted, broke their health and constituted a long drudgery which undermined the morale of many of them. Here is their conclusion in their own words : "Thus it appears that the professor's wife, if illness, or children or other dependents have any ECONOMIC UTILITY OF THE STUDY 43 part in her life, cannot expect her husband to have leisure for research either during or between semes- ters, cannot expect freedom from debt, cannot ex- pect her husband's income to increase in propor- tion to the increase in the size of their family and the needs of his growth and of her own, cannot expect sabbatical years, cannot expect any material expression in her home of her love of comfort and beauty, or any intellectual or artistic quality in her daily occupations ; in fact can expect little but house- work.77 V Thus, to the question "Does the average salary paid in a university buy the level of living which a professor thinks himself entitled to," the wives of the professors answered emphatically "NO." The direct reason for making the study whose re- sults appear here was the desire to test the validity of their position by a more searching and sustained inquiry. Obviously other queries are pertinent. It might be asked, What level of living is a professor really entitled to? Could not the range of salaries, or at least the average salary of the professor, buy all that reasonable desires ask for? Such questions may not be answered with confi- dence. Only those will dare, who have adopted some positive theory of "wise" spending. To state what it is reasonable to desire is to indulge in a specula- tion. Data for any physiological or psychological certainties in this regard are still wanting. 44 GETTING AND SPENDING Given the present lack of knowledge about real needs and nurture needs, safety in deciding on a reasonable scale of living lies in an appeal to current ideas of the proprieties in the use of goods. There seems good ground for contending that the only fair gauge of any standard of living, and just now the only ground on which it may be called " reasonable, " is the way of living most widely ac- cepted as "right and proper " for a given class. As Mill pointed out long ago, standards of consump- tion are human institutions. To date, our scanty stock of knowledge regarding what is physically useful influences our standards of living but slightly. Sumner's position that "the standard of living is the measure of decency and suitability in material comfort, (diet, dress, dwelling, etc.) which is tradi- tional and habitual in a group, " states the bald fact. It will not I think be doubted that the budgets ana- lyzed here conform to the traditions and habits of the professional class under consideration. Thus they index a level of living to which the professor is " entitled " by accepted custom. Further, it might be asked, — were the incomes of these academic men of whatever size expended to the best advantage! To answer this query calls for some criterion as to what is the best advantage. That criterion is the accredited American plan for spending. If, as the writer believes and has already stated, these budgets express America's " standard " way of us- ing income, that way which convention and opinion in this country most often agree to approve, then ECONOMIC UTILITY OF THE STUDY 45 these professors are thereby shown to have spent their incomes to the best advantage, as their world estimates the meaning of "best." The attempt to argue the position taken here has its attractions. The temptation must however be resisted. In this connection and at this time, it seems best to rest content with simply naming the expenditure level and classifying the expenditure methods the study shows. On proof to the contrary but not until then will it be admitted that this picture of getting and spending is other than that medias res which preceptors teaching us how to spend the family income extol as "correct." Since habits of consumption very like those shown here are taught m the many books now giving dogmatic creeds of how to spend family income wisely, until evidence of error is available it will be assumed that students of consumption may study here the way careful Americans spend when trying to make both ends meet and to use their incomes after an approved national standard of expenditure. Tabulation of the standard of living or expendi- ture level thus adopted has modified the finding in no way. Neither the plan of the investigation, the collection of the data, nor their interpretation, has, it is believed, been affected by the writer '& way of classifying this group of spenders. The definite display of the ways in which faculty families earn and spend> immediately following, should give evi- dence upon which persons interested in spending ways may base their own conclusions. CHAPTER II THE METHOD OF INVESTIGATION I. SCHEDULE The facts on which this study of 96 academic families is based were collected in six weeks during December, 1922, and January, 1923. The schedule 1 and the instructions were planned to procure a detailed account of the incomes and the expenditures of each of the 96 families during the year December 1, 1921, to December 1, 1922. As means to analyze the social relationships and the de- tails of income and expenditure, the form of the schedule proved sufficiently workable. II. COLLECTING THE DATA The data were all collected through interviews. Each interview was arranged for in advance and a schedule form sent out before the investigator's visit so that the family might be as fully as possible prepared with the facts desired when the visitor called. The interviewers were all trained college gradu- ates, all but one of them graduate students, some of them also wives of faculty members. Most of them had done previous field work, — all of them were ex- *See appendix. 46 THE METHOD OF INVESTIGATION 47 perienced in the problems of household expenditure. They were not paid. III. EELIABILITY OF THE DATA As to those interviewed, the investigators re- ported meeting everywhere a generous effort to make each schedule as accurate as possible. The thoughtfulness, genuine interest and superior train- ing of the family groups under investigation guaran- tee the relative reliability of the information. Those who gave the facts for this somewhat intru- sive and detailed schedule did it in a spirit of can- dor and co-operation, cordial and conscientious enough to warrant a sense of security about the data. When called upon to live up to their agree- ment, the vast majority of the families that con- sented to give a year's record were found ready. All resources for making the record accurate had been requisitioned. Where they had been kept, ac- count books were freely put at the disposal of the interviewers. When, as in 60% or more of the cases, there were no account books, check books and bills for the previous year were as freely made accessible to the interviewers. These schedules are, in large proportion, pecuniary estimates of annual expen- ditures rather than bona fide expense histories. But when made as these estimates were, such family ex- pense histories compare favorably it is believed with expense accounts kept under surveillance for a given number of weeks or months. With rare exceptions, the sources of income and the spending policies were frankly analyzed as check upon the figures. In 48 GETTING AND SPENDING general, the habits of spending proved to be care- fully planned and more or less inevitably routinized as, for that matter, most household expenditures prove to be on investigation. The interviewers re- ported none of the tendencies usual in studies of this sort. No one wanted to exaggerate or underesti- mate his expenditures though many deplored the nature of the cold facts they gave. The desire was not so much to make a showing, good or bad, as to furnish the real facts and to await the interpretation of the data. The method of selection secured the in- terviewers against the limitations of many earlier studies of the same kind. Nothing of the indiffer- ence, the suspicions or the inflations dictated by pride that have so often baffled other interviewers was met with among the families investigated. IV. THE PRICE LEVEL. The price level herein recorded is that of 1922, a year when the prices for necessaries had dropped well below the peak of 1920. In the San Francisco Bay region the index number fluctuated during 1922 between 164 (December, 1921), and 157 (Sep- tember, 1922 ).2 In Berkeley the costs of housing were at that time notably high, possibly because Berkeley, also, had its full share of the national housing shortage. V. THE METHOD OF SELECTING THE FAMILIES The families selected are, it is believed, typical of the group they belong to. The survey contemplated 3 December, 1914 = 100%. THE METHOD OF INVESTIGATION 49 study of faculty families permanently settled in Berkeley. The plan thus excluded those engaged in the University's work elsewhere, as in the South- ern Branch at Los Angeles and at the Medical School in San Francisco. Though resident in Berkeley, the members of the Department of Military Science and Tactics were also omitted because of their different relation to the University. Lecturers in residence for less than a year were likewise excluded from this investigation. A count showed the total membership of the faculty at Berkeley to consist of 433 persons hold- ing the ranks of professor, associate professor, as- sistant professor, instructor and associate, and giv- ing what the administration considered full-time instruction. Obviously a study of families excluded the unmarried members of the faculty as well as the widowers and widowed. This unmarried class proved to be represented by 186 persons or 4:3% of the total faculty. (Table I.) When set apart, the married proved to be made up of 247 persons or 57% (Table I) of the faculty. The census of 1920 reports 60% of the population as married. The pro- portion of 57% married faculty members and 43% not married thus corresponds roughly to the general tendencies for the country as a whole. It is interesting to note that when marital rela- tions are correlated with rank (Table I) the aca- demic rank affects the percentage of the faculty assuming matrimonial responsibility in just the way that might be expected. As the rank ap- proaches the professorship, there is a steady in- 50 GETTING AND SPENDING crease in the percentage of those married. In the lowest rank 20% only are married; in the highest rank — that of professor — 75 % are married.3 TABLE I PROPORTION OF MARRIED AND OF SINGLE PERSONS IN EACH ACADEMIC RANK ACADEMIC BANK TOTAL, FACULTY* MARRIED SINGLE No. Per Cent No. Per Cent No. Per Cent All ranks 433 81 53 105 76 118 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 247 16 25 63 55 88 57.0 19.8 47.2 60.0 72.4 74.6 186 65 28 42 21 30 43.0 80.2 52.8 40.0 27.6 25.4 Associate Instructor Assistant Professor Associate Professor Professor * Departments at Berkeley, excluding Department of Military Science and Tactics. VI. NATUKE OF FACULTY REPRESENTATION A. Relative Number of Total Married Persons Included. — Invitations were sent to the 247 married members of the faculty, asking if investigators might call to get the information desired for a study of the cost of living an academic life. One hundred and twenty-one or a little less than 50% of the 247 refused this invitation. As to the reasons for refusing to share in the study, no reply was received in 17 cases. Accord- ing to preference, this silence may be interpreted to indicate indifference, carelessness or disapproval. * These figures may or not have significance as related to income. Instructors are at the typical "marrying age." It would look as though low pay postponed the period. But without more facts on this point, generalization is probably unwise. THE METHOD OF INVESTIGATION 51 Thirty-six refused without giving a reason, 11 fam- ilies pleaded illness or bereavement that made the year too exceptional to warrant sharing in the study. The majority of those who refused really camouflaged lack of interest by pleading lack of time or inclination to do the necessary work. The rank of the non-participants and in particu- lar their reasons for not consenting to share in the annoyance of so personal a survey have a definite interest. The greatest percentage of refusals came from the full professors; the associate professors and the assistant professors were about equally divided in their willingness to participate. Pro- portionately speaking, the younger members, the instructors and the associates, co-operated most fully. It is probably hazardous to try to explain this greater willingness on the part of the younger faculty members. Does it mean they felt greater discontent because of lower pay? Does it imply more esprit de corps in men trained under the so- cializing influences of today? Is it the hope and faith of youth? The reader shall decide. It seemed worth while to consider whether re- fusal to participate might be connected with the opportunities for large outside fees that inhere in certain departmental specialties. A review of the facts makes it seem possible to assert there was no relation of this sort. In the first place, it was found that certain departments could not in any case have been represented in the study since all members of these departments were celibates. The University of California has 45 de- 52 GETTING AND SPENDING partments of instruction. At the time this study was made, five 4 of these departments contained no married members. Forty departments remained from which to draw family schedules. Examining the schedules finally obtained, with regard to departmental affiliations, we find that these schedules represent on an aver- age about one-third of the members of each of these 40 departments. Inspection of Table IA will show how safely it may be asserted that refusal to par- ticipate and willingness to take a share in this study were mental attitudes but slightly connected with the subject taught and its pecuniary opportunities. TABLE IA PROPORTION OF THE MARRIED MEMBERS OF THE VARIOUS DEPART- MENTS WHO WERE INCLUDED IN THE SURVEY LESS THAN 25% INCLUDED 25% TO 50% INCLUDED MOEE THAN 50% INCLUDED Architecture Agriculture Astronomy Art Anatomy Economics Bacteriology Botany Geography Biochemistry Chemistry Geology French Civil Engineering German Irrigation Education Greek Music English Household Science Oriental Languages History Mining Physics Hygiene Philosophy Political Science Jurisprudence Physiology Spanish Latin Slavic Mathematics Mech. Engineering Physical Education-Men Psychology Public Speaking Semitic Languages Zoology 4 Anthropology, Household Art, Italian, Physical Education for Women, Sanscrit. THE METHOD OF INVESTIGATION 53 True, it can be seen that certain departments, e.g., architecture and irrigation — specialties in which earnings from outside sources are possible, are varied, and may be large in total — are among the 11 departments with less than 25 % of the married members included in the sample. As compensation, the departments of economics and mining, with similar possibilities, are to be found among the 11 departments more than 50% of whose married members contributed to the facts of the study. Finally, the two departments of civil and mechanical engineering, whose members may command large fees, are of the 18 departments wherein 25% to 50% of the married members furnished data. Re- fusal to participate represents then no specific groups but scatters somewhat evenly through all departments. For one reason or another, in addition to the 121 who refused to be interviewed, 30 families are not in the study. Five or ten families changed their original consent to a refusal when they faced the detail work the schedule required. Despite the cheerful co-operation of the group and the patience and competence of both families and interviewers, 15 or more schedules that came in were not com- plete enough or convincing enough to warrant using them. When all returns were in, 96 schedules proved to be complete, comparable and ready for tabulation. As Tables III and IV show, this was 22% of the total number in the class under survey or 39% of the married faculty. Twenty-two per cent is a sam- 54 GETTING AND SPENDING pie somewhat larger than it is usual to get by the voluntary questionnaire method; it is a fair sam- ple. Therefore it is believed that the facts these 96 schedules contain may be assumed to be typical of the faculty as a whole. B. Representation of the 96 Families Included by Professional Rank.— This 22% is not alone a fair sample of the whole number of faculty families. Tables II, III and IV give ample evidence that the sample also contains a fair representation of all the grades within an academic group. Each of the different ranks of the faculty appears in the sample at within 2% of its proportion in the total faculty for all groups except the associates and associate professors. Of the former, there are 10% less than the proportion in the whole faculty; of the latter, 10% more. As finally used, the sample includes 29% full professors; 27% associate professors; 23% assistant professors; 13% instructors, and 8% associates. (Table II.) In the analysis that follows, in addition to con- sidering the faculty group in general, each rank has been considered separately in order to obviate a possible overemphasis on the general average that may arise from the discrepancy in representa- tion. Also throughout the study ranks have been considered separately because of a well-marked distinction of age and salary. Finally, this method seemed advisable since the situation in each rank is different and the highest rank has a special in- terest. One of the essential interests of the inquiry THE METHOD OP INVESTIGATION TABLE II 55 NUMBER AND PER CENT OP REPRESENTATION OP THE DIFFERENT ACADEMIC RANKS IN (a) THE TOTAL FACULTY OF THE BERKELEY DEPARTMENTS, (b) THE TOTAL MARRIED FACULTY AND (c) THE 96 FAMILIES INCLUDED IN THE STUDY ACADEMIC BANK TOTAL FACULTY* TOTAL MARRIED FACULTY NUMBER INCLUDED IN THE SURVEY No. Per Cent No. Per Cent No. Per Cent All ranks 433 81 53 105 76 118 100.0 18.7 12.2 24.3 17.6 27.2 247 16 25 63 55 88 100.0 6.5 10.1 25.5 22.3 35.6 96 8 12 22 26 28 100.0 8.3 12.5 22.9 27.1 29.2 Associate Instructor Assistant Professor Associate Professor Professor . . * Departments at Berkeley, excluding Department of Military Science and Tactics. TABLE III COMPARATIVE NUMBER AND PER CENT OP FACULTY MEMBERS BY RANK (a) IN TOTAL FACULTY, (b) IN TOTAL MARRIED FACULTY AND (c) INCLUDED IN THE STUDY (Percentage to total) ACADEMIC RANK TOTAL FACULTY* TOTAL MARRIED FACULTY NUMBER INCLUDED IN THE SURVEY No. Per Cent No. Per Cent No. Per Cent All ranks 433 81 53 105 76 118 100.0 18.7 12.2 24.3 17.6 27.2 247 16 25 63 55 88 57.0 3.7 5.8 14.5 12.7 20.3 96 8 12 22 26 28 22.2 1.8 2.8 5.1 6.0 6.5 Associate Instructor Assistant Professor Associate Professor Professor . ... * Departments at Berkeley, excluding Department of Military Science and Tactics. 56 GETTING AND SPENDING TABLE IV PERCENTAGE IN EACH RANK AMONG THE MARRIED FACULTY MEMBERS REPRESENTED IN THE STUDY ACADEMIC BANK TOTAL MARRIED FACULTY* NUMBER INCLUDED IN THE SURVEY No. Per Cent No. Per Cent All ranks 247 16 25 63 55 88 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 96 8 12 22 26 28 38.9 50.0 48.0 34.9 47.3 31.8 Associate ... .... Instructor Assistant Professor Associate Professor Professor * Departments at Berkeley, excluding Department of Military Science and Tactics. here is to consider whether the abstinence of the earlier years of the academic career show propor- tionate pecuniary rewards clearly marked in the professor's income and expenditure. VII. GENERAL APPLICABILITY OF THE FINDINGS This is then a study of the family income and expenditures of 96 families of academic faculty members of whom 29% are full professors, 27% as- sociate professors, 23% assistant professors and 21% instructors and associates. It seems justifiable to believe that this detailed review of the incomes and the expenditures of 96 academic families at the University of California here following is a fair example not only of the married faculty families at this University but of university faculties in general. The connection be- tween all universities is so close and the mobility among faculties at different universities so high, THE METHOD OF INVESTIGATION 57 that it seems permissible to assume this occupa- tional group has a similar standard of living the country over. A show of the incomes, the stand- ards and the costs of living of a sample of the aca- demic families at one university should give facts that may be regarded as on the whole descriptive of the household problems of academic families at most of the universities in the United States. The salary scale is also certainly typical. Both in terms of real and nominal income, the salary scale at the University of California is comparable with that paid at most of our universities, lower than a few but higher than many. Comparison of the salaries paid at the University of California with those paid at ten state universities of the Middle West and Far West in 1920, showed Cali- fornia ranking just above the average,. The recent raises in salary would probably make her position still higher. Such facts as are available lead to the conclusion that the salaries paid at the University of California are comparable with those paid at most state universities and at certain of the largest universities on private foundations. The salary scale proved lower at some prominent Eastern uni- versities, higher at half a dozen others. Outstand- ing in the California scale is the fact that, low as the salary is, instructors are paid as well as or better than at any other institution in the country.5 It is "This is however less advantageous than it sounds since at the University of California the rank of instructor is given only to those who have served the long apprenticeship of the Ph.D., while it is given even at Harvard, Yale and Princeton to young men working toward that degree. 58 GETTING AND SPENDING the middle and upper ranks that are comparatively poorly paid at California. It seems permissible then to believe that the facts which this study shows, probably indicate fairly well the situation all over the country. What is true of the University of California is likely with slight variations to be descriptive of the majority of the universities of the country. CHAPTER III THE SOCIAL DATA The main purposes of this inquiry made it nec- essary to know certain salient characteristics of these faculty families. The age of the parents in the families had intrinsic interest but was of spe- cial importance in its bearing upon questions of academic rank and size of family. Especially in- teresting was the size and the composition of these academic families. How many persons must these salaries support? If the size of the family proves notably small, is this because the groups are made up of persons too young to have larger families or because incomes are so small that prudence dic- tates a restricted number of children? Or are the families small simply because these families fell in with the general tendencies of the day toward the " small family system"? It was of interest to find what nationalities we were dealing with, not only because of the general interest such a question always has but here in par- ticular because the place of birth explains certain main modifications of the standard of living. I. THE NUMBER IN THE STUDY: SEX AND MATURITY The schedules showed that the 96 households under review comprised some 387 persons; that in 59 60 GETTING AND SPENDING addition to the 96 husbands and 96 wives, these family groups included 145 children, of whom 121 were under 16 and 24 were over 21 years old. In addition 19 adult relatives shared in the family expenditure entirely or in part. The facts of sex and maturity are shown in Table V. TABLE V TOTAL NUMBER OF PERSONS IN ALL HOUSEHOLD GROUPS OP THE 96 FAMILIES BY SEX AND MATURITY MATURITY TOTAL S EX NUMBER* Male Female Total number 387 177 210 Adults 266 109 157 Children under 16 121 68 53 * This number includes all persons who were members of the household group for more than three months during the year. II. AGE When inspected with regard to age, the majority of the faculty members studied proved to be be- tween the ages of 35 and 50. (Table VI.) TABLE VI AGE OF FACULTY MEMBERS AND HELPMATES * AGE FACULTY MEMBER HELPMATE No. Per Cent No. Per Cent All ages 96 23 60 13 100.0 24.0 62.5 13.5 96 41 44 11 100.0 42.7 45.8 11.5 Less than 35 years 35 to 50 years 50 years and over * The use of the word "helpmate" in the schedule and elsewhere may at first glance appear eccentric. But the sex of the faculty members was not always masculine and the more familiar terms "man" and "wife" could not therefore be used. The term "helpmate" was adopted because it seemed descriptive enough of either partner in the business of the household irrespective of sex. THE SOCIAL DATA 61 One-fourth, it will be noted, were under 35; were over 50. Though slightly younger than their husbands in every case, the wives fall into about the same age groups. Table VII brings out certain facts that merit consideration. TABLE VII FACULTY MEMBERS BY ACADEMIC RANK AND SPECIFIED AGE ACADEMIC RANK ALL AGES UNDER 35 35 TO 50 50ANDOVEB No. %of all Banks No. %of all Ranks No. %of all Ranks No. %of all Ranks All ranks .... 96 8 12 22 26 28 100.0 8.3 12.5 22.9 27.1 29.2 23 4 10 6 3 100.0 17.4 43.5 26.1 13.0 60 4 2 16 22 16 100.0 6.7 3.3 26.7 36.6 26.7 13 1 12 100.0 7.7 92.3 Associate Instructor Assistant Professor Associate Professor The data were compiled so as to find in what way the ages of these groups correlate with rank. As was to be expected, the largest single group of those under 35 were instructors. At 35, none are profes- sors and only three had attained the rank of asso- ciate professor. Between 35 and 50, one-fourth, 27%, are professors; 63% are assistant professors or associate professors. After 50, only one is not a full professor. When it is remembered that instructors' salaries run at highest to $2,400; that these men must have a minimum of seven years' training before they may get even the $1,800 that is offered them in re- turn for a full-time teaching schedule, a clue is not wanting to the reluctance with which young men of 62 GETTING AND SPENDING our times enter a profession where 35 years of age finds most of them still forced to practice the rigid economics an income of $2,400 to $3,000 entails. III. THE FAMILY TYPE A. Size and Composition of the Family — Follow- ing very common precedent, this study concerns it- self with family groups only as so many persons de- pendent upon a given income. The facts given may or may not tell the actual birth-rate in each family. The term "size of family " as employed here means only those children who were partially or entirely dependent upon the family 's resources. That is to say, size of family includes all children at home and children away from home to whom regular allowances were being sent. One hundred and forty-five were living at home or otherwise dependent on the family income. Twenty-four of these, being over 16, are listed in Table VI as adults in the count of all persons de- pendent upon income but are counted as "children" when considering the size of the faculty families. Of the children living at home, the average num- ber in each family proved to be 1.5. Half of the families have one child or none. Twenty-eight per cent of the families had no children; nearly 80% had less than the three dependent children until re- cently considered the " normal " or " census " family. Thus the average size of the family lies between three and four persons, that is, two adults and two children. (Table VIII.) Since recent research shows that at the present THE SOCIAL DATA 63 time, whether the family be in the wage-earning class or in some other occupational group, the typ- ical number of children under fourteen is 1.9, these academic breadwinners may be said to have what recent investigations l suggest is the typical family of our time. In addition to the faculty member, who, with few exceptions, brings in the major part of the income, 2.5 persons depend as an average upon the total income. TABLE VIII NUMBER OF CHILDREN IN THE ACADEMIC FAMILIES STUDIED NUMBEE OP CHILDREN No. OF FAMILIES HAVING GIVEN No. OP CHILDREN PERCENTAGE OP ALL FAMILIES All families 96 100.0 No children . . 27 28.1 One child 24 25.0 Two children 25 26.0 Three children 11 11.5 Four children . ... 7 7.3 Five children 2 2.1 B. Size of Family in Relation to the Age and the Income of Faculty Members. — This study offers no confirmation of the theory that low academic in- comes tend to reduce the number of children below that size family a faculty member would elect to have were a more generous income available. Tables VII and VIII and Table IX which fol- lows all illustrate these facts. The relation shown between size of family and rank. As rank is 1 Douglas, Paul H., Wages and the family. University of Chicago Press, 1925. Chapter III. Also Douglas, Paul H., Is the family of five typical? Journal of the American Statistical Association, VoL XIX : 322. September, 1924. 64 GETTING AND SPENDING expresses roughly the gradations of income, the point seems sufficiently clear. No particular rela- tion appears between the size of family and the income. The upper and lower limits in the size of income and the size of family are correlated to a certain extent. One family with an income of less than $2,000 has no children. The family with the TABLE IX SIZE OF IMMEDIATE FAMILY ACCORDING TO ACADEMIC RANK ACADEMIC BANK OP FACULTY MEMBER ALL FAMILIES SIZE OP IMMEDIATE FAMILY 2 3 4 5 6 7 All ranks 96 8 12 22 26 28 27 4 3 8 8 4 24 1 6 4 7 6 25 3 2 7 8 5 11 1 2 1 7 7 1 1 5 2 1 1 Associate Instructor .... Assistant Professor Associate Professor Professor PERCENTAGE OF ALL FAMILIES All ranks 100.0 28.1 25.0 26.0 11.5 7.3 2.1 Associate 8.3 42 1.0 3 1 Instructor . . 125 3 1 6.3 2 1 1.0 Assistant Professor Associate Professor Professor 22.9 27.1 29.2 8.3 8.3 4.2 4.2 7.3 6.3 7.3 8.3 5.2 2.1 1.0 7.3 1.0 1.0 5.2 1.0 1 0 highest income, $16,000, has four children but the two largest families, of five children each, have in- comes between $4,000 and $5,000. In each thousand dollar income level, the average number of children is usually one and a fraction. No genuine deviation from the general average appears. Neither does age seem to make any particular difference in the number of children. When the age of the head of the family is below 35, the aver- THE SOCIAL DATA 65 ige for the families of such faculty members is one ild. When the average age is above 35, the aver- ige number of children is not quite two. It would thus appear that, on the whole, the influ- ices making for the small family must be sought elsewhere than in age and income. IV. PLACE OF BERTH The families are typically native American from the North and West sections of the country. (Tables X, XI, XII.) For the faculty members representa- tion from the South is inconsiderable, less than 10%; 26% are natives of the Western states. One in every five was born on the Pacific Coast. Evi- dently a fair proportion of the faculty members came to the Coast and married here. An even larger percentage of helpmates, 30%, were also na- tives of the West. While more than half of the faculty members and their wives are from the Northern sections of the country, only 11% are from New England, customarily considered the home of academic traditions. The largest repre- sentation is from the North Central states whence come 40% of the faculty members and 31% of the helpmates. Only 10% of the faculty members and 10%i of their wives were foreign born ; of those foreign born, all the men were European. Two of the helpmates were born in Asia, children of missionaries living there. Three were natives of Canada. As was to be expected, the larger proportion of the children are native born and Western. Ninety-eight per cent 66 GETTING AND SPENDING were born in the United States; 84% in the West, and 76%' on the Pacific Coast. Along with many other influences standards of living are determined by early social habits. Geo- graphical and occupational traditions possibly in- fluence standards most directly. The origins of this TABLE X NUMBER AND PER CENT OF NATIVES AND OF FOREIGN-BORN AMONG ALL MEMBERS OF THE 96 FAMILIES STUDIED * ALL COUNTRIES UNITED STATES ALL FOREIGN No. Per Cent No. Per .Cent No. Per Cent 337 96 96 145 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 314 86 86 142 93.2 89.6 89.6 97.9 23 10 10 3 6.8 10.4 10.4 2.1 Faculty Members. Helpmates Children * Excludes 50 persons other than members of immediate family who are otherwise included in survey. faculty group would indicate that their ideas and ways of living and spending might be preponder- antly those of the Middle West and the Pacific Coast always of course tempered by that respected academic standard developed and given its stamp in New England. These data would suggest that if one may deal with a creature so mythical as an average person, the average faculty member of the particular group under consideration is a native American from the North or West, between the ages of 35 and 50, who has married and settled in Berkeley with one or two children born on the Pacific Coast. THE SOCIAL DATA 67 1 0 O<»T*IO »0 rHt- CJ 0 odt^rHlO CO oi* rH B o rH 0) 00 i J > Q 5J 3 ^ 0 8 a 4t a rH cgrHcgoo I-H corn eg •^ rH CQ rH rH 1 •3 | fl • B 0 0 0* O to oq eg co rn eg rj| eg r-j rH oJ oi »o* r-J co* o o 10 eg' co 00 rH CO CO rH » • D I J O «ot-cgtorHo Tfl^ 3 E 3 o O 0 Oi'cO*T^O4Co'cD O*O 00 rH CO Cg rH rH h 0 3g iH r2 i~l • . . 6 fl « 2 2 - - : : * T3 § -^ a 1 £ 1 r3 o ^ cd ^ "** * 3 *So3o2« r-nW<{o l> OO Ol OJ ^^ H O 00 -^ roved but slightly higher than the proportion of istructors, 11% as compared with 75%. As in all inks, additional teaching was the most popular re- 94 GETTING AND SPENDING source; also, as usual, about half of the men of this rank made use of this expedient. One-third were employed in research, five in public service and one in business. The returns from additional instruction were all under $700. The most typical returns lay between $300 and $350, a slight gain on the earnings of the instructors. Three-fourths of those giving additional instruction taught in sum- mer session ; only one did extension work. Coaching and lectures are represented, one man making $350 from a lecture course. The gains from research are all under $900 with an average around $350, higher by $150 than the median of $200 for all ranks. With this group text-books and other books appear as source of income. One assistant professor re- ceived the largest sum for a non-text, $166. The highest return for text-books quoted in this rank was $630. The number who did consulting work on spe- cial research problems, almost equal to the number of those who did research, made between $125 and $900 thereby. One reported a business income of $1,200. The five who were in public service received less than $100 for their work. Three had $100 to $250 from other sources. The assistant professors are the only group besides the full professors who earned an appreciable amount from administrative work; two assistant professors were paid respec- tively $650 and $750 for this class of extra work. (4) ASSOCIATE PEOFESSOKS. — The proportion of the 26 associate professors doing outside work is as low as that in the "associate" rank. Only 42% of this rank did extra teaching; 35% did research. ANALYSIS OF SALARIES AND INCOMES 95 This is the group for which the business interest was the most important. Three men had outside business relationships yielding them respectively $300, $3,000 and $8,400. On the other hand, the men in this group doing public service all reported earn- ings less than $100. None of those doing extra teaching selected the refuge of coaching. Lecture work on the contrary was often listed in this rank, one man making as much as $1,900 from it though the others made $250 or less. Of the eleven, three did extension work. Summer session teaching was the chief resource for this associate pro- fessor group. The gains in this field have the same range, $150 to $600, as for the whole group. Re- search work scattered over all fields. The returns range from $12.00 for an article in a periodical up to $1,500 for consultant work. Two of the four men who got $800 and over for text-books were associate professors. (5) FULL PEOFESSOKS. — Of the 28 full profes- sors, 86% did additional work. Rank counts. This rank had a practical monopoly of the good positions in administrative and in public offices. Three of the five administrative positions were held by full pro- fessors including the two posts paying over $750. Two men in this rank got $1,000 for administration. All the positions in public service paying $250 or more were held by full professors; two of the five professors in public service got $2,000 and $5,000 re- spectively while only one got under $100, a sharp contrast to the assistant and associate professors, whose public service work brought them for the 96 GETTING AND SPENDING most part less than $100. All the men earning over $1,200 in business are associate professors or full professors. One professor's business connections bring him $2,100. An average number, 46%, did ad- ditional teaching. As might be expected, the pro- portion of full professors engaged in research is much higher than in any other rank ; research is an intrinsic attribute of the professor's rank. The most striking fact about the group of full professors engaged in research is the absence of all of them from the field of special problems. None of the large rewards which this work offers were paid to full pro- fessors. The highest sum a professor reported for this kind of study was $200. The only substantial pecuniary resource reported by these full professors was the writing of text-books. The very highest an- nual return reported from this source, $1,000, went to a full professor. One-fourth of all the professors got some return from texts and one-half of all the text-book writers were full professors as compared with 29% associate professors and 21% assistant professors. Also, the largest incomes from texts went to full professors ; an associate professor occa- sionally earned as much. Contributions to pe- riodicals and other books also added a fair sum to professors' incomes. The median amount earned for all types of research is a trifle above the gen- eral average of $200; the mean is $340. Of the full professors, 40% earned between $100 and $300 in research. As for additional teaching, the majority of the professors who gave any additional instruction ANALYSIS OF SALARIES AND INCOMES 97 taught in summer session, receiving on the average $500, a trifle above that of the lower ranks. Sev- eral earned comfortable sums by lecturing ; the lec- ture course by which the largest amount was earned, $900, was given by a full professor. A few of this rank did extension work. When contrasted with all the other ranks, the full professors show no unusual distribution of gains through additional teaching. Probably they taught less, for the stipend paid to this rank is slightly higher than the ordinary amount. In other words, provided always that this group is representative, professors have little or no chance of large extra gains. On the other hand, the unex- ceptional man has a good chance of moderate re- turns. (See Tables XVI and XVII.) TABLE XVI MEAN AND MEDIAN AMOUNT OF ADDITIONAL EARNINGS OP FACULTY MEMBERS OF SPECIFIED ACADEMIC RANKS ACADEMIC BANK PEE CENT REPORTING ADDITIONAL EARNINGS AMOUNT OF ADDITIONAL EARNINGS Mean Median All ranks 73.9 62.5 75.0 77.2 61.5 85.7 $ 992.43 1378.60 706.39 529.70 1550.38 975.05 $500.00 895.00 250.00 400.00 560.00 681.83 Associate Instructor Associate Professor 2. HELPMATE 's SUPPLEMENTARY EARNINGS. — The faculty member's helpmate supplemented the family income in 40% of the cases. Nine helpmates re- ported a regular remunerative occupation; that is, GETTING AND SPENDING 2 6 IN Is5 00 eoo OO ^O «0 0 CD IO b- O id »d 0* 0 to o CO O 10 0 •* C< O 01 0 Oi »O a i* "3 ri I rH i— 1 10 0 o o 06 o "* IO Oi CO "fry1 i 5 b- IO oo o 0 0 to o to o ^^ i 1 ill I'l Tt< to •* o to o CO CO* o oo O CXJ i-H 4» ME FROM < - ^§ fe o § « «j Q 4 3 H w ^ w Mo Tj< 10 o t- 0 CO O £n 8 M , fe . im CO CO TH CO ^H O5 TtHrHO § GENERAL CHARACTER OF EXPENDITURES 135 C. The Allotment of Expenditures According to Academic Rank.— The proportionate allotment of expenditures among the several divisions of a family household expense does not differ strikingly when considered according to the different academic ranks. TABLE XXXI PER CENT DISTRIBUTION OF THE MEAN EXPENDITURE AMONG THE DIFFERENT ITEMS OF THE BUDGET FOR GIVEN ACADEMIC RANKS ITEM GENERAL AVERAGE FOR ALL BANKS ACADEMIC BANK Prof. Assoc. Prof. Asst. Prof. Instruc- tor Asso- ciate Pood 17.3 9.4 17.2 13.1 43.1 16.4 9.1 12.1 14.4 48.0 15.4 9.0 16.8 12.1 46.7 16.8 8.6 20.1 16.3 38.2 17.5 8.6 12.9 10.6 50.4 15.8 8.0 22.2 11.9 42.1 Clothing Shelter House Operation Miscellaneous . . . Clothing proves least variable when rank is con- sidered just as it did when related to income levels. On an average there is a difference of only \% be- tween the lowest proportion spent for clothing, that spent by the associates, and the highest proportion spent by the full professors ' families. There seems to be a slight tendency to increase expenditure for clothing with higher rank but not enough to insist upon, given such small limits. Food also shows very little variation, less than 2%, and no definite order of increase shows as rank changes. The cost of household operation varies more than twice as much as food, 6% ; the highest costs are for the assistant professors, the lowest for the instructors. Possibly this may be attributed to the fact that the instruc- 136 GETTING AND SPENDING tors do not yet own their houses; that they have smaller families and hence have smaller costs than the older men, for furniture, for service and for general running expenses. But the relation of this cost to rank is certainly ncrt distinct. The cost of shelter is still more variable among the several ranks, 10%; the lowest amount, 12%, the highest, 22%. This charge is lowest for full professors and for instructors, probably because the instructors have not yet bought houses and the professors have finished paying for theirs. Also, the professor's costs seem lower than they really are because, since it did not seem wise to disregard a poor tradition, the interest on the money invested in these homes has not been included here as a housing charge on owned houses. With the exception of the instruc- tors, proportional housing costs seem to decrease with rank, being highest for the associates and lowest for the full professors. The proportion as- signed to the group of miscellaneous items is the most variable of all the main classes of expendi- ture, highest for the instructors, lowest for the as- sistant professors. No relation to rank is appar- ent nor are there any striking variations. Prob- ably this group of items would always take the largest proportion of the incomes of the instructors with their lower salaries because of the fact already emphasized that, in the academic way of living, a definite minimum standard prevails concerning this class of expense, a standard below which in- structors as well as professors will not go. When this class standard touches the expenditure plans GENERAL CHARACTER OF EXPENDITURES 137 of those with relatively smaller incomes, high pro- portionate costs for miscellaneous in all classes and especially among instructors with lower total ex- penditures become almost a certainty. D. Broad Details Concerning Expenditures for Miscellaneous. — What does the average faculty member do with the relatively large allowance for these thirteen items of miscellaneous? He cer- tainly does not smoke it up; less than two-thirds report any expenditure for tobacco. What tobacco is used takes less than \% of the total miscella- neous.5 He does not give it to charity. The con- tributions in this direction are relatively small, though nearly all the families give something. Three-fourths of the contributions were less than $50.00 annually. Nor is it contributed to the church since the amounts in this class are relatively low; in fact, not much more than half of the families give anything to support churches. Those who con- tribute reported in two-thirds of the cases con- tributions of less than $52.00 a year. Seventy dollars a year or 1.5% of the total budget for edu- 8 Owing to the smaller number of cases and the greater irregularity in the expenditure figures, together with a tendency already ob- served for the cases to cluster at the lower end of the scale with one or two disproportionately high individuals at the upper end, the means for these sub-items of expenditures are even more unreliable than for the data already discussed. Hence, the medians have been used as more indicative of the mass of the families studied. The very high cases must not of course be ignored completely since it is characteristic of this group to show always a few individuals who devote a preponderant share of their income to a single item but they should not be allowed to exert undue influence upon the type which is supposed to characterize the general spending tendency. The means have, therefore, been included in all of the tables and have been used in a few cases where the median is obviously fallacious. 138 GETTING AND SPENDING cational facilities seems a small expenditure for a group whose interest in the best training is pre- sumably high. Only $60.00 a year as an average for professional expenses means that in most cases the faculty member, or his wife for him, has spent many hours at clerical drudgery. Automobiles consume a large proportional amount; slightly more than half the families own them, but those who do, spend almost as much for them as for clothes. More than a third of the families were contributing to the support of dependents outside the home. Items, each one of which absorbs 3% or more of the total expenditure, are investments, automobiles, health, recreation and dependents. All spend the largest amounts on investments, on health and on automobiles. But, while practically every family must and does meet the charges for recreation, for the preservation of health and for investments, only 57% have automobiles and only one-third gave to dependents outside the home. The gifts that cost 2% of the total expenditures probably do not often include gifts made within the family, which are sometimes counted under the costs of clothing or of furniture. Taken as percentages of the total allotment for miscellaneous, it appears that more than one-fourth of the amount which is not spent for what it is usual to call physical necessities, is invested in some way calculated to meet the hazard of the future. Seventeen per cent is spent on the auto- mobiles though by only 57% of the families. About the same amount, 10%, goes for each of the three GENERAL CHARACTER OF EXPENDITURES 139 items, health, dependents outside the home and rec- reation. The gifts take nearly 5%, and education, professional expenses, incidentals and associations about 3% and 4% of the total amount spent for all miscellaneous items. Church and general charity absorb less than 1%% °f this quota of expenditure. The same is true of tobacco. It is interesting and important to note how the direction of expenditure among the different items of miscellaneous varies with increases in the total expenditure and in the total appropriation for miscellaneous. As the total expenditure of these faculty groups rises, more is spent for investments, especially in the groups with incomes above $5,000. The propor- tion spent for automobiles fluctuates. Expenditures for gifts, professional expenses, church and char- ity, the costs of recreation remain a fairly constant proportion of the total. As purchasing power in- creases, the cost of maintenance of health decreases. The burden of dependents is heaviest on the $3,000 to $6,000 expenditure groups, and lowest actually and proportionately for the high incomes. The costs of tobacco are so notably irregular as to lead to the inference that its use is a matter of personal preference rather than of budget planning. E. Summary. — Summarily reviewed the spending ways of these 96 faculty families and thus possibly academic families in general show that regardless of income they tend to spend a fixed amount for food and clothing, an amount that approaches the 140 GETTING AND SPENDING minimum. Indeed, most of them seem to set so little relative value upon these two classes of needs that added income does not lead to more expendi- tures for either of them. With a proportion that is low at the lowest levels, the proportional cost of food and clothing regularly decreases as income rises, — the new standard of spending that appears above $10,000 possibly excepted. Disbursement for shelter also follows very definitely a class standard. This is the item least modified by size of income. The expenditure for housing is thus fairly constant, although it bears most heavily upon the middle class income groups who are beginning the enter- prise of owning a home, and decreases evidently for the higher income groups. The expenditures in the division of house operation rise to a certain extent with income but variation shows here more plainly than in any other division. Since the housing is so notably alike for most of the incomes, a certain proportion of the operating cost will necessarily be constant and the percentage should decrease with increased income. But this tendency is in great part balanced by individual economies in service in the lower income groups or by the expansion of the apportionment to this item in the upper income groups, notably for service. The proportionate decrease in the cost of the so- called physical necessities as income' rises is of course compensated for by the expansion in the proportion devoted to miscellaneous items, although the proportion given to this latter from the outset is notably high. GENERAL CHARACTER OF EXPENDITURES 141 These findings prove expenditures that conform amazingly to the theories about the class standard under consideration. In 1912, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Brnere recorded the average expenditures of a group of educators, largely high school teachers. The table here following shows how these high school teachers as an average allotted their expen- ditures among the major items of a family expense account. The similarity to the way the academic families under inspection allocated their incomes is evident and surprising. TABLE XXXlA COMPARISON OF FACULTY ALLOCATION OF EXPENDITURES WITH THAT OF HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS IN BRUERE STUDY, 1912 FACULTY (1922) BRU£RE (1912)* Food 17 3 17 7 Clothing 9 4 104 Shelter 17.1 12.9 Operation 13.1 12 7 Miscellaneous • 43.1 45 6 Advancement Incidentals .... (deficit .6 makes up 100.0%) * Bru&re, M. B. and R. W., Increasing Home Efficiency, New York, Macmillan, 1912, pp. 316-17. Only one important discrepancy appears between the spending of these two groups. The academic groups reviewed here pay 4% more for shelter, as a result perhaps of disproportionate increases in general housing costs during the past ten years. This extra expense for house room reduces directly the amount devoted to miscellaneous in 1922, al- 142 GETTING AND SPENDING though, the higher charge for housing is partly off- set by a 1%' economy on clothes. Both these expenditure allotments differ mark- edly from that "division between departments ac- cording to ideals " laid down by Mrs. Richards twenty years ago and continuously repeated today with but slight variation in the percentage distribu- tion assigned by banks and other agencies suggest- ing methods of thrifty spending. Table XXXII permits comparison of the currently advertised schemes of allotment with Mrs. Richards ' oft-quoted allotment and the average allotment of these 96 families. In most of these plans for "ideal" expenditure, it will be noted that 75% of the income must sup- posedly go to physical necessities, leaving only 25% for "higher life." Within the same range of income, $4,000 to $5,000, the Berkeley families allo- cate to this division of expenditure at lowest 36%, at highest 44%, and as an average for all incomes, 43.1%. The 96 families of this academic group elect to save, for save they must, chiefly on food and clothing. On food, they spend 8% less than the ritual allowance of 25% and a trifle less than any but the unusually low Pittsburgh allotment of 16%. To clothing they have assigned 6% less than the rigid "New England" standard of 15%. Rent and house operation also fall 3% below this standard. The Bank of Italy estimate for the San Francisco Bay region and that of a Pittsburgh bank both of which gave 15% to shelter and 15% and 20% re- spectively to house operation show interesting de- GENERAL CHARACTER OF EXPENDITURES 143 II o§ eg M 3 M 5 M ± T 05 Pel !§e g 3 2 HP P^ cj 56 O IO O CO t>; OO CO* t>^ CO* iH Od r-l O3 iH rH O»O OO rH O CO IO b- 00 CO* IA O wo o oo oo co 1>O CO »O»O U5W 06 rH CM (M (M • rH ?H rH iH rH rH rH COO O O CO OCO O t-^irj c£ - , ~ — «1 ;•- 11 -%% w^a, 31 i^1"^* •^ « •»- 0 * 4-« 4)3 s« Ofl 144 GETTING AND SPENDING partures from Mrs. Bichards' pioneer theory of division of income on the one hand and a nearer approach on the other to the spending habits of the 96 families under survey. Even at the lowest income levels, $2,000-$3,000, " wants for the higher goods'7 are sharply in evi- dence. Given the income range, in order to satisfy this desire for " higher goods/' at least half these family groups must hold " physical' ' requirements uncompromisingly in check. As result of such studies as those of Engel and Le Play and a few studies of professional groups with low but regular earning power, it has become an established habit to look upon the number and kind of the wants in addition to those comprehended in the class of food, shelter and clothing, as the real index when the standard of living is to be eval- uated as high or low. The dictum goes to the effect that the best general index of a "high" standard of living is the amount spenders assign to the group of items herein collected together under the word "miscellaneous." The standard is said to rise as the proportion spent for these less tangible items in a scale of wants rises. Most theories about the art of spending consider a rational standard of spending indicated when expenditure for this class of need goes above 25% of income. Accepting this position without debating its merits, the facts just noted make it obvious that, since they assign all increase in income to "miscel- laneous ' 9 rather than to a more lavish dietary or to more and more expensive clothing, these expendi- GENERAL CHARACTER OF EXPENDITURES 145 ture tables prove these 96 families to be consumers with spending ways that are "high." Still another outstanding point appears as the data are reviewed. The rank and income of the fac- ulty member make very little difference in the scheme of expenditure. A well-defined class stand- ard of living seems to control the spending in all ranks. At every level of income, the same standard of consumption is plainly evident. A pricking temptation to pause and analyze that standard must at this time be resisted. Whatever relationship existed between changes in the standards of living and the distribution of ex- penditure appeared when the families were grouped according to their total expenditures by thousand dollar levels from $2,000 to $10,000 and over. For the different ranks, the variations in the allotments to the several divisions of expenditures seem largely incidental to the factors of age, income and salary and, to a less degree, to the size of the families in- volved. Only in small degree do the variations seem to result from differing theories about the use of consumption goods. The important index of standard is the rise or fall of the percentage distribution between the sev- eral divisions of expenditure. For the group as a whole, this index shows plainly a common set of preferences that control decisions as income rises. No matter whether income is $4,000 or $7,000, ir- respective of size of income, this group as has been pointed out keeps the proportion it spends for food and clothing about the same. This fact is less true 146 GETTING AND SPENDING of housing and is not true of expenditure for house operation or miscellaneous, where the proportions allotted to this item vary with income or rise as in- come rises. Viewed according to rank,6 the evi- dences of a common standard are even clearer. At the median level of incomes for the instructors, $4,016.08, 50% of expenditure goes to miscellaneous. The assistant professor shifts some of the expendi- ture in this field to invest it in a house, thus reducing the allotment for these items to 38.2%. Through devoting more income to investment, the associate professor returns to within 4% of the proportion set by the instructors' expenditures, giving 46.7% to this division of expenditures as compared with the instructor's 50.4%. The professors permit them- selves apparently more of the positive satisfactions in this division of expenditure such as an automobile and other forms of recreation, but they continue to have about the same allotments for food and cloth- ing and thus give the same proportion as the in- structor to shelter and slightly more to house opera- tion. Thus they approach again the median ex- penditure of the instructor class, allotting as median nearly 48% to miscellaneous expenditure — only 2% less than at the lowest income level. As might be anticipated the instructors, the group with the lowest average of income, allot the highest propor- tion to this division of household expenditure. Grouped according to rank and taking the average within each group, the expenditures of the several ranks go contrary to what proved to be a regular "See Tables XXV and XXXI. Also chart in appendix. GENERAL CHARACTER OF EXPENDITURES 147 example of EngeFs law when the expenditures were reviewed by income levels. With median incomes slightly above $4,000, the amount allotted to sun- dries is highest when the average income is lowest. As the average of incomes rises, the proportion al- lotted to this division of expenditure diminishes in- stead of increasing as it does when these family incomes are viewed simply as income levels. The proportion thus subtracted reappears irregularly in the divisions of shelter or house operation, while food and clothing and miscellaneous remain almost constant throughout all ranks. CHAPTEE VI FURTHER DETAILS OF THE EXPEN- DITURES FOR FOOD, CLOTHING, SHELTER AND HOUSE OPERATION In Chapter V the main lines of spending theory have been outlined, and the reader has been in- formed concerning the broader facts which charac- terized the allotment of the incomes of these 96 families. The student of consumption will it is believed wel- come further details. In this chapter and Chapter VII, a series of facts appear, facts significant both for the immediate purposes of this inquiry and as an index of the spending ways of professionals in general. I. FOOD1 To examine first certain aspects of food selection and costs. 1 The schedule called for little beyond the broad details of food costs. It was certain beforehand and proved to be true, that those interviewed could not give the separate totals of the several classes of food-stuffs. Since the investigation contemplated neither a sub- sistence nor a dietary study, omitting these subheadings of a food list does not, it is hoped, work seriously against the merits of the findings. In many cases the sublists helped to make the total more accurate. Some of the traditional inaccuracies that arise from the fact that the average grocery bill includes small items of household goods such as brooms, matches and soap, may still inflate the food charges but every effort was made to transfer such charges to the costs of household operation where they belong. 148 FURTHER DETAILS OF EXPENDITURES 149 A. Amounts Allocated for Food.— The food re- quirements naturally vary with the size of the family more directly than any other item of the budget. Where large proportionate expenditures for food appear in this study, these are almost uni- formly the expenditures of the larger households. The general average of $900 for a family of four is by no means unusual. This average allotment, 17%, it will be recalled, is close to the figure given in government and other quantity and cost estimates as the proportion required at the wage earner's sub- sistence plus level. It is current belief that with careful management, $900 per annum provides a frugal but sustaining dietary for a family of four. The amounts spent for food vary from $400 to $2,500. Sixty per cent of the families spent between $500 and $1,000. Food took 10% to 25% in the case of 82 families. There are exceptional cases of high expenditures for food. One family of four spent one-third of an income of $4,100 on food, at the expense of course of the miscellaneous items which thus amounted to only 27% of expenditures. The housing costs for this family were low; food and clothing seemed to furnish their major satisfac- tions. But this is the only case of the kind. An- other family that spent a large proportion upon food cut down its clothing proportion rather than its mis- cellaneous— the man, his wife and their two children each spending less than $100 on dress. At the other extreme, where the amount devoted to food seems very low, it can sometimes be explained by the ab- sence from home of some member of the family. 150 GETTING AND SPENDING The family of four which spent the lowest amount for food, $370 for the year, was that of an as- sociate professor, who was absent for at least one meal in nine, these meals away from home paid for by the University for some reason. Another family which spent only $427 for food consisted of only two, a man and his wife, therefore no illustration of ex- ceptional economy. Food is an absolute requirement of existence, both as to quantity and quality. The question of how far expenditure can go below the general level of the average allotment made in these budgets without risking the health of these families seemed worth examining. Considering the relatively small sum of money expended, were the quantity and the variety of food adequate for this class of family or for any family? The attempt to answer this ques- tion precisely brought no satisfactory result for two reasons. In the first place, the " standard " of diet requirements that specialists set in practice applies to "relief" dietaries only. Should it be used as the test for the professional standard? Certainly a debatable question. In the second place, the data permitted no computations about the food values of these food purchases. Only primary comparisons were possible. Within these limitations, the comparisons that fol- low were made. They permit at least a guess about the relation of these money expenditures for food to money 's worth. Certainly, once more and beyond cavilling, the figures prove this at least, that the food standard under inspection is a simple standard. FURTHER DETAILS OF EXPENDITURES 151 A weekly per capita cost was estimated for sixty- five families. Only these sixty-five of the ninety-six families sent in schedules wherein details as well as totals of food costs were sufficiently available. Since many of the food estimates were originally computed from weekly expenditure records, it seemed best to calculate the costs on a weekly basis. Due allowance was made for meals eaten away from home, though no general and regular habit of this kind had to be taken into account. Where meals were eaten out, a deduction was made from the regular costs of food at home. In this way, an average weekly per capita was found. For the average household of 3.9 persons, the usual cost proved to be $4.25 per capita per week or $.60 per day per capita. This per capita and total is well above the sum that makers of minimum diet requirements assigned as " standard " costs in 1922. All the relief offices in the San Francisco Bay dis- trict use the Jaffa budget, named for Professor Meyer E. Jaffa, the widely-known food specialist of the University of California, who computes such a "relief budget " annually. In 1922, Professor Jaffa estimated that the minimum diet requirements of a family of four persons represented a necessary ex- penditure for food of $2.50 per week per capita or $.36 per capita per diem. Dr. Agnes Fay Morgan, head of the Department of Household Science in the same University, using a somewhat different theory of food supply and scale of food values, estimates the necessary minimum per capita at $2.75 per week or $.39 per diem. Accepting either one of these 152 GETTING AND SPENDING estimates as standard, and accepting the comparison of money expenditures with all its limitations as criterion, these faculty families, even those below the average, still spend enough to buy more than the minimum diet requirements. (Table XXXIII.) Little though the quota allotted to food appears to be, these faculty wives seem to have spent money enough to purchase a plain but nourishing dietary. B. Food and the Size of the Household.— The re- lationship between total expenditure and amount or proportion spent for food is always complicated by the factor of size of household. Both a larger total expenditure and a larger family tend to affect the actual amount spent, but total expenditure seems to count more. The proportional expenditure is more closely related to these two factors than is the actual amount. Also, since the proportion spent for food decreases as the total expenditure rises but increases as the family grows, their influence is dia- metrically opposed. When each is considered sepa- rately, by means of a partial correlation, the proportion allowed for food falls even more sharply as the total expenditure increases while it rises almost as steadily with an increasing family.2 In a The correlations and partials are : Between amount for food and total expenditure 57 With the influence of size of household partialled out . . .51 Between amount for food and size of household 46 With total expenditure partialled out 37 Between the proportion for food and total expenditure . . —.45 With size of household partialled out —.60 Between proportion for food and size of household 31 With total expenditure partialled out 53 Between total expenditure and size of family 30 FURTHER DETAILS OF EXPENDITURES 153 so far as the character of the data will justify sweeping inferences, it would seem that the aca- demic family thinks in terms of an amount to be spent for food rather than a proportion of its total budget and that this amount does not increase as rapidly as does the total expenditure. Thus the pro- portional importance decreases. Inspection shows that the size of the family exerts surprisingly little influence upon, the amount which is spent for food but a great deal more upon the proportion. TABLE XXXIII COMPARISON OP AVERAGE WEEKLY FOOD COST PER CAPITA FOR FACULTY FAMILIES WITH AN ESTIMATE BY DR. AGNES FAY MORGAN AND PROFESSOR JAFFA'S RELIEF BUDGET BY SIZE OF FAMILY (PRICES AS OF 1922) ALL FAMI- LIES ESTIMATED WEEKLY COST PER PERSON FOR FAMILY or 2 3 4 5 6 7 Faculty Families . . . Morgan * $4.25 $5.00 3.80 3.05 $4.66 3.10 2.85 $3.94 2.75 2.50 $4.10 2.52 2.30 $3.49 2.35 $2.94 2.50 Jaffa * The Morgan food budget, as yet unpublished, was compiled only for a family of five. The estimate of per capita costs for families of 2, 3 and 4 given above are based upon the assumption that such costs would be 151%, 122% and 109% respectively of the per capita cost in a family of five. Thus the conclusion already drawn is justified concerning the way the proportional importance of food costs decreases as the income rises, is inde- pendent of the size of the family, and indeed becomes more marked when this element is withdrawn. Tables XXXIIK and XXXIV here following plainly show this tendency. 154 GETTING AND SPENDING 00 * 0 0 0 0 0 0. rH rH d & rH rH ^ 0 000 o o 10 10 o 10 od ^ 1 -^ Od rH rH * O CO rH Od rH O id rH Od rH O 1O rH Od rH rH 1 d O> IO rH Od rH jj 0 OJ t- -H 1 00 t- CO Od -* Od rH •P * O 1C rH CO CO CO o oi 06 co -* -^ 0 CO CO rH rH 1 rH Od OO t- CO rH Od CO * O CO O5 CO «O »O O CO O t-^ CO "* O rH rJH Cd rH rH 1 Od CO Oi CO CO rH Od 03 * 0 CO TJJ CO 00 O 00 Od rJH TlH O Od *O rH rH d & rH CO rH CO rH Od rH O lOOdOdlO-^rHOd d W * O rH Od CO rH rH ..'; £ d ft CO rHOOOrHOSCO-^ Oi rH Od CO rH £ "3 ' * '^^^° g OiOJOl-^Oi^1^ a -^a^rtrt a 6000000 IM 9{ij?l ££o*S£ * S „, » £ S5 FURTHER DETAILS OF EXPENDITURES 155 M rt H 00 * 0 0 0 0 0 0 rH i-H ^0 rH rH 1 03 * 0 00 0 10 10 t~ (M g W 1 -* CO rH 1 £ O rH rH CO CO rH 0 rH rH CO* co' rH i— I rH CO CO rH 1 § 0 * OS t— 1 i— 1 CO CO rH 9 o oo eg oo t> «o g TH g 10 * O t^ Cvl t>- CO ^O rH OJ rj? 0 f-H«M CO CO rH * 1 03 CO CO t^ 10 rH 03 03 * 0 00 OS rH 10 00 0 -^ 03 00 OS Tji 0 ^ CO rHJ 1 1 rH i-H OS OO OJ rH 1 ''AMILY 1 M q * O CO rH Od OS Tt< rH §OO 00 O rH Os' O3 Cvl CO O3 H 1 HH 1 H 1 i «S853<*« 0 g g 0 a 02 g OS 05 OS OS OS OS ^a- i-H rH OJ O] CO •^ rH rH C\l CO rH CO ended may represent a " standard " concerning the >atronage of commercial amusement or perhaps a >ias in favor of types of relaxation that cost noth- walks, evening reunions, club gatherings, etc., ifluences the amount of time available for theaters and the like. Of those with total expenditures over 202 GETTING AND SPENDING $10,000, 25% still spent less than $100 for recur- rent recreation. Nearly half of the 96 reported less than $50.00 for recurrent expenses of this nature; more than three-fourths, less than $100. Five of the six who spent more than $200 for these items had incomes of $6,000 or more. The other was a child- less family with a $4,000 income, already owning its own house and comfortably settled. It looks as though commercial amusements would fare badly if they had to depend upon academic faculties for their patronage. 5. VACATION. — Taking a vacation seems also to depend on other factors than the amount of income. Surprisingly little relation appears between the costs of vacation and income. About two-thirds of the families on each level of total expenditure had some vacation, 71% of the whole 96. For every expenditure group except the lowest, the average cost is close to $200. Faculty families would seem to have well-defined ideas about vacation. This cost seems to be a standardized charge for all classes rather than a prerogative of higher incomes. The 28 families who took no vacation were for the most part rather obviously economizing. One-third had bought a house or a car in the same year; one was on sabbatical leave. Several had large health bills. In some cases, the lack of the vacation was com- pensated for by a larger recurrent expenditure for other pleasures. In other instances, the figures tell plainly a story of a family of four living on $2,700 or of six on $3,300, scrimping desperately at every point. INTENSIVE ANALYSIS OF MISCELLANEOUS 203 6. SOCIAL ENTERTAINMENT.— The social entertain- ment data proved practically worthless except as in- dex of each family 's general theory about the rela- tive deductions from or additions to food costs that might be made for this item. With these academic groups as with most family groups, the costs for guests consist mainly of extra meals at home. Such costs are included in the general bills for food and overhead. Of the 72 who reported amounts spent in social entertainment including the costs of guests outside the home, only 8 estimated expending more than $100. The faculty member with a $16,000 income who estimated $780 for the cost of enter- taining guests at the club, is far from typical. D. Health. — The maintenance of health includes the costs for dentists, doctors, nursing, drugs, hos- pital and opticians. Reports did not permit dis- sociating the costs of preventive medicine from those due to neglect or to too great economy in re- gard to the care of health, nor can any evidence be given about the sudden emergencies or serious ill- nesses which overtook a few families. One fortunate family reported no expenditures for health. This was the family of an instructor with a small child of 3, all three members of the family living upon an income of $3,400 and saving $1,200 of it. 1. AMOUNT AND TYPES OF EXPENDITURE. — By and large, the costs of health maintenance constitute a very appreciable item in the average academic family 's budget. To be sure, 9 families spent on 204 GETTING AND SPENDING health or, more accurately on sickness, less than 1% of their total income but six spent more than 15%. One instructor's family of four people, living on $2,400, spent $600, 25% of their total expenditure, 70% of their total miscellaneous, for health. The average for the whole group is 4%, about $200. Two-thirds spent less than $250; 25%, less than $100, but 16% spent more than $500. Five families, two of which had incomes under $5,000, spent between $1,000 and $2,000 for health. The tendency to economize in this direction whenever it is pos- sible shows plainly. Of the 8 families spending less than $50.00, all have total expenditures less than $6,000 and 7 of the families have a total of less than $5,000. As to particulars in the health expenditure, 82 families reported physicians ' bills averaging $75.00; 40 paid for specialists at an average of $35.00; 55 had optometrists' bills averaging $20.00; 90 re- ported dentists' bills whose average size was $50.00. There were 36 who had hospital bills averaging $62.00. Twenty-three had nursing charges averag- ing $45.00, 66 reported the costs of drugs as averag- ing about $10.00, the latter usually an estimate. In the matter of cost, physicians ' bills are the heaviest item, although the dentists' bills affect more people. Next in importance are hospital costs, then nursing, specialists, optometrists and drugs in the order named. As has been said, it is not possible to differentiate the costs of preventive medicine and by inspection of these charges determine whether low salaries INTENSIVE ANALYSIS OF MISCELLANEOUS 205 force the academic class to economize on this item of expenditure. Dentists' bills, however, have per- haps something of this quality since dental care may be temporarily neglected as an acute appendicitis or any disabling sickness cannot be. An inspection of the outlay of these families for dental care seems to bear out the presumption that lack of funds, not ignorance of the value of dental prophylaxis, forces neglect of proper precautions, for the amount spent on dentistry increases directly with the amount of total expenditure. The six families reporting no dentist bills were all living on amounts less than $5,000 and the six who spent less than $10.00 on dentistry are in the same income group. A total expenditure of $6,000 seems very definitely the di- viding line. Below that income, 50% to 60% of the families spent less than $50.00 a year; more than 80% spent less than $100. The exception is the $4,000 to $5,000 group. Here only one-third spent less than $50.00; 28% spent $100 or more. This increase and emphasis is probably due to the pres- ence of growing children in these families. When the total expenditure exceeds $6,000, the cases spending less than $50.00 practically disappear and more than half spent over $100. For the first time, we see some families spending more than $300. It may be argued that the higher expendi- ture groups as contrasted with the higher income groups, for they are not completely identical, have a few more children and that these children are per- haps older and more in need of dental care. But in- spection proves this to apply accurately only to the 206 GETTING AND SPENDING lowest group with expenditures below $3,000, who are all younger men with the average of only one child. From the data, it seems fairly certain that the faculty group economizes on preventive dental work because it must. Indeed, the higher costs for the higher expenditure levels may be in part at least due to previous neglect enforced by lack of surplus for this purpose, by poor food or some other among the unfortunate by-products of low income. 2. EELATION TO AMOUNT OF TOTAL EXPENDITURE. — The proportionate cost of health decreases steadily as the total expenditure increases although dis- tinctly lower for the $4,000 group than for others. Even the absolute amounts increase very little; health costs are apparently a fairly constant sum regardless of income. The proportional costs would, of course, bear most heavily upon those with the lowest incomes. But the group spending $10,000 or more shows a sudden increase in the absolute amount and in the proportional cost of health main- tenance, rising from 2% to 5% of the total expendi- ture and from 4% to 11% of the miscellaneous. Is it because with incomes over $10,000 one can make a luxury of being ill 1 The answer, based on facts long observed, may safely be that faculty families do not as a class " enjoy poor health. " Is it because the doctor, informed about increased income, raises his charges? Given the average physician's well-known leniency toward the academic beginner and the growing practice of pro-rating doctors' fees to in- come, the latter interpretation would seem to have some relevance. INTENSIVE ANALYSIS OF MISCELLANEOUS 207 3. RELATION OF HEALTH COSTS TO TOTAL EXPENDI- TURE FOR MISCELLANEOUS. — The costs of health maintenance average about 15% of the miscellaneous in cases where the total for all miscellaneous is less than $2,000 ; in a few cases more than half of miscel- laneous is spent for health. Above $2,000, health is less than half as absorbing of income and the cases in which much of the miscellaneous goes for this purpose practically disappear. In fact, where health costs are 25% or more of the miscellaneous expense, the total for miscellaneous appropriations was in most cases under $3,000. E. Dependents Outside the Home. — As classified here, dependents are persons maintained or par- tially supported outside of the home. 1. AMOUNT OF EXPENDITURE. — The support of de- pendents outside or in the home proved fairly typi- cal in these faculty families. Many families had re- lations living with them in the household.6 More than one-third of the 96 contributed to the support of dependents outside the home. These families were usually childless. To the families thus sending help to relatives not in the home, the cost of de- pendency constitutes a distinct additional burden upon income, possibly a substitute for the costs of children, averaging 3% to 5% of the total expendi- ture. A little more than one-third spent only 2% or 3% of their total expenditure but for three-fourths this item absorbed close to 7%% of the total or * Following custom, dependent relatives living with the family were mnted in the general household and any charges upon income they my represent are included in general family expenses. 208 GETTING AND SPENDING something under 15% of the miscellaneous expendi- ture. There is only one case where outside depend- ents cost less than 1%; three cases cost more than 10% of the total expenditure. The highest propor- tion appears in a case where the dependents were given 22% of the total expenditure and 54% of the expenditures for miscellaneous. This was a child- less couple, apparently supporting their relatives as well as themselves on $3,600. No other case repre- sented a total support of the outside dependents. Half a dozen contributed less than $100 annually but all of these cases occur in families with small in- comes. The most typical amounts thus expended lie between $100 and $400, with the average between $200 and $250. The burden of dependency falls most heavily on the moderate incomes. Five out of the six families who gave over $400 for dependents have total expenditures below $6,000, typically $5,000. 2. FREQUENCY. — By and large, the support of de- pendents is only indirectly a matter of choice. The number of families making this expenditure, 34 all told, bears little apparent relation to the income. Those with total expenditures between $3,000 and $4,000 and between $8,000 and $10,000 reported a larger proportion of outside dependents than for any other expenditure levels. The group with the smallest proportion of dependents was that spend- ing between $6,000 and $7,000. Also a decrease was evident in the number of dependents among those with incomes that exceed $10,000. INTENSIVE ANALYSIS OF MISCELLANEOUS 209 3. RELATION TO THE AMOUNT OF TOTAL, EXPENDI- TURE.— The real burden of dependency is indicated by the relative costs as well as by the number re- porting. Dependents outside the home were not an appreciable burden upon families spending less than $3,000, costing them only 2% of their total ex- penditure. This item is heaviest for the families spending between $3,000 and $6,000. Something over a third of the families have such dependents; they spend over 5% of the total and 14% of their miscellaneous expenditures upon them. Above $8,000, a definite falling off is apparent, the ex- penditure decreasing in absolute amount and drop- ping to a third of the previous proportional costs. The burden of dependency falls heaviest upon the moderate income groups who have also the highest costs for other items, such as housing. 4. RELATION TO TOTAL, EXPENDITURE FOR MIS- CELLANEOUS.— The most notable effects of this bur- den of dependency upon other expenditures for mis- cellaneous appear where the total appropriations for miscellaneous are small. In the group under $2,000, cases occur where the cost of dependents is one-fourth of the total miscellaneous. Where ap- propriations to miscellaneous were largest, none of the families spent more than 5% for dependents. F. Gifts. — The term gifts includes presents made upon all occasions, such as Christmas, birthdays, weddings or in times of illness. Gifts of clothing or household furnishings made between members of the family may not, in some cases, have been in- 210 GETTING AND SPENDING eluded under this heading; but to compensate for this inaccuracy it seems probable that in five in- stances at least those making the schedules classified flowers sent to funerals under incidentals instead of under gifts. Ninety-four reported expenditures for gifts. 1. AMOUNT OF EXPENDITURE. — Gifts tend to take a fairly standardized amount. These families as- signed in this direction from one-tenth of \% to 8% of their total expenditures, or y2% to 25% of the total expenditure for miscellaneous, averaging about 2% of the total expenditure and 5% of the miscellaneous. The amounts are more constant. One-third of the families spent between $50.00 and $100; half, between $50.00 and $150. The average is $100. 2. RELATION TO AMOUNT OF TOTAL EXPENDITURE. — The relation of the proportionate costs of gifts to the amount of total expenditure is obscure, if in- deed any relation exists. Gifts are apparently a more important item of expenditure for families spending between $4,000 and $5,000 and between $8,000 and $9,000 than for those with the very small- est or very largest incomes or for the middle groups spending between $5,000 and $8,000. But this may very well be the result of chance factors rather than of any determining influence exerted by the size of the income. While actual amounts increase with total expenditure, the increase is irregular. Habit and human relationships are determining factors here. INTENSIVE ANALYSIS OF MISCELLANEOUS 211 3. RELATION TO TOTAL, MISCELLANEOUS. — Given the above fact of a tendency to a standard amount ap- portioned to gifts, it is not surprising to find that as the amount allotted to miscellaneous increases the relative cost of gifts decreases although un- steadily. All families wherein gifts cost more than 10% of the total miscellaneous have a miscellaneous appropriation of less than $3,000. In the higher ex- penditure levels, this item becomes more stereo- typed. G. Education. — The item education includes peri- odicals and books of general rather than purely technical interest, the cost of the children's lessons and, in some cases, college fees for the wife. The man's technical books are included in professional expense. 1. AMOUNT AND TYPE OF EXPENDITUEE. — All of the families studied reported some expenditure for these items. The nearest approach to a character- istic amount expended lies between $20.00 and $60.00. The average amount is $70.00. It is difficult to say what would be a "normal" allotment for edu- cational costs. To be sure, this grou£ has extraordi- nary advantages. The whole family may use the facilities of the University with its library and many free lectures ; for the man, his faculty club also pro- vides easy access to many newspapers and periodi- cals. If such facilities are lacking in the home, it is the faculty member's wife, characteristically a woman of education and intelligence, who is de- prived. 212 GETTING AND SPENDING The average proportion absorbed by this item of expense is 1%% °f the total expenditure but one- third spent less than \% on the expenses classed under this general heading. One childless family spending $4,700 bought only the daily paper during this period; they were saving to buy a house and economizing in every direction. Half a dozen others spent less than $20.00, which would obviously permit only the purchase of one daily paper, perhaps a couple of magazine subscriptions or three or four books. At the other extreme, six families spent over $500 and three, over $1,000. 2. RELATION TO AMOUNT OF TOTAL EXPENDITURE. — In the amounts devoted to education, those of the lowest and highest income groups show about the same proportion to the total expenditure although the lower spend nearly twice as much of their mis- cellaneous appropriation. In fact, the actual amount spent by those in the $2,000 group is higher than for the $3,000 or $4,000. The younger and more poorly-paid men are apparently the more ambitious and may also have young wives finishing a college course hitherto interrupted by matrimony, the fees for this training causing the increase in the educa- tional costs. The proportional importance of edu- cational costs increases up to $9,000 but the expan- sion is appreciable only in the $7,000 and $8,000 groups and decreases again from $9,000 on. 3. RELATION TO AMOUNT OF TOTAL MISCELLANEOUS. — The educational costs in proportion to the total miscellaneous are scattered and no relation to the total amount spent for miscellaneous is apparent. INTENSIVE ANALYSIS OF MISCELLANEOUS 213 4. EXPENDITURE FOR BOOKS. — All 96 families re- ported some expenditure for periodicals or books; two-thirds spent less than $50.00 a year and prac- tically all, less than $150. The expenditure here increases, of course, with the income although up to $7,000 some still spent less than $25.00 a year. But of those with total expenditures over $8,000, at least half spent over $100. The average expendi- ture, however, for all except the very lowest group is between $25.00 and $75.00. 5. EXPENDITURE FOR INSTRUCTION. — Two-thirds of the 69 families having children reported making expenditure on special or general aspects of their education. In the $4,000 to $6,000 expenditure groups, more than 90% of those having children re- ported some education costs. This expense, how- ever, depends of course upon the age of the chil- dren. It happens that the children of the four families spending between $9,000 and $10,000 are, with one exception, under 6 years old, so that there is only one family in this group with any expendi- ture for the children's education. The age factor also explains the solitary expenditure for children's education in the $2,000 to $3,000 group and the small percentage of such expenditures, 43%, in the $3,000 to $4,000 class. The age of children also affects the amount of the expenditure for their education so it is not solely a matter of economy that makes the amount so spent rise with the income. The number of very small expenditures decreases with increas- ing income. Eighty-three per cent of the $3,000 to $5,000 class; 50% of the $5,000 to $7,000; one-third 214 GETTING AND SPENDING of the $7,000 to $9,000 and none of those with total expenditures over $9,000 spent less than $100 on the children's education. None of the families with total expenditures under $8,000 spent more than $400 here. But some with incomes as low as $4,000 spent $300. Evidently, as a class, these faculty groups do not patronize the private school. A cost of less than $50.00 for one-third of the families and less than $25.00 for one-fourth proves the rule to be occasional lessons, not paid schooling. The average cost for the children's education lies between $50.00 and $100. H. Professional Expense. —Professional expenses include the costs of technical books and magazines, secretarial work, supplies, professional organiza- tions and travel for professional purposes.7 1. AMOUNT AND TYPE OF EXPENDITURE. — The pro- fessional expenses show a wide range of variability, absorbing from one-tenth of \% to 38% of the total income. In the majority of cases, these expendi- tures are very small. Two-thirds allotted to such items less than 2% of their total costs and 22 men out of the 96 spent less than one-half of 1%. The average is 1.3% or $60.00. Ten faculty members reported less than $10.00 spent for professional ex- penses. One of these is a woman associate with a total family income eight times as much as her uni- versity salary and her only professional expense, * The last item makes the total under this heading unduly high in a few cases by including the food and lodging and costs of a sab- batical trip. Also in two cases, report of professional expense was omitted. INTENSIVE ANALYSIS OF MISCELLANEOUS 215 $6.00 for a professional organization. The other 8 all have incomes under $6,000. Professional ex- penses are highest for associates who, here as every- where else in this study, are outside the usual academic progression; otherwise these charges in- crease in the higher ranks. Over 80% of the as- sistant professors, 73% of the associate professors and 58% of the professors spent less than 2% of their total income in this way. Nineteen per cent of the professors spent over 5%, twice as much as in any other rank except the associates. Three of the four men who spent 'over $1,000 were taking sab- baticals. They were all members of the two highest ranks. The fourth made a trip to Europe financed by a gift of $1,000. Of the main types of professional expenses, or- ganization dues, books, secretarial assistance and travel, 86 reported organization dues averaging $14.00; 78, books and technical magazines at a cost of $25.00; 29, travel for professional purposes averaging $55.00; and 16, secretarial service cost- ing an average of $16.00. 2. ORGANIZATION DUES. — The bulk of the profes- sional organization dues are between $10.00 and $20.00. Eleven per cent spent under $5.00; 7%, $50.00 or more and only one spent more than $100 in this direction. This was a man with a $16,000 income. 3. TECHNICAL BOOKS. — Of the expenditures for technical books 25 % was in sums under $10.00; 55%, under $30.00; 72%, under $50.00. Only 8% 216 GETTING AND SPENDING spent more than $100 on professional relation- ships. The latter group includes one man whose ex- penditures seem to satisfy the cartoonist's idea of the typical professor. In 1922 he reported spend- ing $57.00 on clothes and $800.00 on books. But a childless man with an income of $9,000 can afford this decision. Many however are indubitably starv- ing their research work or overworking themselves on details. 4. SECRETARIAL SERVICE. — Only 16 of these 96 faculty members reported any secretarial assist- ance ; four men in addition received it from Univer- sity funds.8 More than half of these 16 men paid out $20.00 or less. The highest expenditure for secre- tarial assistance was $230, reported by an in- structor whose total expenditure was $6,000. With the exception of one instructor whose $65.00 ex- penditure for secretarial assistance was probably the typing of his thesis, all of the men reporting secretarial assistance had incomes of $4,000 or over. 5. PROFESSIONAL TRAVEL. — Only 26 reported the amounts spent in professional travel. These were chiefly minor amounts, surcharges not paid by the state while visiting schools or on extension lectures. Thirty-eight per cent spent less than $50.00 and only 23% above $100. Probably the only amounts that represented travel for professional advancement rather than unavoidable supplements to an expense account for school visiting or extension work are 8 It is possible that a few others misclassified this charge under the costs of the typewriter ; almost certainly one did who assigned $200.00 to that item. I , INTENSIVE ANALYSIS OF MISCELLANEOUS 217 the expenses for the three sabbatical periods and the one European trip already mentioned. 6. RELATION TO AMOUNT OF TOTAL EXPENDITURE. — The actual amount spent for professional expenses increases hardly at all between the $2,000 and the $4,000 expenditure groups. Thereafter, the actual amounts and the percentages of the total increase slowly up to the $7,000 income level. In this sample, the group with total incomes between $7,000 and $8,000 is very small and happens to include a family on sabbatical leave so that the figures for profes- sional expenses are completely thrown off. After $8,000, the cost of professional expenses drops and even the actual amounts are lower so that the sur- plus is applied to professional expenses no more than to educational, and it cannot be said that this is attributable to the receipt by men in the higher ranks of clerical and research assistance from Uni- versity gifts, since the cost of professional expenses does not decrease with academic rank. 7. RELATION TO TOTAL EXPENDITURE FOR MIS- CELLANEOUS.— Equally little relationship appears be- tween the professional costs and the amount of total miscellaneous expenditure except that they are lower proportionately for the higher groups. Most of those with a total appropriation for miscellaneous over $5,000 spent less than 2y2% for professional expenses. Incidentals. — Incidentals include such items as carfare other than that of the faculty member in going to work and of the children going to school ; 218 GETTING AND SPENDING lawyer's fees, the barber's services, moving ex- penses, funerals, and items not otherwise classified.9 Practically all families reported expenditures for some of these items. 1. AMOUNT AND TYPE OF EXPENDITURE. — Nearly half of the expenditures for incidentals are between one-half of \% and 1%%, the median being 1.2% or $55.00. Nearly 8Q% spent less than $100. The only expenditure over $400 for incidentals includes the allowance of a daughter away from home for a visit. Only 80% reported the exact amount of additional carfare. Twenty-five reported moving expenses and 7, lawyer's fees, both items averaging about $20.00. All reported tonsorial costs for man, wife and children. The average was $13.00 per annum. Twenty-eight per cent spent less than $10.00 a year; only 4%, more than $60.00, that is more than $5.00 a month. Is the barber the subject for a careful minor economy I Are the family long-haired by preference or are they "too busy"! Only two funerals occurred in this group, one costing $25.00, one $92.00. Five other sums r< ported, of $15.00 or less, were doubtless the gifts o1 flowers misclassified here. The item under incidentals which is entitle< "other" was the unavoidable catch-all for expense* otherwise unclassified. Thirty-nine made some n 9 Unavoidably, incidentals cover items difficult to classify as as those occurring very irregularly. In 5 cases, in order to balan< her budget, an arbitrary figure has been thrown in here by the hoiu wife when making out the schedule. In other instances, a simili item affected the size of the allowance for incidentals. INTENSIVE ANALYSIS OF MISCELLANEOUS 219 port here, the average amount being $38.00, but there is the widest possible variation. In the five cases where the sums were admittedly included to balance the budget, the amounts recorded range from $30.00 to $290. Included here are taxi charges, photography, plants, ice cream and candy , baby buggies, traveling expenses for relatives, bank charges for carrying accounts under $50.00, taxes, allowances to children away from home. The last includes the one case of $1,000 allowance already mentioned. Since some of these items were prob- ably scattered out under other headings by the rest of the families reporting, the costs for incidentals as given in the schedules are not worth comparing. 2. RELATION TO THE AMOUNT OF TOTAL EXPENDI- TUBE. — Incidentals are a larger factor for the very lowest income groups than for any other but since in all cases these expenditures vary only slightly from the average of 1%, they have, it is believed, been kept an appropriate proportion of total expense. 3. RELATION TO TOTAL EXPENDITURE FOB MIS- CELLANEOUS.— The relative cost of incidentals, on the other hand, decreases distinctly especially where the amount for miscellaneous exceeds $1,500. J. Associations. — Association costs, as differen- :iated from professional organization expense, *epresent the social clubs of the faculty member or ;he helpmate. The charges here listed include social id civic clubs, alumni obligations, the Faculty )lub for the faculty member and the social and pro- 220 GETTING AND SPENDING fessional clubs of the helpmates. Two families re- ported no associations for either man or wife ; these, groups obviously deprived themselves through mo- tives of economy since the total expenditures of both were under $4,000 and their miscellaneous expendi- ture under $2,000. Ninety -two faculty members and 72 helpmates reported some association expendi- tures. 1. AMOUNT AND TYPE OF EXPENDITURE. — The dis- tribution of costs is like that of incidentals, nearly half between .5% and 1.5%, the median 1.1% or $50.00. Seventy-five per cent spent less than $100; four over $250, the highest amount was $425. Three are families with incomes over $10,000. The exception is one family with 3 children and a total expenditure of $6,000, the expenditure in this case being for a country club. Alumni obligations are an important factor in increasing association costs. In each of the four cases where over $250 was spent, the helpmate had contributed $100 toward alumni obligations. Of these 96 faculty members, 85 belong to the Faculty Club, which costs $26.40 per annum. Of the 11 who did not belong, seven are living on small incomes and economizing every- where. One is an assistant professor whose family of five lives on $3,500, and who did not feel able to spend anything for association expenses. Two others have only recently joined the University. Two could obviously afford the Faculty Club but inspection of the distribution of their expenditures suggests that these two are not " joiners. " Not only do more faculty members report association INTENSIVE ANALYSIS OF MISCELLANEOUS 221 dues than do their wives, but where both expend, the faculty member 's item is usually three times as great. The median annual expenditure for the fac- ulty member's associations is $36.60, for the help- mate's, $10.50. Indeed 89% of the latter 's bills are below $50.00, and in only 4 cases, all over $200, do they exceed $75.00. Of these 4, one is the male help- mate of a woman faculty member, two of the others paid alumni contributions of $200 and the third con- tributed over $100 to the sane purpose. 2. RELATION TO TOTAL EXFZNDITURE. — As the total expenditure rises, the costs of associations vary but little from the general average of \% possibly decreasing a trifle until we reach the $10,000 level, the country club class, when it increases distinctly in importance. 3. RELATION TO TOTAL EXPENDITURE FOR MISCEL- LANEOUS.— The cost of associations remains almost a constant proportion of the total amount of miscel- laneous when the allotment to this division exceeds $1,500, varying around 2% ; below $1,500, it is dis- tinctly more absorbing, averaging 3%. K. Church and Charity.— These items are self-ex- planatory. It would seem improbable that the num- ber of church supporters is determined by financial status, especially in view of the fact that the 52 members of this group who report church contribu- tions are mainly those with small total expenditures. Indeed, with the exception of those families with total expenditures between $8,000 and $10,000, the percentage supporting church decreases as the total 222 GETTING AND SPENDING expenditure rises, from 62% of those with expendi- tures below $3,000, to 38% of those with expendi- tures above $10,000. Three families in the low income groups reported no expenditures for charity. Three others declined to state the amount of their contributions. 1. AMOUNT OF EXPENDITURE. — Of the 96 families, 52 were church supporters giving contributions that varied from one-tenth of \% to 7y2% of their total expenditure. Only two spent over 5%. The median is .6 of 1%, or $30.00. Two-thirds spent less than a dollar a week and 23% of those report- ing contributed less than one dollar a month. Sev- enteen per cent gave more than $100 during the year and three more than $250 but these sums in some cases include the gifts to charity. The highest con- tribution to church alone was $350, or 7% of the total expenditure. The one family living on $3,000 that contributed $270 to church and charity to- gether is good evidence that the size of the church contributions does not depend upon income. The largest sums, however, appear to come from full professors. 2. EELATION TO AMOUNT OF TOTAL, EXPENDITURE. — The range of charitable contributions is from one- tenth of \% to nearly 4% of the total expenditure. There are fewer high contributions than to church. The median is about the same, $27.00. Three-fourths spent less than 1%, that is, less than $50.00. The 8 contributing $100 or more to charity all have a total expenditure over $6,000 and are associates or in the INTENSIVE ANALYSIS OF MISCELLANEOUS 223 two upper ranks. The 11 contributing less than $10.00 all have total expenditures below $6,000 with the exception of one family having four children, living on $8,000 with peculiarly heavy expenses. The percentage spent for church and charity re- mains fairly constant so that these items are a pro- portional rather than an absolute cost, apparently controlled somewhat by the old theory of the tithe though the amounts are not a tenth but less than one one-hundredth of the total incomes. 3. RELATION TO TOTAL MISCELLANEOUS. — Church contributions for families with a miscellaneous bud- get less than $3,000 average between \% and 2% though sometimes they rise to nearly 15%. There- after, they are less than \%. Charitable contributions vary most for those with low miscellaneous expenditures ; some spending less than $1,500 give to the needy more than 5% of their allotment to miscellaneous. The average is around 2%. As in the case of church contributions the pro- portion given decreases to less than \% for the higher groups. L. Tobacco. — No expenditure for tobacco may in- dicate either an enforced economy, or a conviction about morals, a theory of personal hygiene or sim- ply a preference. With the exception of the low- est income groups spending under $1,000 for all miscellaneous items, the percentage of those who buy tobacco increases rather regularly with the size of the total allotment for miscellaneous. In the higher income levels, however, where the elimi- 224 GETTING AND SPENDING nation of this expense would count relatively little, the percentage of those who buy fluctuates. 1. AMOUNT OF EXPENDITURE. — Of the 63 who re- ported expenditures for tobacco including two who did not report the amount, three spent less than one- tenth of \% for smoking. Only one gave over 2% of the total expenditure to this item. The median is less than half of 1%, about $25.00 per annum; 75% reported spending less than $4.00 a month. Eleven spent less than $10.00 per annum, only a half dozen spent $100 or more. The highest amount was $170 spent by an assistant professor living on $6,500; though he is probably quite unaware of it, tobacco constitutes 20% of his total expenditure for mis- cellaneous. 2. RELATION TO AMOUNT OF TOTAL, EXPENDITURE FOR MISCELLANEOUS. — In particular, tobacco is an im- portant item of miscellaneous for the groups spend- ing less than $3,000 all told. The pleasures of the weed absorb nearly 2y%% of their miscellaneous as contrasted with the general average for all incomes of less than a \% expenditure for tobacco, higher for this group than for any other. Other fluctua- tions are irregular. The main point is that the cost of tobacco does not appear to be a perceptible econ- omy of lower incomes. The cost of tobacco defi- nitely decreases as the amount of miscellaneous in- creases. Under $1,000 the costs represent 3%; between $1,000 and $1,500, 2%; and over $3,000, less than \%. Tables XLIX, L and LI and Tables LV to LX in- clusive, Appendix III, show the facts just reviewed. TABLE XLIX MEDIAN AMOUNT AND PERCENTAGE OF SPECIFIED ITEMS OP MISCELLANEOUS TO TOTAL EXPENDITURE ITEM AMOUNT PEE CENT Total Miscellaneous $ 2047.19 41.2 Tobacco 25.00 0.4 Charity 27.00 0.6 Church 30.00 0.6 Associations 49.70 1.1 Incidentals 55.00 1.2 Professional . . . 60.00 1.3 Education 6930 1.5 Gifts 100.00 2.0 Dependents 200.00 3.1 Health 203.16 3.9 Recreation . . .... 197.85 4.1 Automobile 364.00 6.2 Investment and Savings 357 50 7.9 TABLE L MEDIAN AMOUNT AND PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL MISCELLANEOUS ALLOTMENT SPENT FOR SPECIFIED ITEMS OF MISCELLANEOUS ITEM PERCENTAGE or 96 FAMILIES REPORTING EXPENDITURE FOR GIVEN ITEM MISCELLANEOUS EXPEN- DITURE FOR GIVEN ITEM OF MISCELLANEOUS Amount Per Cent of Total Mis- cellaneous Expenditure Total Miscellaneous 100.0 95.8 t 57.3 100.0 99.0 35.0 99.0* 100.0 97.9* 99.0 97.9 54.2 96.9 § 65.6* $ 2047.19 357.50 364.00 197.85 203.16 200.00 100.00 69.30 60.00 55.00 47.70 30.00 27.00 25.00 100.0 26.3 16.9 10.0 9.9 10.2 4.8 3.7 3.0 2.8 2.7 1.4 1.4 0.9 Investments Automobile Recreation Health Dependents Gifts Education Professional Incidentals Associations Church Charity Tobacco * Includes 1 case where expenditure was reported but amount was not available. t Includes 2 cases where expenditure was reported but amount was not available. § Includes 3 cases where expenditure was reported but amount was not available. 225 O 85 'g - 1 O 00000 0 0 iHi— IrHrH (MCOT^lOCO ooooo ooooo og 3 226 CHAPTER VIII TYPICAL FAMILY EXPENSE HISTORIES AT A PROFESSIONAL STANDARD A series of twelve typical family expense records appears in this chapter as further illustration of the characteristics of income and expenditure peculiar to this professional standard. For certain persons, concrete expense accounts give perhaps a clearer picture of the standard of living and the methods of expenditure than the massed statistics of previous chapters. Twelve expense accounts have therefore been se- lected from among the 96 household expense his- tories collected. Each budget record shows the particulars of income and expenditure of a given family. The expense records were chosen to show the range of income, $1,800 to $10,000, and to illus- trate the variations in type of family rather than because they were especially exemplary specimens of the art of spending. They are simply examples at characteristic income levels. Students of habits of choice and expenditure will find each record an illustration of the variation in the emphasis, the direction and the distribution of expenditures at the professional standard of living. Those who study the poverty line will also get new 227 228 GETTING AND SPENDING light. These are families with total incomes higher than 84% of the population of the United States can command. The level of living shown is none the less in- variably " simple. " It will be enlightening to any who are making quantity and cost estimates to con- trast the costs of living and the proportional allot- ments among customary goods and services given here with the decisions that have been made by spe- cialists deciding by items, quantities and prices what it costs to live at a subsistence plus level. On the whole, these budgets show what has been called l ' the cost of better living. ' ' Those looking for practical inspiration in the per- plexities of spending their own incomes may also find suggestions in these expense histories. Since the expense histories of the kind here displayed are ordinarily so " sacred to family life" that the student of choices in goods and services or those engaged in the business of buying for families are not frequently able to examine this class of expendi- ture table, a certain novelty and possibly a practical utility are also justification for giving them. Finally it seems fair to expect that a candid in- spection of these expense histories will bring the conviction that the expenditures are those of a spending class consciously seeking the means where- by to be able to acquire and give knowledge, a class with no desire to make an appearance of material prosperity, rigorously holding food, clothing and shelter as secondary to some scheme of expenditure that calculates the hazards of life, while it at the TYPICAL FAMILY EXPENSE HISTORIES 229 same time aims to pay for those things that express simply the satisfactions of hospitality, generosity and citizen life. BUDGET NO. 1. Family of 2. Man and wife, both under 35; no children. The regular salary of $1,431 was supplemented by $260 from outside work of the faculty member including extension and high school work and $100 from the wife's sewing. Twenty-five dollars additional income derived from property. A deficit of $400 was met from previous savings. INCOME EXPENDITURE Total Amount Per Cent Total Income $1819.00 Total Exp. . . Food $2235.00 460.00 325.00 175.00 150.00 218.00 185.00 90.00 50.00 45.00 62.00 85.00 43.00 26.40 27.00 15.00 20.6 14.5 12.1 14.9 37.9 7.8 6.7 9.8 8.3 4.0 2.2 2.0 2.8 3.8 1.9 1.2 1.1 0.7 Earnings Man Regular salary 1481.00 Teaching in High School and non-scientific article. 213.00 Wife Occasional sewing 100 00 Clothing ... Man .. Wife Housing . . . 270.00 House Opera- tion 333.60 Miscellaneous 846.40 Investment . Automobile. Recreation . Health . . . Dependents. Gifts Education . Professional Incidentals . Associations Church . . . Charity ... Tobacco . . Income from property . . 25 00 Deficit of $429 taken from savings The food costs are comparatively low though they include two weeks' vacation. Clothing costs are comparatively high, averaging $162.50 apiece. Shelter is very much lower than the average because the couple were living in the house of a friend for six months at a nominal rent. The other half of the year they rented a six-room flat at $35.00 per month. 230 GETTING AND SPENDING The proportion assigned to house operation is a trifle above the average because the family spent $200 for furniture. But no domestic service of any kind was employed; the wife did all the laundry work without the aid of a washing machine. The proportion for investments runs a good deal over the average. Savings takes the form of insurance, the couple pay- ing $218 premium on insurance and having no other savings. There is no automobile. The proportion spent for recreation is twice as large as the average. Recurrent recreation absorbed $100 including $25.00 for movies and $50.00 for the theater. A two weeks' vacation cost $50.00 and $35.00 went toward enter- taining guests. Other than $90.00 spent for the dentist, health — ill-health — cost nothing. This is an expenditure total below the average. Dependents, gifts and education, which includes $50.00 for books, was average. The family did not skimp professional expenditure as most families with low incomes did; $60.00 was spent for technical books. Expenditure for incidentals was the average. The only expenditure for associations was the Faculty Club. Expenditure for charity was above the average, for tobacco below. No expenditures whatever were reported for church. This family declared itself comfortable and contented. The "comfort" is in part due to a subsidized housing cost, to no large burden of health or dependency, and to a cheerful faith in in- surance as the only vital form of savings. They are willing to work. Surplus is spent on pleasure-giving activities. There is no outside income but savings are being used up. The family economizes only on food and service. They "would like to own their own home" but are not saving for it. Though they say they "would rather stay at home and read than go about" their recreation allotment is nearly twice as large as that of the average of their colleagues! Since they "ask no better way of living," they are a rare and notable example of persons content with their lot! BUDGET NO. 2. Family of 2. Man and wife both born about forty years ago; no children. There are no outside resources. With a salary of $3,200, the faculty member feels forced to supplement income by teaching TYPICAL FAMILY EXPENSE HISTOKIES 231 in summer school. As consequence, he regrets lack of time and quiet for research. The couple reported a six weeks' vacation during which the man was probably chiefly recuperating from teaching and preparing for the next winter's work. INCOME EXPENDITURE Total Amount Per Cent Total Income $3200.00 Total Exp. . . Food $3394.25 564.60 484.20 528.50 399.25 1417.70 277.70 206.50 320.50 140.00 325.00 100.00 51.80 37.00 339.00 53.40 25.00 26.00 16.6 14.3 8.2 6.1 15.6 11.7 41.8 9.4 4.1 9.6 3.0 1.5 1.1 10.0 1.0 0.7 0.8 Earnings Man Regular salary . . . . 2850 00 Clothing . . . Man Summer session 350 00 Wife . . . Housing . . . House Opera- tion Miscellaneous Investment . Automobile. Recreation . Health ... Dependents . Gifts . . . Education . Professional Incidentals . Associations Church . . Charity . . . Tobacco . . Examining the expenditures it will be noted that only 17%, less than the average, was spent for food. The actual expendi- ture, however, is greater than that of a family of three living on $9,000. They are not economizing here ; neither are they wast- ing. Seventy-seven cents per day per person provides a generous but not a luxurious dietary. Clothing is much higher than the average, over $200 apiece. Housing costs are lower because the couple are renting. For $40.00 a month they were getting an undesirable four-room house partly furnished and in bad repair. The amount allocated to house operation is below the average partly because water and telephone are included in rent. Since the housewife employs only occasional service, the total yearly cost was $50.00. The laundry being sent out adds to the total of this division. No investments of any kind, not even furniture insurance, were reported. The couple did not own an automobile. Recreation, however, is comparatively high; $75.00 went for recurrent recreation and $175 for vacation. The faculty member had six 232 GETTING AND SPENDING weeks and his wife had two weeks, a trip to New York not primarily a pleasure trip. The proportional expenditure for health is average. The bur- den of dependency outside the home is large, 10% of the total income going for this purpose. The $50.00 spent for education is about average. Professional expenses are also just average, $37.00. Faculty Club costs were $25.00. No expenditure was made for church; the expenditure for charity was a trifle above the average as was the allotment for tobacco. The trip to New York by the wife, which was necessitated by illness in her family, cost $250. A deficit of $90.00 thus created was met out of the wife's savings. This family lacks insurance, service, and leisure. Only by re- ducing the food and clothing expenditures could they have found the money for additional savings. Should they have done so? BUDGET NO. 3. Family of 4. Faculty member and wife, both between 35 and 45; two children, boy aged 8, girl aged 2. No outside resources. The $3,000 salary was supplemented by earned at odd jobs. EXPENDITURE J.NCOMH Total Amount Per Cent Total Income $3295.00 Total Exp. . . $3282.42 Earnings Food 683.60 20.8 Man Clothing . . . 275.10 8.4 Regular salary 3000 00 Man ..... Wife 151.00 61.00 4.6 1.9 Lectures — occasional .... 120.00 Consulting work . . 125 00 Children (2) Housing . . . House Opera- 523.00 63.10 1.9 15.9 University Examiner . . . 50.00 tion 429.07 13.1 Miscellaneous 1371.65 41.8 Investments 408.00 12.4 Automobile. 132.00 4.0 Recreation . 128.00 3.9 Health . . . 106.00 3.2 Dependents. 200.00 6.1 Gifts 69.00 2.1 Education . 130.70 4.0 Professional 41.25 1.3 Incidentals . 16.50 0.5 Associations 49.20 1.5 Church . . . 60.00 1.8 Charity . . . 31.00 0.9 Tobacco . . TYPICAL FAMILY EXPENSE HISTORIES 233 The food expenditure is somewhat above average, being nearly 21% of the total expenditure. Clothing cost is below average. The faculty member spent $150, his wife, $60.00 ; she "hadn't had a new dress in three years." Housing cost is below average. They rent a four-room un- furnished house, apparently in poor repair, paying $40.00 a month. The investment of $500 in furniture includes no con- veniences. The house operation costs are about the average, though only $20.00 was spent for occasional service. This wife does all the laundry for four. Expenditure for miscellaneous, due to relatively large invest- ments, goes well above the average for incomes of $3,000 to $4,000. A large life insurance is carried and the family saved $80.00. Investment and savings consumed 12% of total income. Expenditure for dependents is also large, 6% of total income. A regular allowance of $200 is annually sent to dependents outside the home, a distinct burden on a $3,300 income. For the income level, education expenditure is very large, 4% ; $52.00 was reported spent for children's lessons, presumably for elder child; $50.00 went for books. Expenditure for church and charity is comparatively high, 3%. Expenditure for professional associations, for gifts and for recreation was average. A week's vacation cost $11.00. Of the $69.00 reported for gifts, $40.00 went for stadium subscription. The faculty member belongs to the Faculty Club and his wife to a social club. Professional books cost $35.00. The faculty member employed no clerical help and belonged to no professional associations. Costs for the automobile were below average as well as costs for health, though a child was reported in need of an operation. The faculty member does not smoke. The family has no funds wherewith to take a sabbatical leave. They reported themselves needing seriously a larger home, more clothing and an operation for one of the children. BUDGET NO. 4. Family of 3. Faculty member and wife, both over thirty; one child a year old; no other dependents. A $3,000 salary is supplemented by $350 in gifts, $90.00 from property and $500 from the sale of stocks and bonds. 234 GETTING AND SPENDING The supplementary Neither man nor wife does any outside work, income, $940, is less than average. INCOME EXPENDITURE Total Amount Per Cent Total Income . . $3940 00 Total Exp. . . Food . . $3840.00 490.40 265.50 1040.00 746.70 1297.40 138.00 127.50 370.00 47.00 517.00 50.00 27.00 107.00 114.80 49.60 15.00 12.8 6.9 3.6 3.3 27.1 19.5 33.7 9.6 1.2 13.4 1.3 0.7 2.8 3.0 1.3 0.4 Earnings Man Regular salary . 3000 00 Clothing Man !. . Wife .. Child* . . Housing House Opera- tion Miscellaneous Investment . Automobile. Recreation . Health . . . Dependents . Gifts Income from property . . . 90.00 Sale of stocks and bonds 500.00 Gifts Money 250 00 Clothing 100.00 Education . Professional Incidentals . Associations Church . . . Charity ... Tobacco . . * Gifts covered all costs of the child's clothing for the first year. The food bill is very small, $490, 13% of total expenditure as compared with the average expenditure for food of 17%. There are only two adults but during part of the year at least food must have been provided for the child. The family elected to spend a comparatively comfortable sum for clothing, $265. Husband and wife each spent between $125 and $150, personal laundry excluded. Clothing for the child was all gifts. Seven per cent spent for clothing is a small proportion as conventions go but in this group, it is well to remember, 10% is the average. More than one-fourth of their income, over $1,000, goes to housing costs. With an income less than $4,000, the family owns a comfortable eight-room house in a good location, with all modern conveniences. It is well furnished. The house was purchased in 1919 for $6,000 and the family is carrying a $4,800 mortgage. During the year reported upon, they paid $700 on interest and capital, and installed a furnace costing $200. Household operation also cost above the average, being $746.70, TYPICAL FAMILY EXPENSE HISTORIES 235 19.5% as against an average of 12.2%. Of this amount $300 went for furniture. No regular service is employed but $165 was spent for occasional service, largely in times of illness. Miscellaneous is 34% of total expenditure, a trifle lower than the average for this income level, 38%. The amount spent on miscellaneous seems regularly to fall when housing costs are high. Investments are above the average, absorbing $375 or 9.6%, including life insurance premiums of $250 and $120 invested in stocks and bonds. There is no automobile. Recreation expenditure is small, the family having spent $20.00 for music, $15.00 for a three-weeks' vacation for the faculty member. The wife had no vacation, a fact which the family explained by re- porting the birth of a child within the year. Health costs absorbed 13% of the total expenditure. The greater part of this sum, $500, was paid for the birth of a child — specialist's fees, hospital and nursing, etc. The $50.00 spent for gifts is a trifle below the average. Education is also relatively low, $27.00, but of course there was no expense for the child. The $27.00 all went for papers and periodicals; no books on general subjects were purchased. Professional expenses were quite high, $60.00 being spent for professional books and maga- zines, $107 in all going for this item. The faculty member belongs to the Faculty Club; his wife to a social club. There was no expenditure for church nor for tobacco. Fifteen dollars was given for charity. This was a "thrifty" year for this family, buying and furnish- ing a house. They are well insured and are saving money. The child was born without disrupting the family finances. They want a car but feel that otherwise they are comfortable. The striking economies in recreation, books, gifts and other items were possibly enforced by the birth of the child. They were probably also economizing on food. The faculty member has a relatively high expense allotment and is doing no outside work. The strain, if any, does not fall on him. BUDGET NO. 5. Family of 6. Faculty member and wife, both between 35 and 50. There are four children, born in California: 15, 14, 13 and 4 years of age respectively. 236 GETTING AND SPENDING The family is practically living on the $4,200 salary, with $90.00 from property and $50.00 worth of minor gifts in kind. The faculty member does no outside work. EXPBNDITURB Total Amount Per Cent Total Income $4340.00 Total Exp $3961 05 Earnings Food 979.80 24 7 Regular salary 4200.00 Clothing . . . 440.66 Man 211 00 11.1 5 3 Wife 101.90 2.6 Income from property 90.00 Children (4) 127.76 3 2 Gifts Clothing and books 50.00 Housing . . . 626.29 House Opera- tion 525 99 15.8 13 3 Miscellaneous 1388.31 Investment. 232.80 Automobile. 246.00 Recreation . 197.71 Health . . . 248.50 Dependents . Gifts 112.00 35.1 5.9 6.2 5.0 6.3 2.8 Education . 99.40 Professional 92.50 Incidentals. 42.20 Associations 62.40 Church ... 16.80 Charity ... 37.00 Tobacco . . 1.00 2.5 2.3 1.1 1.6 0.4 0.9 0.0 This family spent what is usually considered the average pro- portion, 25% for food, 8% above the general average for this group. This is partly due to the size of the family but they are no doubt well fed. They use very little meat but have plenty of milk, butter and eggs. Clothing expenditure is also above the average, though not so muoh above as food. "Mrs. X insists that her husband be de- cently dressed, so has worked out for him a certain clothing re- placement cost," $211. Housing costs are below the average, because the family rents an unfurnished house at $45.00 a month. It is large and ap- parently in fair repair. They own their own furniture. The house operation expenditure is average, and includes $160 for furniture. Service costs above the average, being $178, $12.00 a month and $34.00 for occasional service. The wife does the laundry and also dry cleans her own and the chil- dren's clothes. She has a vacuum cleaner and an electric washer. For miscellaneous the total spent is a trifle below the average for this expenditure level. Investments are somewhat lower. TYPICAL FAMILY EXPENSE HISTORIES 237 The faculty member carried life and accident insurance but re- ports no other savings. They are not saving toward a house. The absence of savings is anxiously regretted. They have an automobile and the upkeep for it, $246, is below the average. Recreation costs are about average, recurrent expenses of this class being small, especially for four children, but the item in- cludes a two-weeks' vacation that cost $100. Expenditure for health is above average. More than one-half of the sum spent went for dentist bills. There are no outside dependents. Forty- six dollars was spent for children's lessons ; $20.00 for magazines and papers; nothing for books. Though this expenditure is above the average it cannot be called large. Costs of maintain- ing a large family do not deprive the faculty member of nec- essary professional expenses. His secretarial service is supplied by the University but he has large organization dues, spends $50.00 for professional books, a sum which, though anything but extravagant, is above the average. He belongs to the Faculty Club. His wife belongs to no clubs. Expenditure for church and charity is below the average. The faculty member uses practically no tobacco. The apparent surplus is probably due to some error of estimate since the family complains of lack of savings. Investigator re- ports, "the children particularly attractive" and a notably reasoned wifely management of funds. BUDGET NO. 6. Family of 4. Faculty member and his wife, both past 35 and two daughters, 20 and 16 years of age respectively. The elder daughter married during the year. The parents of the faculty member visited with the family for part of the year, affecting the food costs. Property resources negligible; but the faculty member adds to a $3,400 salary by summer session teaching and the wife's work adds $750. Expenditure for food was $835 for five grown people but the daughter left in August. This is exactly the median propor- tion for the $4,000 to $5,000 level of expenditure. Clothing expenditure is above the average. The faculty mem- ber used $190, his wife $180. Clothing for the two girls cost $250. 238 GETTING AND SPENDING Housing costs are a trifle below the average, including $350 rental for nine months. The family purchased a new house in October making a first payment of $2,000 which, being taken out of savings, does not appear in the schedule. They pay $80.00 a month principal and interest on a $6,000 mortgage. INCOME EXPENDITURE Total Amount Per Cent Total Income $4822 80 Total Exp $4997 80* Darnings Food 835 00 16 7 Regular salary 3425 00 Clothing ... 626.60 Man .... 191 75 12.6 3 8 Summer session 500.00 Wife 181 35 3 7 Other 100 00 Children (2) 253 50 5 1 Wife Reading at the University occasionally 741 80 Housing . . . 669.50 House Opera- tion 431 60 13.4 8 6 Income from property 66 00 Miscellaneous 2435.10 48.7 16 9 Automobile. 420.00 Recreation . 385.00 Health . . . 77.00 Dependents. 120.00 Gifts 260 00 8.4 7.7 1.5 2.4 5 2 Education . 106.20 Professional 65.00 Incidentals. 80.00 Associations 45.00 Church ... 15.00 Charity ... 20.00 Tobacco . . 2.1 1.3 1.6 0.9 0.3 0.4 * Deficit met by surplus in savings but possibly in part a hold-over of bills from previous year. House operation expenditure is low. Only $6.00 went for service although the housewife also does outside work. How- ever, two grown daughters at home doubtless helped in the house- work. There is a vacuum cleaner but no washer. The family purchased very little furniture for the new house. Light and heat costs were low; little economies show everywhere. Miscellaneous costs were distinctly above the average, espe- cially those for recreation, education and gifts. A six-weeks' vacation and week-end trips cost $250 a year. They have an automobile and use it more than the average, $35.00 a month being spent for this purpose. Entertainment costs of $75.00 are the expenses of a wedding just as the $200 for gifts is largely an expenditure for the trousseau, etc., of the bride. Under "edu- cation" $90.00 went for music lessons. No books were purchased. The faculty member spent but $25.00 for professional or tech- TYPICAL FAMILY EXPENSE HISTORIES 239 nical books, $65.00 being the total for professional expenses. This is average. The health of the family is evidently good for health costs are very low, $77.00. Dentist bills amounted to only $25.00. Of course, there are no young children in this family. The support of dependents outside the home amounted to $120 a year. The faculty member belongs to the Faculty Club and his wife to one social club. The expenditure for associations is below the average. Church and charity expendi- tures are also small. No tobacco was purchased. "This family is industrious and frugal, having a few comforts and substantial savings," said interviewer. The family knew how to enjoy what they had. The wife said she needed household "help." BUDGET NO. 7. Family of 7. Faculty member and wife, both over 35. Three boys, 12, 4 and 2 years old, 2 girls, 11 and 7. The family employs student help which is included in the family group. An eighth person thus enters into food and housing costs. There are no outside dependents. INCOME EXPENDITURE Total Amount Per Cent Total Income . . $4875 00 Total Exp $5074 61 Earnings Food 1139 00 22 5 Man Regular salary . 3125 00 Clothing ... 383.00 Man 100 00 7.6 2 0 Extension 900 00 Wife 83 00 1 f. Occasional lectures . . Summer session 250.00 400 00 Children (5) 200.00 Housing 1127 60 4.0 00 0 Gifts .,, 60 00 House Opera- tion 230.36 Miscellaneous 2194 65 4.5 JO 0 Clothing 100 00 Investment 492 00 9 7 Furniture . . . * 50 00 Automobile 1178 50 no n Recreation. 42.75 Health . . . 163.00 Dependents. Gifts 45.00 Education . 86.00 Professional 83.00 Incidentals. 28.00 Associations 57.40 Church . . . 35.00 Charity ... 32.00 Tobacco . . 2.00 0.8 3.2 0.9 0.7 1.6 0.6 1.1 0.7 0.6 0.0 240 GETTING AND SPENDING Except for gifts of $200, consisting principally of clothing, this family has no vested resources. This means that the faculty member, brave father of five, must do all sorts of odd jobs to supplement his salary of $3,100. He has been with the Univer- sity since 1919 only. He supplements his salary by extension work, lectures, summer session, the largest sum, $900 being obtained from extension work. As might be expected, he com- plains of lack of time for research. Food and housing each absorb about one-fourth of the total income. With eight people in the family, food is naturally high. The faculty member's clothing only cost $100, the wife's but $80.00. With $200, they clothe the five children. When they came to Berkeley in 1919 the family bought a seven-room house for $4,750. It is too small for the family, there being but two bedrooms. The first year, they paid $900 on the mortgage. Economizing is most notable in clothing and house operation. The latter is only one-half of the average proportion spent for such running expenses. Only $10.00 was spent for service in addition to the aid of the student helper who, since no re- muneration was given in actual money, gave, evidently, the three hours daily of aid generally accepted at the University of Cali- fornia as equivalent for payment of room and board. They bought practically no furniture. Expenditure for fuel and light was very low. The expenditure for miscellaneous is just the average. More than half of miscellaneous went for the car, — one-fourth of the total income, as much as for housing. Here is, indeed, an im- perative desire for a "new known good." Life and accident insurance cost 10% of the total. Three per cent, $163, for health, is just average; the five children must be healthy for there is no complaint of enforced economy here. Professional associations, church and charity are also average, but represent a very small proportion of the total. Only $40.00 went for technical books. The faculty member said he needed clerical help badly. Faculty member belongs to the Faculty Club and to civic clubs. The wife belongs to none. Church and charity together comprise about 1.5% of the total expenditure for mis- cellaneous. Gifts and recreation are especially low. Only $45.00 was spent for gifts and there are five children to claim birthday and Christmas gifts or to go without them. Still less went for TYPICAL FAMILY EXPENSE HISTORIES 241 recreation. The family took no vacation, $20.00 was spent for one brief trip. Education items were reduced to a minimum. The family reports a serious lack of service, of enough house room, of opportunity for travel and for professional activities. BUDGET NO. 8. Family of 4. Faculty member and his wife both under 50. Boy, 10; girl, 7. The family also includes a student helper. The family has no outside resources but the regular salary of $4,250 is augmented by summer session teaching. The faculty member does no other outside work. The family received gifts of books and clothes amounting to $60.00, and $125 for rental of their house during the summer. This about covered their vacation expenses. The deficit of $1,800 was covered by previous savings. EXPENDITURE Total Amount Per Cent Total Income $4934.00 Total Exp . $6770 58 Earnings Food 1250 50 18 4 Man Regular salary 4250 00 Clothing ... 516.60 Man 169 60 7.6 2 5 Summer session .... 500 00 Wife 235 00 3 5 Income from property Rent of house for summer.. 125.00 Gifts Clothing 29 00 Children (2) 112.00 Housing ... 1703.33 House Opera- tion 614.75 Miscellaneous 2685.40 Investment 330 00 1.6 25.1 9.1 39.7 4 9 Books 30 00 Automobile 1538 00 22 7 Recreation . 267.50 Health . . . 90.20 Dependents . Gifts 10.00 Education . 229.00 Professional 108.00 Incidentals. 24.60 Associations 68.10 Church . . . Charity ... 20.00 Tobacco . . 4.0 1.3 0.1 3.4 1.6 0.4 1.0 0.3 Food costs are a trifle above the average for the expenditure level; $1,250 was spent for this item for five people. Clothing costs of $500 for the four is about average. The 242 GETTING AND SPENDING wife spent $235. They also received $30.00 worth of clothing as gifts. Housing is somewhat above the average for the expenditure level, 25%, and took more than one-third of the annual income. During the year, this family paid off one-half of a $1,200 mort- gage along with the interest. The family also spent $700 for a garage and additions to the house, which has ten rooms. House operation costs are distinctly lower. Service is limited to a resident student helper, who receives carfare; and to a seam- stress. The total amount spent for this item was about $100. The wife does the washing with their electric washing machine and says "she suffers physically for it and wants service," but she spent $225 on new furniture rather than on laundry. Miscellaneous is also below the average for the income level, being 40% of the total expenditure. During this year they bought an $1,100 car and spent $300 on its upkeep. Thus, the automobile and the housing costs absorb two-thirds of the total income. Recreation is about the average. The family spent $60.00 for recurrent recreation and $200 for a six- weeks' vacation, renting the house for $125 during this period. BUDGET NO. 9. Family of 4. Faculty member and wife, both over 35. Two girls aged re- spectively four and two. No outside dependents. The faculty member has been with the University since 1918. His salary of $2,800 is less than half the total income. The family's income from property amounts to $1,700. The wife earns $900 as a teacher; gifts amount to $730 of which $400 is cash. The apparent surplus of $130 over expenditures is ascribed to some error in estimating. Actual food costs are above the average, being $936. This is 16% of total expenditure for the family of five including servants. This sum includes a comparatively large number of meals away from home for faculty member and wife are both working. Clothing costs are about average, being 10%, but this ex- penditure really represents more than appears on the surface because the children are young and their clothes cost less. The TYPICAL FAMILY EXPENSE HISTORIES 243 faculty member received $50.00 in gifts of clothing and his wife received $90.00. In addition to these gifts, each spent $250. Housing costs are quite low, 13%, or $776. They bought a ten-room house in 1920 for $7,000 with a $1,200 mortgage and very small payments. They complain that they are unable to spend enough on upkeep and that the house is too small. There is no space for a quiet study. INCOME EXPENDITURE Total Amount Per Cent Total Income $6316.89 5998.39 2800.00 140.00 35.00 868.60 40.00 1704.79 180.00 230.00 283.00 35.50 Total Exp. . . Food $5860.14 936.00 587.95 776.65 1403.46 2156.08 263.00 248.25 76.70 349.18 690.00 379.50 218.50 72.00 115.50 163.00 28.00 103.40 32.00 5.00 16.0 10.0 4.5 4.2 l.S 13.3 23.9 36.8 6.0 11.8 6.5 5.7 1.2 2.0 2.8 0.4 1.8 0.5 0.1 Total Money Income * Earnings Man Clothing . . . Man .... Wife Children (2) Housing . . . House Opera- tion Miscellaneous Investment . Automobile. Recreation . Health . . . Dependents . Gifts Education . Professional Incidentals . Associations Church . . . Charity . . . Tobacco . . Extension Visiting junior colleges . . Wife Salary as teacher Occasional earnings Income from property Gifts Clothing and jewelry ... . Books and artist's materials * Deducting $283.00 and $35.50 of gifts in kind. House operation is relatively high, being one-fourth of the total expenditure, due to service at $850 including one resident servant and regular weekly cleaning and laundry. Apparently they had student aid for five months and a resident servant for seven. Otherwise the costs are about normal. Miscellaneous expenditure is close to the average for families with $6,000 to $7,000, being $2,150 or 37% of total expenditure. This is lower than the general average, due to the costs of service in house operation. Nearly one-third of miscellaneous expenditure went for an automobile, 12% of the total expendi- ture. This per cent is about average. The initial payment was $450, the upkeep $240. Six per cent of income is investment, which amounts to $350. Fifty dollars of this sum goes for life insurance, $200 toward sabbatical expense and $100 into general 244 GETTING AND SPENDING savings. General recreation amounts to more than this, being $380. Of this amount, $213 went for a vacation, three weeks for faculty member and two for his wife. Recurrent recreation cost them $100, there being a comfortable allocation for theaters, music, excursions, etc. Entertainment cost $60.00. Health costs were about 4%, a trifle over $200, more than half being doctors' bills. This is about average. About 3% of the total expenditure went for professional expenses. This included no secretarial service. $100 went for travel; $50.00 for books. The faculty member complains that this is a scanty allowance for books, but it is well above the average. Only $5.00 was spent for books other than professional and most of the educational expense is tuition for children. Associations absorbed $100, the faculty member belonging to the Faculty Club and the wife to social clubs. They spent $58.00 for alumni obligations for both faculty member and wife. Gifts cost $72.00, charity but $5.00. Only $5.00 went to the purchase of tobacco. BUDGET NO. 10. Family of 6. The household consists of man and wife, both over 50, their three children, two daughters of 17 and 14 respectively and a boy of 12, the man's mother and a resident maid. The family income derives from the man's salary of $4,000 and $1,000 for his administrative work, and is supplemented by about $3,000 from the wife's private means. She declared that "the family could not possibly exist" on the man's earnings alone. The total yearly expenditure is $8,000. The percentage ex- penditure for food is a trifle higher than usual and the actual amount considerably higher, necessitated of course by the large household. The 12% for clothes is considerably above average. The amount, $1,000, is comparable only to the $10,000 income class. This is partly attributable to the young daughters but the wife spends more on dress than is customary in the academic circles. Housing costs, consisting chiefly of taxes and repairs, are on the contrary low on an owned home. The most unusual expenditure is $900 for service, 11% of the total budget. This makes the total for house operation nearly TYPICAL FAMILY EXPENSE HISTORIES 245 twice the average, although the other items in this group are about customary. It is noticeable that there is a regular servant, additional aid for cleaning, sewing and gardening, and that all the laundry is sent out, so that the wife is relieved of a large portion of the household tasks. INCOME EXPENDITURE Total Amount Per Cent Total Income $7692 77 Total Exp. . . Food Clothing . . . Man Wife $8049.36 1470.00 995.00 854.36 1829.00 2901.00 174.00 224.00 597.00 161.00 364.00 675.00 325.00 275.00 882.00 20.00 17.00 52.00 150.00 50.00 30.00 18.3 12.4 2.2 2.8 7.4 10.6 22.7 36.0 2.0 4.5 7.1 4.0 3.4 11.0 0.2 0.2 0.6 1.9 0.7 0.4 Earnings Man Administration 1000 00 Income from property, rent, Children (3) Housing . . . House Opera- Miscellaneous Investment . Automobile. Recreation . Health ... Dependents . Gifts Education . Professional Incidentals . Associations Charity . . . Church . . . Tobacco . . The division of expenditure thus far discussed implies nec- essarily that the expenditure for miscellaneous is less than the customary average for incomes over $7,000, only 36% in- stead of the usual 50%. Much the most important item in "miscellaneous" is the children's tuition at a private school, which with their music lessons costs close to $800 a year. The family has an automobile which costs about the usual amount, $364, for upkeep and provides the means for a vacation in the form of a camping trip that involves small additional expense. They spend very much more for recreation than is customary, $200 for a country club, $100 each for music and the theaters, though the latter may be an overestimate. Savings, on the con- trary, are limited to an insurance policy and the man reports practically no professional expenses. There are no dependents, other than the old mother living in the household. Health costs are not exorbitant. In short, this family approaches much more closely to the 246 GETTING AND SPENDING general idea of what a professional standard of expenditure is, than it conforms to the usual academic type. This is particularly true for clothes, amusements and service. BUDGET NO. 11. Family of 2. Faculty member and wife both over 50 years old. No children. Resident student aid. The salary of $6,200 is supplemented by $950 from the faculty member's outside work, $600, of which is public service, and there is a $2,000 income from property. INCOME EXPENDITURE Total Amount Per Cent Total Income . . $9160.22 Total Exp. . . Food . $9043.27 549.77 6.1 221.30 2.4 57.22 164.08 246.56 2.7 1588.35 17.6 6437.29 71.2 3658.36 444.40 127.92 265.00 208.96 329.80 869.17 not reported 101.78 431.90 not reported 0.6 1.8 40.4 4.9 1.4 2.9 2.3 3.7 9.7 1.1 4.8 Earnings Man 6208 33 Clothing . . . Man Research . . . 150.00 Wife Public service 600.00 Housing . . . House Opera- tion Other 196 89 Income from property . . . . . 2000.00 Miscellaneous Investment . Automobile. Recreation . Health . . . Dependents . Gifts Education . Professional Incidentals . Associations Church . . . Charity . . . Tobacco . . Gifts 5.00 The food costs are very low, even though only three are being fed. Clothing is also low, being only a quarter the average amount spent by all the family groups. The faculty member spent only $57.00; his wife, $160. Housing costs are small, $247, because the 11-room home, built in 1904, is owned and cleared of indebtedness. Thus only taxes, insurance and minor repairs must be taken care of. House operation is above the average, but this cost statement includes an expenditure of $950 for furnishings. Service cost TYPICAL FAMILY EXPENSE HISTORIES 247 $310 for the year and included resident student aid, help for one full day weekly for cleaning, some help for gardening and for sewing. These expenditures accounted for 29% of the total expenditure. Of the 71% remaining for miscellaneous, 40% was reinvested as well as any possible surplus over this amount. The family has no car. They report no recurrent expenditures for recreation. Four hundred dollars was spent for vacation, the faculty member taking two weeks, his wife, six. They reported spending $26.00 for guests. Health costs are well below the average but there are no children. Expenditure for dependents and for gifts are average. Two hundred dollars went for books of general interest. This expenditure and the general professional expenditure of $870 is relatively very high; $800 of this latter item went for technical books. Association costs are in major part those of the helpmate. The faculty mem- ber's association costs are chiefly for professional entertaining. He does not belong to the Faculty Club nor any other. Very large gifts are made to church, 5% of total income. They de- clined to state how much money they gave to charity. This family spent $1,000 for books, only $200 for clothes. They are living to a scale below $6,000 including a small sum for savings. They are really living on less than their salary despite the outside income. They have no car and disapprove of expensive dress. The faculty member has had sabbatical leave twice and will not leave his work to take another. BUDGET NO. 12. Family of 3. Faculty member and his wife both between 35 and 50; their only child, a boy of ten. This family has a private income of at least $5,000. The faculty member earns $1,700 in addition to his salary. Prob- ably he engaged in outside activities for reasons professional rather than economic. Food costs appear to be lower than the class average. How- ever, they cover only a period of nine months and for only three people; also, the family had a three-months' vacation. In reality $760 is much above the general standard considering these conditions. It is apparent in looking over the itemized expend!- 248 GETTING AND SPENDING EXPENDITURE INCOMES Total Amount Per Cent Total Income $10418 00 Total Exp. .$10405.91 Earnings Food 762 06 7 3 Regular salary 3725.00 Clothing . 905.70 Man . . . 186.95 8> 1.8 Lecture courses . . 126 00 Wife . . . 551.70 5^3 Summer session 600.00 Child . . 167.05 l'g Textbook 800 00 Housing . 315.84 3.0 Periodicals 167.00 House Opera- Income from property 5000 00 tion 754.61 7.3 Miscellaneous 7667]70 73!7 Investment. 3000.00 28.8 Automobile. 180.00 1.7 Recreation . 3228.65 31.0 Health . . . 341.00 3.3 Dependents . Gifts 185.00 1.8 Education . 156.90 1.5 Professional 141.75 1.4 Incidentals. 58.00 0.6 Associations 336.40 3.2 Church . . . Charity ... 30.00 0.3 Tobacco . . 10.00 0.1 ture that this family spends a larger proportion than many for meat and fruit. Clothing is high for this group, the family spending $900 in all for clothing. The faculty member's clothes cost $187 but the wife spent $550 on hers. The boy's clothes cost nearly as much as his father's. This expenditure probably com- pares with the average clothing expenditure in well-to-do families outside university circles. Housing costs are very low. Their home, an eight-room house built in 1914, is owned and free of all debt. It is furnished with special taste. House operation is relatively low; a fact due in part to the three-months' absence. However, there is very little service. No resident servant is kept and only $143 was spent for non- resident help. Laundry was done outside the house. Miscellaneous items absorb three-fourths of the budget, owing to large investments and the fact that a three-months' vacation, including meals, shelter, etc., appears under recreation. The faculty member pays $400 premium on life insurance. The policy total would equal earnings for two years. Other in- vestments are large, more than one-fourth of the total income. Recurrent amusements cost $100, and the three-months' vacation TYPICAL FAMILY EXPENSE HISTORIES 249 over $3,000. Associations are also high due chiefly to wife's alumnae contributions. Each belongs to several clubs. Profes- sional expenditures include $75.00 for books, $66.00 for organ- izations— which may include some professional publications since some organizations carry publications with dues; no sec- retarial service. This is average for the expenditure level as are also costs for gifts. Health costs below average. There was no serious illness. The health costs consisted chiefly of a large dentist bill. Educational costs are very much below the average. There is a very small allowance for books and papers, $57.00, and, since there is only one child, they spent only $100 for lessons. Charity expenditure was somewhat small, being $30.00, and nothing went for church. Ten dollars was spent for tobacco. The faculty member has taken no sabbatical leave because the University has thus far paid his expenses on his special leaves of absence. CHAPTER IX SUMMARY OF FINDINGS Chapters III, IV, V, VI, VII and VIII contain on the whole a mass of detail interesting rather to the specialist than to the general reader. Something may be gained therefore by gathering up into a chapter the principal findings of this study. The specialist will thus find a resume — the general reader will perhaps prefer to read this chapter first and go farther if he becomes interested in the supporting data. When tabulated and interpreted the data gathered to test the assumptions of Mrs. Bruce 's article amply justify the protest of the professors' wives. The facts show plainly that, given prevailing prices, and recognizing that a simple, middle-class, profes- sional standard of consumption is permissible and necessary for this academic group, "no due care in spending ' ' can make three thousand dollars pay for the needs of a professor's family. If in addition to exceedingly modest allotments for food, clothing and shelter these families are to pay the costs of sick- ness and of indebtedness carried over from ap- prenticeship days ; pay for children, for dependents away from home, for domestic service enough to re- lieve the housekeeper of the heavier physical strains of house management, for church and charity, for a 250 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 251 very modest supply of the positive satisfactions that derive from such social needs as hospitality, asso- ciations and gifts, and are to save a little, the mini- mum sum required in 1922 seems to be five thousand rather than three thousand dollars. (See Table XXVlA.) And only persistent care in spending could make $5,000 suffice. Let us review the facts that are the basis of this statement. I. THE SOCIAL, DATA The investigation has analyzed the income and outgo of 96 married faculty members and their families, some 22% of the faculty at the University of California. A. Rank. — Of these faculty members, 8% held the rank of associates; 12% were instructors; 23% as- sistant professors; 27% associate professors; and 29% professors. The proportion corresponded closely to the proportion of each rank in the total faculty at the University in December, 1922, when the investigation was made. Thus fortunately all ranks seem fairly represented. B. Nationality. — Analysis of the social data the schedules contained showed these families to be typically native Americans from the North or West of the United States. 0. Age. — Characteristically the heads of these 96 family groups composed of 387 persons, 266 adults and 121 children under 16, were in the prime of life. 252 GETTING AND SPENDING Sixty-two per cent of the faculty members reported their age as somewhere between 35 and 50. Their wives were in about the same age range, though slightly younger. D. Size and Composition of Families. — Tabulation showed these 96 families to represent the " small family" system. Half the families had one child or none; 28% had no children; 80% had less than three children. The average number of children in a family proved to be 1.5. The average family is 3.5 persons. An average of 2.5 persons thus depend upon the earnings of the faculty member. Neither age nor income seemed to have any share in making for these small families. The facts of the schedule do not support the theory that the small size of the academic families was directly caused by low salary. Nor does the small family correlate with age. Influences affecting the size of the family must be sought for outside both age and income. In 19 cases adult relatives lived with the families, sharing in part or in whole the family expenditure. II. SALAEY AND INCOME As a rule, the salaries of these university pro- fessors did not pay their living expenses. To live even at the advisedly modest type of the profes- sional standard which a university circle represents, supplementary income was needed. The data make this very plain. As will presently be seen the spend- ing program was uniformly worked out according to a spending plan in good repute among those teach- SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 253 ing "how to spend wisely." None the less in three-fourths of the cases, the average salary did not pay for those things regarded as needs; 75% of the faculty considered supplementary earnings necessary. In some way, amounts representing as a median or mean from one- fourth to a little more than one-third of the total income are obtained from a source other than salary. If this University of California group is typical, — and a careful review of the facts in other univer- sities gives good ground for believing it is typical, — faculty members form a class giving services for which they receive a subsidy rather than a fulltime salary. As matter of fact, while salary is more than three-fourths of income in 47% of the cases, for 40%, the salary is less than two-thirds of the total income. For all ranks, the median salary is 65% of the total income; the mean salary, 63%. On the other hand, the type sometimes assumed to be common in university circles, the family whose vested income largely exceeds salary, was found in 5 cases only. There was one case where the salary was only 13% of the total income, the other 87% was made up of returns from property and addi- tional earnings. For the major part of the group of 96, however, the median and the mode for the additional resources reported by the professors, associate professors and instructors who constitute 64% of the group ranged between $1,000 and $2,000 and resulted largely from supplementary earnings. 254 GETTING AND SPENDING This relation of salary to income holds true for each academic rank. A. Salary Range.— The salary range proved to be about $6,600; from $1,400 to $8,000. The average salary was a little over $3,000. Five per cent re- ceived salaries of less than $2,000. Another 5% were paid more than $5,000. But the mass of the salaries, 90%, lay between $2,000 and $5,000. 1. SALAKY BANGE BY BANK. — The mass of those with a professor's rank got between $4JOOO and $5,000. Of the associate professors, 80% were re- ceiving between $3,000 and $4,000; the average, $3,400. Three-fourths of the assistant professors got less than $3,000. After an apprenticeship whose minimum term was probably six years, instructors, men between 30 and 35 as a rule, all of whom must have trained for at least three years after taking a bachelor's degree, were paid less than $3,000. The average salary for instructors was $2,200. B. Income Range. — The total incomes ranged more widely than salaries, from $1,800 to $16,000. Only a few were at either extreme. The massing is in the lower income groups. One family alone of the group was trying to live on less than $2,000. Only two commanded more than $12,000. For all ranks, the mean income proved to be $5,300,- the median, $4,800. Thus, more than half of these 96 families, 60%, have total incomes of less than $5,000, that amount which to the writer's mind represents the SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 255 minimum cost of health and decency, granting the accepted needs of a professional standard. As for range of income in relation to rank, the associates, a heterogeneous group, showed the widest range, $1,800 to $14,000. Instructors, in quite the opposite case, proved to have a short range between $2,000 and $4,000 with a median of $3,500 distinctly typical of the group. The same median income of $3,500 typifies likewise the assistant pro- fessor. With regard to the associate professors, three-fifths of them reported total income between $3,000 and $5,000. For the 28 professors, incomes ranged from $4,000 to $16,000; 70% being between $4,000 and $6,000; 14% had $10,000 or over. 1. SOURCES OF SUPPLEMENTARY INCOME. — To make up the difference between an average salary of $3,000 and an average income of $5,300, certain addi- tions to salary were drawn from three directions: (1) from supplementary earnings of the faculty member or his family, (2) from property income, (3) from gifts. As might be anticipated, of these three sources of additional income, that one most often used and which added most appreciably to income, was ad- ditional work of the faculty member. Returns from property were next in importance. But the most superficial inspection of the data shows plainly that vested income was not the important factor in pro- viding additional means of expenditure which tra- dition has supposed it to be. The theory of the large vested income which faculty members bring to their career gets no support. 256 GETTING AND SPENDING a. Supplementary Earnings. — Inquiry into the kind of work which faculty members undertook in order to supplement their salaries showed interest- ing though not surprising facts. Three-fourths of the faculty members reported earned income beyond what the University paid them. To supplement salaries considered insufficient the breadwinners of this group resorted habitually to one or more of the following forms of work: additional teaching, paid administrative work, research or consulting work relating to business. One or two were found actually sharing in some business venture. Additional instruction was the expedient most frequently resorted to. During the year under in- vestigation, 4:6% reported having done either ex- tension work, summer session teaching, public lecturing or a little coaching, one, two or all three. Five, or 5%, did administrative work; 34% reported income from research; 10% did consultant work of some type outside the University. (1) ADDITIONAL, AMOUNTS EARNED. Through some or all of these activities, at the sacrifice of both time and effort, one-half of these faculty members added $500 or less to their salaries during the year under analysis. The least amount earned was $12. A little less than one-third earned a thou- sand dollars or more ; 11% gained more than $2,000. One individual reported earnings of $5,000 and one, $8,400.1 1 This large sum was earned as a consultant. This faculty member has since left the University where he was receiving $3,000 in salary to accept a salary of $20,000 as consulting expert in a national busi- ness enterprise. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 257 The typical earnings, however, range around $500. The 46% who did more or less additional teaching reported average earnings between $300 and $400. These sums contrast disadvantageously with median earnings of $1,200 reported by those who did non-teaching work outside the University. Administrative work within the University also yielded more than teaching. The income from this source ranged from $400 to $1,000 with a median of $750. Such work was however apparently available only for men in the higher ranks. Public service work appeared to be but poorly paid. Those who did it reported a median return of $75.00. Research, the work most attractive to the larger number in this profession, proved also to yield relatively small returns. The median gains for this class of work were $200. The most remunerative form of re- search, if the rearrangement and simple presenta- tion of facts that this kind of work usually repre- sents may be called research, was text-book writing. Those who published such books reported median returns of between $350 and $450. As the faculty member rises in rank supple- mentary income from work increases slightly but undoubtedly. b. Supplementary Earnings by Other Members of the Family. — As for earnings other than those of the faculty member, 40% of the families reported helpmates who brought in additional earnings. Three husbands of female faculty members con- tributed relatively large additions to faculty earn- ings. These men added from $2,400 to $7,500. 258 GETTING AND SPENDING Twenty-nine wives contributed something. Three wives earned $1,200 to $2,200. The average amounts earned were less than $750, mainly through teaching with a fair margin of other occupations. The chil- dren proved slight contributors to income. Only four families reported this source of income, in negligible sums ranging from $25.00 to $150 with a median of $30.00. c. Income from Property. — Property income appears next to supplementary earnings in point of frequency. Two-thirds of the 96 cases, that is, 64 families, reported some form of income-bearing property, the amounts ranging from $3.00 to $5,000. There is no significant average. One-third had merely nominal property incomes in amounts less than $100. One-half of the property incomes were below $250; 28%' reported vested income of $1,000 or more. The five with incomes from property greater than their salaries have already been men- tioned. Reviewing these income figures certain points stand out clearly. First, evidently for the majority of these faculty members, property income is an insignificant factor in the family budget. We are thus led to believe that men are venturing into this profession without private incomes. Next, these findings on property income emphasize again the fact that as the faculty member advances in age and rank not only his salary but his property income increases. This is also true for the minority whose total income is relatively high. The fact of this regular increase in property income seems con- vincing evidence that we are dealing with a group SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 259 which habitually uses surplus for new accumula- tions of capital rather than for the satisfaction of whim or for shifting the standards of consumption. d. Income from Gifts. — In the majority of cases the gifts received proved a relatively unim- portant portion of the total income Fifty-seven families reported gifts in money or in kind. The latter were chiefly clothing. Of 11 gifts above $500, all except one were in money. Fourteen per cent reported income from this source of $1,000; 18%' reported less than $25.00; one-half reported less than $100. Those receiving the large money gifts were most frequently in the lower ranks. But it cannot therefore be fairly said that the figures show the lower ranks to be regularly subsidized by gifts. C. Non-pecuniary Rewards. — Income other than money is not readily measurable. It is broadly cus- tomary to believe that certain non-pecuniary re- wards inhere in the academic life and constitute a respectable portion of the returns of the profession. In particular the long vacation, the security of tenure and a definite certainty of promotion in re- turn for creditable work, are pointed out as such genuine non-pecuniary advantages. The data the schedules contained permitted an ex- amination of the merits of this position as it con- cerns vacations and promotions. 1. VACATION-. — As for the long vacation, the pro- fessor's three months' holiday proved a theory. One-third of the faculty members and their wives 260 GETTING AND SPENDING reported no vacation at all; 40% had taken less than two weeks away from regular work; 60% less than four weeks and 90% less than two months. In gen- eral the helpmates reported less vacation than the faculty members. 2. PEOMOTION. — Studying what the schedules told about the certainty of advancement in return for service brought out little that justified favorable assumptions about advancement presumed to offset the anxieties and humiliations of low salary. The facts tell the young inquirer into this professional opportunity nothing especially attractive or ad- vantageous. If the chances for promotion or se- curity of tenure these schedules show are typical, the occupational history of faculty members seems neither exceptional nor alluring. Given that the facts these schedules contained are the fair sample of academic life they are believed to be, the characteristic progression in most univer- sities, or at least at the University of California, is an instructorship for the first two or three years' service; an assistant professorship or an associate professorship after a service of between two and ten years. At the end of ten to fourteen years' service, the associate professorship seems to be a certainty. The first chance of a professorship ap- pears after six years' tenure, but the persons who reported for this study had given an average ser- vice of fourteen to eighteen years before they ob- tained full professorship. Thus when the average faculty member passes 50 years of age, he seems practically assured of an SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 261 associate professorship the rank at which the average reward it will be remembered is between $3,000 and $4,000 and tenure becomes certain for the first time. At the same age, he has 12 chances in 13 of a full professorship. As for age and advancement, the man under 35 proved to be an instructor, with one chance in four of an assistant professorship and one in eight of an associate professorship. Between the ages of 35 and 50, 10% still lingered as instructors or asso- ciates. It is hard not to think of this W% as the residual failures in the profession. Others were progressing to the full rank of professor- ship. In the profession under examination, men may serve from twelve to twenty-five years and be close to 50 years of age before they may be sure of getting $3,000 to $4,000. Only after fifteen years of service, $4,000 to $5,000 a year is typically assured, with one chance in ten of earning $5,000 to $7,000. Assuming the situation in this University be- fore and during 1922 to be representative, it seems safe to say that a young man entering a university faculty after three to five years' apprenticeship as a teaching fellow or a candidate for a higher degree, can command a salary of less than $2,000 for the first two years ; $2,000 to $3,000 for the next three years ; $3,000 to $4,000 after six to fifteen years of service. The chance of a salary of $4,000 to $5,000 comes only during the later years of this six to fif- teen year period. Fourteen years of service are necessary to bring two-thirds of the faculty group to 262 GETTING AND SPENDING security of tenure and a salary between $4,000 and $5,000. The further noteworthy fact derived from these salary figures is this: After serving for years, after slowly reaching the top of his profession in rank at least, the median salary of the full professor is $4,250 — as contrasted with a median income of $5,399.16; the mean salary was $4,525.91 — as con- trasted with a mean income of $6,681.66. The facts seem to permit the statement that the full professor who has given fifteen years of service at the least, and is, so to speak, at the top of his career, unless he has the property income which few professors can reckon upon, must still do overtime work to meet the expenses of family life. Moreover, the average must do a considerable amount of such overtime work before he can get a regular income of more than $6,000 to meet his own personal, pro- fessional and social needs as well as those of a family. Also, these facts seem to warrant the attitude of mind sketched in the Introduction. This is the pecuniary situation that turns ambitious young men to other professions and at the same time dis- heartens and embitters many of those actually en- gaged in the work. III. EXPENDITURES Custom and logic warranted testing the adequacy of income by the use that was made of it. Much of interest appeared when the expenditures of these families were thus analyzed. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 263 In general when statistically examined the ex- penditures all showed small but undoubted margins of personal preference. Taken separately, each family expense account registered both individual differences and tendencies common to all. When allocating expenditures to the five main divisions of a family budget and to the subdivisions within each of these larger budget parts, a given family was always found emphasizing some need in a way peculiar to itself. Some one item, shelter or fur- niture, or food, or books or travel or sickness, ab- sorbs an atypical amount. On the other hand, the 96 family groups proved alike in that the expendi- ture details show that all these families were cautious spenders, that they tended to standardize their food and clothing expenditures and to hold them to a less expensive standard than they were relatively willing to assign to shelter and to mis- cellaneous items. The spending was obviously careful. Usually it followed a plan. In many cases the plan was re- ported to be a routine that perforce repeated itself in the main year by year except as the hazards of life interfered. In all the expense histories, the emphasis of ex- penditure falls most heavily on what in conserva- tive circles it has been usage to call "higher life." The items in the subdivisions under "mis- cellaneous" and shelter express with especial clearness the ideological spending objective current in universities, "plain living and high thinking." 264 GETTING AND SPENDING A. Making Both Ends Meet.— The amount of family expenditure was found on the average to vary just as widely as income and a little more. Arithmetical discrepancies between income and expenditure ap- pear frequently. The average of expenditures under examination went a trifle above the income. This fact was however admittedly due to a bank deficit in a few cases only. On the whole these ex- penditures verify the tendency Veblen has pointed out. Careful spenders though they are, spenders who are still without "important and desirable things, " the expenditures of these family groups run close to income with a further irregular tend- ency to go higher. B. Total Amounts Spent. — For the whole group of 96 families, the mean cost of family living, for families whose average size it will be remembered was 35 persons, at the standard that social habit prescribed, proved to be $5,511.77. Possibly the median of $4,893.22 is more indicative. (See Table XXVIII.) The amount of expenditures varies with the income of course but also with the salary and with the rank of the faculty member. Reviewed according to rank, the average full pro- fessor proved to have spent $7,014.88 to meet his costs of living; the average instructor spent $4,016. The discrepancy between the average income and these amounts was $333.22 for the professor and $223.91 for the instructor. C. Allocation of Expenditures.— Reviewing the dis- tribution of expenditures among the major items of SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 265 the household budget as set forth in the schedule, food, clothing, shelter, house operation and miscel- laneous,— the facts showed that these families habit- ually purchased unusually small quantities of food and clothing. As an average, 17% of income was allotted to food and 9% to clothing. Shelter took an average of 17%; house operation 13%; miscel- laneous 43%. These percentages contrast notably with the percentage distributions of expenditure now being sent out for popular consumption where- in at the same level of income, say about $4,800, the expenditure for food is set at from 18% to 25%; for clothing at from 11% to 18% ; for shelter from 15% to 25%; house operation from 13% to 20%; and miscellaneous, including investments and sav- ings, ordinarily from 26% to 40%. Professors as a group spend 48% of income for miscellaneous; associate professors, 46% ; assistant professors, : 38.2%; instructors and associates give 50.4% and 42% respectively to these thirteen items. (See Table XXXII.) 1. FOOD AND CLOTHING. — As the total amounts ex- pended annually increase, the percentage assigned 1 by these families to food and clothing regularly ; decreases to reappear in increased expenditures for ; the items of miscellaneous. EngePs law is once more :; verified. It would seem that, viewed as an average : group, these families when they spend, think about food and clothing in sums with fixed upper limits. ; Wherefore the proportion decreases as income rises. An average expenditure of $900 for food to feed a 266 GETTING AND SPENDING family of four passes everywhere just now as the cost of minimum food requirements for those living at a subsistence plus level. This sum of $900 is the average amount spent by these families. The same extreme simplicity plainly controls clothing costs. Two-thirds of the husbands and one-half of the wives reported spending between $100 and $200 apiece annually. Thirteen women and eight men re- ported spending less than $100 each; the maximum spent by either sex in families with the highest in- comes was about $500. Forty per cent of the wives spent less than husbands whose traditional sim- plicity and economy in clothing verify the figures. The reason for this low expenditure moreover does not seem to lie in the costs of the children's clothing. The low costs of clothing for the adults appear as well in the expenditures of childless families with fairly large incomes. Plain clothing is "standard." Food costs, like clothing costs, may be generally reported as approaching an upper level which con- forms to the amount for food just now being ascribed to the subsistence plus standard. Also, comparatively speaking, this amount remains un- changed as income increases. 2. SHELTER. — Definite standards are also evident with regard to shelter. Comparatively, this standard is at a higher level of living, and so costs more than the food and clothing standard does. Since the standard of living as it regards a home leads to selecting an owned dwelling whose size averages seven or eight rooms, the relatively high proportion that shelter bears to the total expend!- SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 267 tures is accounted for. Thus, although the average allotment for housing costs of 17%' is not high as compared with the generally accepted estimates about the appropriate apportionment among the several divisions of expenditure, the percentage sub- division is disproportionate when compared with the percentages these families spent for food and clothing. 3. HOUSE OPERATION. — Running the house took 13% on the average, with a range from 4% to 30%. Fuel and heating costs run from $20.00 to $200 with an average of $100. Fuel, heating and light average $140. The cost of fuel, heating and light per room averages $18 and seems a significant unit of cost for this item. Annual costs of light averaged $4.50 to $5.00 per room; heating, between $12.00 and $13.00 per room. All of the families in this faculty group showed a consistent effort to dispense with domestic service or to use a minimum of it. Ten per cent spent noth- ing for help in the home; 15% paid out less than $25.00 a year. No family with a total expenditure below $6,000 had full-time domestic service. In the families with incomes above $6,000, two-thirds paid only $200 or more annually for "help." The mean spent for domestic service was $260; the median $153. Even when the wives go out to work, the situ- ation was but slightly changed. Evidently the pur- poses for which these women supplemented income had no close connection with the desire to shift housework to some one else. The desire to save the costs of domestic service was so thoroughgoing that 268 GETTING AND SPENDING 21 of these wives, most of them college bred, did all their laundry work, their husbands aiding perhaps. Of these 21 women, 80%; were housewives in families spending less than $5,000. A stern theory of do- mestic thrift or an eager striving for other things plainly dictates a policy such as these figures show. Garbage removal was reported as an average an- nual charge of $6.00 to $7.20. Only 91 families estimated the costs of personal cleaning supplies, a term that included tooth brushes, combs and brushes, shoe polish, listerine, etc. The average amount spent for these things falls between $25.00 and $30.00; 75%! of the estimates re- ported amounts between $10.00 and $50.00. Only 66 families were able to make report for house cleaning supplies as a separate item. The range of expenditure for these 66 families was from $2.50 to $62.00 but 75% of the estimates were be- tween $5.00 and $25.00 and 50% were between $5.00 and $15.00. The mean of $15.00 is probably less characteristic than the median of $11.41. The costs of furnishings proved to be uncertainly, and on the whole unsatisfactorily, estimated. Most commonly a flat sum of $200 to $300 is recorded for the higher income groups. Eighty-eight families reported on stationery and postage in amounts that vary from less than $5.00 to $120. But three-fourths of the families spent from $5.00 to $20.00. 4. MISCELLANEOUS. — In general, these family groups gave precedence to the thirteen items classi- fied here under "miscellaneous. ' ' All the margin of SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 269 income goes into this division of household needs. This margin is available only because, as has been shown, a policy of stern economies controls' the spending for the items of food, clothing and house operation. In the low income groups this division of " miscellaneous7' absorbs a little over one-third of all expenditures; at the higher income levels, it takes one-half or more. The median proportion of expenditure allotted to miscellaneous is 43% with a range of 64%. The details of these miscellaneous items give spe- cial and interesting evidence as to the level of con- sumption of professional groups in general, and the standard of living of these academic family groups at the University of California in particular. a. Dependents Outside the Home. — One-third of these families, usually but not always those who were childless, paid out of "miscellaneous" for the support of some one or more dependents outside the home. This charge on income took from 3% to 10% of the total expenditures. In one case only such ex- pense cost less than 1%. In three cases the cost was more than 10% of the total expenditure. The average was 3% to 5% of the total. A majority of the families allocated between $100 and $400 to this item with an average of about $200. b. Automobiles. — Out of 96 families 55 reported owning automobiles. For these 55 families, auto- mobiles absorbed on the average about $360 a year, 17% of the miscellaneous expenditure or 6% of the total expenditure. When incomes ranged from 270 GETTING AND SPENDING $2,000 to $4,000 a trifle over one-third of such fam- ilies owned cars. At the level of $4,000 to $6,000 more than 50% had their own automobiles. Be- tween $6,000 and $10,000, three-fourths had auto- mobiles. With incomes over $10,000 nearly 90% reported cars. The increase in the number owning automobiles shows most distinctly when incomes are at the level of $6,000 to $7,000. Apparently this is the income level where the professional family with rational spending ways feels freest to buy. Also the figures seem to permit the conclusion that, like the rest of the world, faculty families consider a car a most satisfactory way to occupy spare time. With regard to the costs of automobiles, nearly two-thirds of the car owners spent less than $500 annually ; one-fourth spent more than $1,000. The strong lead in favor of owning a car is further shown by the fact that in this group that own automobiles 11% reported no expenditure for domestic service, apparently preferring to spend for the combined service and recreation an automobile represents. c. Recreation. — The average amount spent for forms of recreation other than the automobile proved to be $200. The majority of these families assigned to these items between 1% and 8% of their total expenditure, or an average of 10% of the total miscellaneous. Apparently, with the standard of spending under examination, the cost of recreation is an item that does not expand proportionately as income increases. In fact the relative costs of recreation decrease in the higher levels of total SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 271 expenditure; the absolute amounts increase but little. The percentage peak appears at the income level of $4,000. The proportion of families spend- ing over 20% of their miscellaneous appropriation for this item remains the same up to a total mis- cellaneous allotment of $2,000. Or to put it in an- other way, where the absolute appropriation for miscellaneous is small, families insist none the less on spending a fair proportion of this division for recreation. Only a few select this recreation ex- pense as an opportunity for enforced economies. The general average of the relation of recreation expenditure to total expenditure for miscellaneous is 10%. It is possibly worth noting that a special standard of living is plainly evident in the amount spent for commercial amusements, — the theater, concerts, the movie and the like. Whether this is a constrained economy or whether the fact represents a preference is not quite clear. The tables show that certain of the possessors of large incomes also patronize commercial amusements infrequently, so it looks as if, relatively speaking, members of academic faculties use other classes of recreation more than commercial amusements. Judged by their expenditures, social entertainment for in- stance seems their preferred form of recreation. Hospitality took a proportionately large sum. Sev- enty-two out of 96 estimated spending about $100 annually on this item. d. Health. — The cost of maintaining health was examined in considerable detail. The totals quoted include subtotals for the costs of the doctor, the 272 GETTING AND SPENDING dentist, nursing, optician's fees, drugs and the hospital. Only one family reported no expenditure for health. For a few the amounts were very high in- deed; 5 families, 2 of whom had incomes under $5,000, reported health costs between $1,000 and $2,000. One instructor's family of four persons liv- ing on $2,400, during the year 1921-1922 spent 25% of the total income on this item. For two-thirds of the families, health expenditure absorbed less than 6%, $325; for 16% the same item took $500 and more. As to the particulars in health expenditure, 82 families reported physicians' bills averaging $75.00 a year; 40 paid specialists an average amount of $35.00 ; 90 reported dentists ' bills whose average size was $50.00; 55 had optometrists' bills averaging $20.00 ; 23 set down nursing charges which averaged $45.00 and 36 reported hospital bills averaging $62.00. Sixty-six reported that drugs cost an aver- age of about $10.00. From the data it seems fairly certain that these faculty families economize on preventive dental work because they must. In this they are probably representative of a large class of spenders in the world at large. All higher costs of dentistry ap- pear in the higher expenditure levels only. From this fact it seems fair to argue that the lower costs of dentistry in the lower income groups may be due in part at least to inability to pay or to a relative unreadiness to allot surplus to dental prophylaxis. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 273 e. Investment and Savings. — Expenditure to provide against the future takes first place in the general spending plan of these families. The largest single item among the expenditures for mis- cellaneous is investment. As a whole, investments absorb 26% of miscellaneous and 13% of the total expenditure. Only 4 families report setting no money aside for investments during the year in question. Of these, however, 2 families bought homes, a purchase popularly classified as invest- ment. There is no significant average for in- vestment as an expenditure. About one-half of the families assigned from 2% to 10% of their total expenditure to this class; about one-third gave between 2% and 6%; the median is 8% or $360. It will be remembered that the reported average expenditure for the 55 families who owned automobiles was just this same amount of $360 and that two-thirds of the families spent $325 on health. The most recurrent type of investment was life insurance. Ninety per cent of the families carried some form of insurance; 83% carried life insurance. All the men with incomes below $3,000 were insured but only 75% of those spending $10,000 or more carried insurance. The average premium is $162 and there is a distinct tendency to insure propor- tionately to income up to $10,000. Sixty families reported savings other than in- surance. In 36 cases these were bank savings; 38 reported stocks, bonds or other forms of securities on real estate. Those making investments of this 2-74 GETTING AND SPENDING class set aside $500 on the average. Those report- ing savings reported an average of $270. /. Gifts. — Gifts, which term includes Christ- mas, birthday and wedding presents, and gifts to the sick, took a fairly standardized amount. The average expenditure for all types circles about $100 annually, 2% of the total expenditure and 5% of the miscellaneous. Gifts are apparently a more im- portant item of expenditure for families with in- comes between $4,000 and $5,000, or $8,000 and $9,000 than for those with the very smallest or very largest incomes. But this may be the result of some chance factors. The tendency is toward a standard amount apportioned to all classes of gifts. Evi- dently, therefore, as the proportion allotted to mis- cellaneous increases, the relative cost of gifts de- creases. g. Professional Expenses. — Eeview of the costs of technical books, magazines, secretarial service, supplies, professional organizations and travel for professional purposes, brought out a wide range and variability in expenditure. This charge absorbs from one-tenth of 1% to 38% of the total income. In the majority of cases, however, the expenditure for this item was very small. Out of 96 men, 22 spent less than one-half of 1%. Two-thirds allotted less than 2% of the total expenditure to the costs of such items. The average is $60.00 or 1.3%. h. Incidentals. — Nothing especially notable ap- pears as result of examining such items of expendi- ture as carfare other than that of the faculty mem- SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 275 ber going to and from work and the children going to school, lawyers' fees, barbers' services, moving expenses, funeral expenses, etc. Nearly 80% spent less than $100 on this item. All reported tonsorial costs for man, wife and children averaging about $13.00 annually. The questions arise whether long hair is preferred, whether preoccupation with other things or plain economy influences the smallness of this amount. The reader is left to decide. The study gives no positive ground for an answer. In the lowest income groups of course, inciden- tals form a large proportion of expenses. Since, however, when all cases are considered, these expenditures vary only slightly from the average of 1%, it is confidently believed these residual items have been kept to a due proportion of the expenses. i. Association Dues. — In most instances, the faculty member or his helpmate or both reported some expenditures for associations, in 92 cases for the faculty member and in 72 cases for the help- mate. Two families reported no association for either man or wife ; the budgets made it obvious that this fact was part of a scheme of economy. The distribution of costs for this item varies little until we reach the country club class at the $10,000 level when it increases distinctly in importance. The average charge upon miscellaneous of this item of associations is 3%. The costs of associations remain almost a constant proportion of the total amount of miscellaneous when the allotment of this division ex- ceeds $1,500; below $1,500, it varies around 3%. As 276 GETTING AND SPENDING to the relation to total expenditure, the costs of asso- ciation vary but slightly from the general average of 1%. j. Church and Charity. — In studying the items of expenditure for church and charity, it was evident that the expenditure for church support was only slightly related to financial status. The 52 members of the group who reported church contributions were mainly those with small total expenditures. Indeed it may generally be said that the percentage supporting churches decreases as the total expendi- ture rises. It is 62% of those with expenditures below $3,000; 38% of those with expenditures above $10,000. For the 52 families out of 96 who sup- ported churches, the contributions varied from one- tenth of 1% to 7.5%' of their total expenditure. Only two spent over 5% ; the median is six-tenths of \% or $30.00. Two-thirds spent less than $1 a week; 23% of those reporting contributed less than $1 a month. Three of the family groups contributed $250 a year which included gifts to charity as well as to church. The highest contribution to church alone was $350 or 1% of the total expenditure. The larger range of charitable contributions is from one-tenth of 1% to 4% of the total expenditure. The median is $27.00. Eight contributed $100 or more to charity. The total expenditure of all these families was over $6,000. The whole expenditure for this item seems controlled somewhat by the old theory of the tithe. Although the amount given is less than the one-tenth, the tendency to a quota is unmistakable. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 277 ~k. Tobacco. — Sixty-three families reported ex- penditures for tobacco. Thus thirty-three families did not use the weed. Of those who did, three fami- lies spent less than one-tenth of one per cent for smoking. The highest and exceptional amount re- ported was $170. The median amount was less than one-half of one per cent of the total median expendi- ture, about $25.00 per annum. Eighty per cent spent less than $4.00 a month. In general, tobacco is an important item of miscellaneous for groups spend- ing less than $3,000. The pleasures of the weed in this class absorb 2y2% of their miscellaneous as con- trasted with the general average for all incomes of less than \%. But for those who do smoke, the costs of tobacco definitely increase as the amount assigned to miscellaneous increases. Tobacco is apparently regarded as a fixed charge rather than as a luxury permissible only when income rises. To summarize. With these 96 families, those items of expenditure least frequently analyzed yet of such increasing importance at every income level, — investments, automobiles, health, recreation and dependents outside the home, — each absorb as an average 3% or more of the total expenditure. Every family meets charges for recreation, health and investment, but only 57% have automobiles and only one-third have dependents outside the home. Two per cent of the total expenditure goes for gifts. Education takes 1%%' of total expenditure. Professional expenses, incidentals and associations 278 GETTING AND SPENDING are about the same charge on income, taking a trifle over \% ; church, charity and tobacco absorb less than 1%. The outstanding fact concerning the expenditures of these faculty families is this : as the total expendi- ture increases, more is spent for investments espe- cially after the income becomes $5,000. The propor- tion assigned to automobiles is fluctuating. The proportionate cost for recreation and for the main- tenance of health decreases with increase of income. The burden of outside dependents is heaviest on the $3,000 to $6,000 expenditure groups. Expendi- tures for gifts, professional expenses, church and charity remain a fairly constant proportion of the total for all classes of income. The cost of tobacco is irregular and scarcely related to purchasing power. In general, of the amount not spent for those things commonly called "physical necessities " such as food, clothing, shelter, — one-fourth goes toward preparing to meet the hazards of the future by in- surance and investment. For health or more prop- erly for sickness, an average of 10% is spent. Which is to say that providing against the future and the mischance of illness absorbs 35% of that 4:3% assigned by these families as an average to that division of a budget euphemistically called "higher life," and supposed to represent the field of choice. To get a conclusive opinion about the standard of living and of spending, the reader is asked to look SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 279 again carefully at Table XXVIII and then at Table LII here following. TABLE LII EXPENDITURES OP PROFESSORS' FAMILIES (MEAN AMOUNTS) (Average Size of Families: Four Persons) AMOUNT PER CENT AMOUNT PER CENT TOTAL EXPENDITURE $7014.88 100.0 Food 1151.70 16.4 Clothing 638.71 9.1 Husband Clothing $153 57 22 Upkeep 27.78 0.3 Wife Clothing 169.06 2.4 Upkeep 20.57 0.3 Children 246.48 3.5 Upkeep 41.50 0.6 Sousing 848.56 12.1 House Operation 1007.97 14.4 Service 455.69 6.5 Fuel and heat 132.82 1.9 Garbage removal ... . 89.68 1.3 Light 62.22 0.9 Household laundry & supplies Telephone and telegraph . Personal cleaning supplies House cleaning supplies . . Furniture and furnishings Stationery and postage . . Ice 56.53 48.16 39.18 18.38 23.03 21.10 12.32 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.2 Other 3.52 0.0 Miscellaneous Insurance and investment . . Automobile 3367.85 48.0 874.77 852.16 12.5 121 Health 499.33 7.1 Recreation * 339.82 4 8 Education 315.38 45 Professional expenses 295.29 42 Dependents . . . . 295 00 42 Church and charity 164 99 2 4 Gifts 159.62 2.3 Incidentals . . 130 77 1 9 110.94 1.6 * Includes tobacco. 280 GETTING AND SPENDING In Table XXVIII the details of the median ex- penditure by the 96 families are given. Table LII shows the mean expenditure of the twenty-eight professors' families included in this inquiry. For the author at least it is difficult to believe that any- one, after carefully examining these two tables, can find in either table grounds for any imputation of extravagant spending. Eather it seems that a fair judgment will pronounce them the simple and mini- mum expression of the ideological American middle- class demand for goods and services. The tabular form displays a satisfaction of needs without waste- fulness and with the use of foresight though with an intelligent interest in finding and enjoying in moderation the "new known goods." In par- ticular these tables were warrant for the statement that the minimum sum required at any rank in academic life to meet the professional academic standard without annoying and impeding anxiety about spending is an amount near $5,000 and not the average of $3,000 which is now usually available. With less than $5,000 needs go unsatisfied that it is now socially conceded desirable and professionally necessary to satisfy. When carefully inspected, Table XXVIII makes absurd the contention that a comfort basis to professional life can be maintained on less than $5,000. Indeed, Table LIT shows plainly that $7,000 is requisite to maintain a reasonable comfort basis for professional life. With any sum less than $7,000, much energy is deflected from con- structive tasks, either to be used up by the absti- nence attitude so at variance with the dominant SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 281 thinking of our American life, or to go toward efforts to force a lesser total upward. To the question originally raised, — "Does the average salary of $4,000 represent a sum large enough to attract and hold competent and aggres- sive men," the answer seems to be emphatically, "No." Today, with this income, the man on the University staff who has arrived at the top, has not enough to permit him to join freely either in busi- ness hours or socially in the life of other profes- sional subgroups. A sense of serious financial limi- tations forces him, first, to an effort to earn supple- mentary income, or frequently out of the university life to other opportunities where his mental powers and special aptitudes find play at better pay. Since, as things now are, it takes most professors a fifteen year period of service to get a salary of $5,000 ; since this salary buys only the bare minimum of the goods and services that it is recognized his professional standard of living requires ; since many never get even $5,000, the case seems clear. Offer- ing as universities now do, $2,000 to $3,000 less than $7,000 to men who have given from ten to fifteen years service, after an apprenticeship rather longer than that given in other professions, universities lose out. To set this salary scale for men whose promotion to the professorship declares them satis- factory members of their craft, is to ask of these men one of two things. Either they are tacitly told they may consider the university job a part-time 282 GETTING AND SPENDING occupation or it is implied that academic men must live in other ways than the professional classes in general. If the assumptions in the Introduction are true, to ask either of these things is probably to lose in the coming generation many desirable addi- tions to the profession. The limits of this study are reached. The find- ings about the cost of living an academic life in general and the story of how 96 families got income and spent it in Berkeley in 1922 are before the reader. The stock of evidence presented with re- gard to the spending ways of the academic world, will, it is hoped, merit attention from those inter- ested in the problem of the professor's pay and, since there is probably in these spending ways a close resemblance to middle class spending ways in general, also from those who give special attention to the consumer problem. If this study gives an impetus for similar studies that will test the general application and the special merits of this inquiry, something will have been accomplished. APPENDIX 284 APPENDIX TABLE TABLE SHOWING NUMBER AND PERCENTAGE OF FAMILIES WITH WHO REPORTED EXPENDITURES FOR THE DIFFERENT ITEMS NUMBER AND PERCENTAGE REPORTING EXPENDI- TURE FOR MISCEL- All Families Invest- ment Auto- mobile Recrea- tion Health Depen- dents Gifts LANEOUS No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % \o. % No. % All Amts. . . JLiCSs 96 100.0 92f 95.8 56 57.3 96 100.0 95 99.0 14 35.0 95* 99.0 than $1000.. 12 100.0 11 91.7 3 25.0 12 100.0 12 100.0 5 41.6 12 100.0 1000- 1499.. 20 100.0 18 90.0 7 35.0 20 100.0 20 100.0 7 35.0 20 100.0 1500- 1999. . 15 100.0 15 100.0 7 46.6 15 100.0 14 93.3 2 13.3 14 93.3 2000- 2499.. 19 100.0 18 94.7 15 79.0 19 100.0 19 100.0 8 42.1 19 100.0 2500- 2999.. 10 100.0 10* 100.0 7 70.0 10 100.0 10 100.0 3 30.0 10* 100.0 3000- , 3499.. 3 100.0 3 100.0 2 66.7 3 100.0 3 100.0 i 33.3 3 100.0 3500- 3999.. 3 100.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 l 33.3 3 100.0 4000- 4499.. None 4500- 4999. . 3 100.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 1 33.3 3 100.0 5000- 5499.. 3 100.0 3 100.0 2 66.7 3 100.0 3 100.0 2 66.7 3 100.0 5500 and over. . s 100.0 8* 100.0 6 75.0 8 100.0 8 100.0 4 50.0 8 100.0 * Includes one case where expenditure was reported but the amount was not available. t Includes 2 cases where expenditure was reported but the amount was not available. § Includes 3 cases where expenditure was reported but the amount was not available. APPENDIX 285 LIII A GIVEN AMOUNT OF TOTAL EXPENDITURE FOR MISCELLANEOUS UNDER THE GENERAL HEADING OF MISCELLANEOUS EXPENDITURES FOR Educa- tion Profes- sional Inci- dentals Associa- tions Church Charity Tobacco No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % 96 100.0 94. 97.9 95 99.0 94 97.9 52 54.2 93§ 96.9 63f 65.6 12 100.0 11 91.7 12 100.0 11 91.7 5 41.6 10 83.4 10 83.4 20 100.0 20 100.0 20 100.0 20 100.0 10 50.0 19 95.0 9* 45.0 15 100.0 15 100.0 15 100.0 14 93.3 8 53.4 15* 100.0 10 66.6 19 100.0 19 100.0 19 100.0 19 100.0 12 63.2 19 100.0 13 68.4 10 100.0 10 100.0 10 100.0 10 100.0 6 60.0 10 100.0 7* 70.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 2 66.7 3 100.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 1 33.3 3 100.0 1 33.3 3 100.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 1 33.3 3 100.0 3 100.0 8 100.0 7* 87.5 7 87.5 8 100.0 6 75.0 8t 100.0 5 62.5 286 APPENDIX TABLE TABLE SHOWING NUMBER AND PERCENTAGE OF FAMILIES WITH EXPENDITURES FOR THE DIFFERENT ITEMS UNDER NUMBER AND PERCENTAGE OF FAMILIES AMOUNT OF TOTAL EX- PENDITURE ALL FAMILIES Invest- ment Auto- mobile Recrea- tion Health Depen- dents Giftt No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % All Amts. . . 96 100.0 92f 95.8 55 57.3 96 100.0 95 99.0 34 35.0 95* 99.0 $2000- 2999.. 8 100.0 8 100.0 3 37.5 8 100.0 8 100.0 a 37.5 8 100.0 3000- 3999.. 22 100.0 21 95.4 8 36.3 22 100.0 21 95.4 10 45.4 22 100.0 4000- 4999.. 21 100.0 20* 95.2 12 57.2 21 100.0 21 100.0 6 28.6 21 100.0 5000- 5999.. 17 100.0 17 100.0 10 58.8 17 100.0 17 100.0 6 35.3 16* 94.1 6000- 6999.. 8 100.0 6 75.0 6 75.0 8 100.0 8 100.0 1 12.5 8 100.0 7000- 7999.. 3 100.0 3 100.0 2 66.7 3 100.0 3 100.0 1 33.3 3 100.0 8000- 8999.. 4 100.0 4 100.0 3 75.0 4 100.0 4 100.0 <-) z 50.0 4 100.0 9000- $ 9990.. 5 100.0 5 100.0 4 80.0 5 100.0 5 100.0 «j 60.0 5 100.0 10,000 and over. . 8 100.0 8* 100.0 7 87.5 8 100.0 8 100.0 4 25.0 8 100.0 * Includes one case where expenditure was reported but the amount was not available. t Includes 2 cases where expenditure was reported but the amount was not available. § Includes 3 cases where expenditure was reported but the amount was not available. APPENDIX 287 LIV A GIVEN AMOUNT OF TOTAL EXPENDITURE WHO REPORTED THE GENERAL HEADING OF MISCELLANEOUS REPORTING EXPENDITURES FOR Educa- tion Profes- sional Inci- dentals Associa- tions Church Charity Tobacco No % No. % No. % No % No. % No. % No. % 96 100.0 94* 97.9 95 99.0 94 97.9 52 54.2 93§ 96.9 63f 65.6 8 100.0 8 100.0 8 100.0 7 87.5 5 62.5 7 87.5 4 50.0 22 100.0 21 95.4 22 100.0 21 95.4 13 59.1 20* 91.0 12 54.5 21 100.0 21 100.0 21 100.0 21 100.0 12 57.2 21 100.0 13f 61.9 17 100.0 17 100.0 17 100.0 17 100.0 8 47.1 17 100.0 14 82.3 8 100.0 8 100.0 8 100.0 8 100.0 2 25.0 8 100.0 6 75.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 1 33.3 3 100.0 3 100.0 4 100.0 3 75.0 4 100.0 4 100.0 4 100.0 4 100.0 3 75.0 5 100.0 5 100.0 4 80.0 5 100.0 4 80.0 5* 100.0 3 60.0 8 100.0 8* 100.0 8 100.0 8 100.0 3 37.5 8* 100.0 5 62.5 288 APPENDIX TABLE TABLE SHOWING MEAN AND MEDIAN PERCENTAGE OF THE UNDER THE GENERAL HEADING OF MISCELLANEOUS BY PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL Total Invest- Auto- Recrea- Depen- Misc. ments mobile tion Health dents Gifts AMOUNT OF TOTAL EXPEN- DITURE fl .2 a .1 a .2 q .1 ' e | a .1 a .1 I "3 I '"S I '"S OS ^ J ^3 I ^3 § "S S a * S a s S 2 £ 3 3 s j 3 All Amts . . 43.1 41.2 12.7 7.9 10.3 6.2 5.1 4.1 5.7 3.9 5.1 3.1 2.3 2.0 $2000- $2999.... 37.8 36.4 8.4 6.5 7.5 4.6 4.9 4.1 9.9 6.5 2.9 2.2 1.8 2.0 3000 3999.... 38.3 36.7 12.5 7.3 5.0 5.0 5.2 4.1 5.7 4.1 6.9 5.3 2.2 2.2 4000 4999.... 44.6 43.2 16.4 16.9 13.0 7.3 6.0 5.6 4.2 3.4 5.1 4.6 2.9 2.6 5000 5999.... 38.7 40.2 6.9 4.1 10.2 7.0 3.5 3.1 5.9 3.9 6.5 6.8 2.1 1.8 6000 6999.... |36.4 36.4 7.7 5.3 12.6 13.6 4.3 3.9 4.2 3.8 3.2 3.2 1.6 1.1 7000 7999.... 54.7 48.2 8.8 4.2 4.8 4.8 5.8 7.8 7.5 2.6 5.1 5.1 2.3 1.8 8000 8999.... 51.1 44.1 22.1 15.3 8.9 4J 4.2 4.4 4.2 2.7 2.4 2.4 2.6 2.6 9000- 9999.... 57.1 55.6 22.1 16.7 11.2 12.2 5.2 4.3 5.3 2.2 3.4 2.9 2.4 2.3 10,000 and over .... 56.0 61.6 19.2 21.0 12.7 12.1 7.1 3.5 7.3 4.8 1.6 1.6 2.0 1.7 APPENDIX 289 LV TOTAL EXPENDITURE SPENT FOR THE DIFFERENT ITEMS FAMILIES WITH A GIVEN AMOUNT OF TOTAL EXPENDITURE EXPENDITURE SPENT FOB Educa- tion Profes- sional Inci- dentals Associa- tions Church Charity Tobacco 1 l I i 1 2 1 2 1 | 1 1 S 1 1 2.6 1.5 1.3 2.9 1.7 1.2 1.3 1.1 1.3 0.6 0.7 0.6 0.6 0.4 2.8 2.7 1.5 1.2 1.8 2.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 0.5 0.8 0.7 0.8 0.8 1.7 1.1 1.6 1.0 2.2 1.2 1.2 1.0 1.6 0.7 0.8 0.5 0.6 0.5 1.7 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.6 1.3 1.6 1.3 1.1 0.6 0.7 0.6 0.6 0.5 2.4 1.6 5.4 1.7 1.7 1.4 1.2 1.0 1.3 0.8 0.5 0.4 0.7 0.3 2.2 1.4 3.8 1.7 1.5 1.2 1.2 0.6 1.5 1.5 1.0 0.6 1.0 0.5 7.7 3.1 15.5 7.8 0.7 0.5 0.5 0.6 0.1 0.1 0.7 0.6 0.2 0.2 5.6 5.0 0.9 1.0 0.6 0.6 1.1 0.5 0.8 0.6 1.2 0.8 0.3 0.3 3.8 1.3 2.9 0.7 1.4 1.2 1.3 1.3 1.4 0.5 0.6 0.6 0.4 0.4 3.9 2.4 2.0 1.4 2.4 1.3 2.0 1.9 0.8 0.3 0.7 0.5 0.6 0.7 290 APPENDIX TABLE TABLE SHOWING MEAN AND MEDIAN PERCENTAGE OF THE TOTAL ITEMS UNDER THE GENERAL HEADING OP MISCELLANEOUS BY AMOUNT Total Misc. Invest- ments Auto- mobile Recrea- tion Health] Depen- dents Gifts or TOTAL EXPENDI- a TURE 1 .3 '•! .9 .& '•! ••H 2 | 1 3 1 * * 8 a 1 8 2 All Amts. 27.5 26.3 22.5 16.9 12.2 10.0 14.9 9.9 11.9 10.2 5.8 4.8 $2000- 2999 100 100 21.3 20.1 17.5 9.1 12.8 10.7 26.8 17.4 8.2 5.9 4.6 4.6 3000- 3999 100 100 29.8 27.7 14.4 13.6 13.3 9.7 16.1 12.4 17.6 13.9 6.4 6.0 4000- 4999 100 100 35.2 35.7 25.0 17.8 13.7 14.2 17.3 6.7 9.9 10.5 6.0 5.3 5000- 5999 100 100 18.3 13.3 24.9 16.4 8.6 8.1 15.2 9.9 15.9 16.3 6.1 4.3 6000- 6999 100 100 16.2 13.3 30.7 35.9 13.9 12.5 12.8 11.9 9.7 9.7 4.8 3.8 7000- 7999 100 100 17.6 7.3 10.2 10.2 12.0 16.3 14.9 3.8 10.6 10.6 4.4 3.5 8000- 8999 100 100 38.6 34.9 17.4 12.6 9.6 8.6 8.7 7.3 3.9 3.9 5.7 6.3 9000- 9999 100 100 33.9 30.1 20.1 20.6 8.9 6.2 11.8 4.0 5.7 4.1 4.5 4.0 10,000 and over. 100 100 37.3 39.1 20.2 18.5 11.7 6.8 14.4 10.9 2.5 2.5 4.2 2.4 APPENDIX 291 LVI EXPENDITURE FOR MISCELLANEOUS SPENT FOR THE DIFFERENT FAMILIES WITH A GIVEN AMOUNT OF TOTAL EXPENDITURE Educa- tion Profes- rional Inci- dental* Astocia- tioni Church Charity Tobacco 1 1 1 i 1 i I 1 I S J i 1 3 6.5 3.7 6.4 3.0 4.5 2.8 3.3 2.7 2.8 1.4 1.9 1.4 2.0 0.9 8.2 7.4 4.5 3.4 5.0 5.5 3.2 3.0 3.0 1.3 2.1 1.6 2.2 2.4 4.9 2.8 4.1 3.0 5.7 3.5 3.5 3.4 4.2 1.6 2.5 1.5 1.6 0.8 4.3 2.8 2.9 2.1 4.4 2.9 3.7 3.3 2.2 1.2 1.7 1.3 1.7 1.2 6.4 5.0 12.1 3.8 4.4 4.3 3.2 2.2 3.0 1.8 1.4 1.1 2.2 0.8 8.7 3.9 8.9 4.6 3.2 2.4 2.9 2.2 3.2 3.2 2.4 2.2 5.1 1.8 12.2 6.4 24.6 16.3 1.3 1.1 1.0 0.9 0.3 0.3 1.3 0.9 0.4 0.4 12.3 8.1 1.8 1.7 1.1 1.0 2.2 1.3 1.9 1.2 2.9 1.6 0.6 0.7 7.1 5.0 5.8 1.1 2.7 2.8 2.6 2.0 2.5 1.6 1.8 1.0 0.7 0.7 8.0 3.7 4.7 2.1 4.5 3.8 4.2 3.6 1.1 0.5 1.3 1.3 1.4 1.1 292 APPENDIX TABLE TABLE SHOWING MEAN AND MEDIAN PERCENTAGE OF THE TOTAL ITEMS UNDER THE GENERAL HEADING OF MISCELLANEOUS MISCELLANEOUS EXPEN- DITURE Total Misc. Invest- ment Auto- mobile Recrea- tion Health ' Depend- ents Gift! FOB Misc. a 1 a .1 a .1 - § a 1 a .1 a .2 I s 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 s I 1 1 S All Amts. 100 100 27.5 26.3 22.5 16.9 12.2 10.0 14.9 9.9 11.9 10.2 5.8 4.8 Below $1000. 100 100 20.5 21.1 16.3 22.7 12.9 9.1 19.6 11.8 10.3 10.0 9.0 6.4 1000- 1499 100 100 22.2 18.7 14.5 9.6 14.2 13.0 22.7 18.9 20.2 14.6 6.6 6.9 1500- 1999 100 100 27.5 13.3 17.6 13.0 14.7 14.2 15.0 14.8 18.0 18.0 5.6 4.3 2000- 2499 100 100 33.3 35.1 25.9 17.8 10.9 9.9 9.3 6.7 10.9 11.5 5.6 4.3 2500- 2999 100 100 22.7 14.4 30.6 33.4 11.8 9.5 11.7 8.4 16.9 16.9 5.4 5.3 3000- 3499 100 100 26.7 37.4 9.5 9.5 7.7 3.7 6.6 7.1 10.6 10.6 3.4 3.5 3500- 3999 100 100 29.4 21.5 16.4 6.8 9.7 5.6 18.5 13.9 3.6 3.6 5.0 4.2 4000- 4499 N one 4500- 4999 100 100 21.6 12.9 16.5 8.6 6.2 3.7 23.2 19.0 11.1 10.6 5.4 5.4 5000- 5499 100 100 13.1 6.1 34.6 34.6 10.0 6.2 3.7 3.8 6.5 6.5 4.0 3.4 5500 and over. 100 100 51.0 53.0 22.2 25.3 10.7 6.3 8.5 6.1 3.3 3.7 2.8 2.5 APPENDIX 293 LVII EXPENDITURE FOR MISCELLANEOUS SPENT FOR THE DIFFERENT BY FAMILIES WITH A GIVEN AMOUNT OF TOTAL EXPENDITURES Educa- tion Profes- sional Inci- dentals Associa- tions Church Charity Tobacco 1 I 1 1 I 1 1 S I S a 1 I | 6.5 3.7 6.4 3.0 4.5 2.8 3.3 2.7 2.8 1.4 1.9 1.4 2.0 0.9 11.1 7.4 3.1 2.4 5.3 6.0 4.0 3.2 4.7 1.4 3.0 2.7 4.8 2.8 4.5 3.4 4.4 3.0 7.3 5.3 3.7 3.5 3.0 1.5 2.4 1.6 2.2 1.8 7.3 4.7 9.6 3.4 4.1 2.3 2.8 2.2 3.7 2.1 1.6 1.4 1.4 0.9 3.9 2.8 3.9 2.0 3.3 3.2 3.2 1.9 1.3 1.2 1.5 1.3 1.7 1.2 8.8 4.3 5.1 3.8 0.4 1.5 3.6 2.6 5.2 4.3 1.1 1.0 1.7 1.0 2.1 2.2 33.8 31.2 2.2 2.8 3.9 1.8 1.2 0.9 0.5 0.5 4.3 5.3 2.4 2.4 1.6 1.1 1.0 1.2 2.1 1.4 5.7 6.1 0.6 0.6 4.4 2.6 7.4 8.2 5.6 6.5 6.1 5.4 0.1 0.1 1.6 1.6 2.6 2.6 17.2 22.9 19.0 1.1 2.4 1.8 1.9 1.2 0.2 0.2 1.0 1.0 0.5 0.6 6.2 3.7 3.1 1.4 2.5 0.8 2.1 1.8 1.9 0.7 0.8 0.6 0.5 0.4 APPENDIX 295 Standard of Living of the Faculty of the University of California SURVEY 1. Faculty Member's Academic Grade 4. Schedule No 2. Salary on Regents' Roll (July 1, 1922) . . 5. Visitor 3. Time of service at U. C. : from to 6. Date of Visit. . . present. 12. No. of 7. Bela- tion to Head of Family 8. Sex 9. Age 10. Birth- place 11. Date of Marriage Meals Taken Away From Home 13. Occupa- tion 14. Length of Vacation (in wks.) (peryr.) a. self b. wife c. eldest child i ft d. next PH 2 child C rh e. next child f. g- h. i. j- k. 1. 15. Kind: Dwelling... Tenement... Hotel... No. of stories .. Elevator. . . No. of entrances. . 296 APPENDIX 16 Rooms Inc. Hall Use HEATING LIGHTING Plumbing Hot Water Supply Steam Hot Air Stove Fire- place Gas Electricity Kerosene 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 w 17. Rent : owned house .... purchase price .... date of pur- chase. . . . amount of mortgage. . . . interest on mortgage. . . . installments .... gift : yes .... no partial .... Rented. . . . rate per month. . . . Includes : furnishings. . . . light. . . . heat. . . . hot water. . . . kitchen stove. . . . water rent. . . . telephone. . . . garbage removal .... 18. Investment in furnishings .... amount purchased .... amount gifts 19. Investment in labor saving devices : Electric washing ma- chine.... Dish washing machine.... Vacuum cleaner.... Other 20. Defects : Cause of defects : Comment (further description of house) : 21. Summary of Income : Total a. Income from work : Total .Faculty Member. Total APPENDIX 297 (a) Teaching Regular instruction Extension instruction . . . . Coaching Lectures Occasional Courses Summer session (b) Research Special problems Publications Text books Other books Periodicals (c) Business enterprise (d) Public service (per diem or other) (e) Administration (f) Other 2. Helpmate. Total (a) Regular (b) Irregular 3. Children. Total (a) Regular (b) Irregular 4. Other (specify) . Total b. Income from Boarders and Lodgers. Total c. Addition to income from gifts. Total 1. Regular money allowance. . . . 2. Occasional money gift 3. Real property 4. Stocks and bonds 5. Clothing 6. Furniture 7. Books 8. Education for children 9. Travel 10. Research d. Net income from rent, interest, etc e. Net income from garden, chick- ens, etc f. Other (specify) 298 APPENDIX 22. Estimated Expenses : Total a. Food : Total per year 1. Meals provided at home : Total per year Total per week Bread, cake, etc Butter Eggs Milk Dry groceries Fruit and vegetables Meat, fish and poultry 2. Meals bought : Total per year Total per week b. Clothing (per year) : Total. . . . Replacement Upkeep I.Man 2. Wife 3. Children c. Housing (per year) : Total 1. Charges on owned home Installments paid on principal . . . Interest charges on mortgage. Taxes Assessments Fire insurance Repairs Depreciation Water rent Carfare to and from work Garden Garage Other (specify) 2. Rent charges on rented home. . Rent Water rent Repairs (not paid by owner) . Carfare to and from work Garden Garage Furniture tax Other (specify) d. House Operation (per year) : Total . APPENDIX 299 1. Light (electricity, kerosene) . 2. Fuel and heat (coal, wood, kerosene, gas, electricity) 3. Ice (No. of months ) 4. Telephone and telegraph 5. Service : Total (a) Resident, number (b) Non-resident (1) Regular cleaning laundry care of children gardening cooking sewing No. of hrs. Amt. paid per mo. (2) Occasional (3) Extra caused by illness 6. Garbage removal 7. Personal cleaning supplies : Total tooth brushes combs and brushes shoe polish and shoe brush. listerine and other drugs for hygienic purposes toilet and bath soap bathroom and toilet equip- ment 8. House cleaning supplies : Total soap borax ammonia insect powder other 9. House laundry and supplies . . 10. Furniture and furnishings (per year): Total (a) Replacement and additions (b) Renovations and repairs. . furniture table linen bedding 300 APPENDIX towels kitchen ware table ware curtains, etc. electric bulbs tools, etc. rugs and carpets (c) Furniture tax 11. Stationery and postage 12. Other (specify) e. Recreation (per year) : Total. . . 1. Recurrent expenditure moving pictures theater dances pool and billiards sports music art exhibitions excursions toys and playthings for children other 2. Vacation (out of city) general travel other (specify) 3. Social entertainment guests at home guests at club, in town, etc f. Vehicles (per year) : Total 1. Automobile paid as initial expense insurance upkeep per month . . ; per yr 2. Other (specify) g. Education (per year) : Total. . 1. School expenses (children only) tuition books supplies carfare other 2. Periodicals 3. Daily papers 4. Books . APPENDIX 301 5. Lessons (for children) music dancing languages 6. Other education expenses h. Investment and savings (per year) : Total 1. Real estate 2. Stocks and bonds 3. Life insurance 4. Accident insurance 5. Savings for Sabbatical general 6. Other i. Church (per year) : Total j. Charity (per year) : Total assistance to colleagues general support of charities . . k. Dependents outside house : Total 1. Regular allowance 2. Occasional allowance 1. Health (per year) : Total 1. Fees for physician 2. Fees for dentist 3. Fees for other specialists 4. Drugs on prescription 5. Eyeglasses 6. Hospital expenses 7. Nursing 8. Other m. Expenses of profession in ques- tion : Total (per year) 1. Costs of professional organiza- tions 2. Technical books and magazines 3. Typewriter 4. Stationery and stamps 5. Secretarial services 6. Travel cost above refunds. . . . n. Associations (per year) : Total. 1. Faculty member (a) Faculty club (b) Social clubs (c) Civic clubs 302 APPENDIX (d) A. S. U. C (c) Alumni obligations 2. Helpmate (a) Professional club (b) Alumni obligations (c) Social clubs (d) Civic clubs o. Tobacco (per year) : Total (per week) (no. of per- sons) p. Gifts : Total 1. Christmas 2. Birthday 3. Wedding 4. Sick friends 5. Other q. Incidentals (per year) : Total. . 1. Other carfare 2. Moving 3. Lawyer fees 4. Funeral 5. Tonsorial man wife children 6. Other 23. Amount of surplus or deficit 24. If surplus, how used ? If deficit, how met 25. Are these figures based on actual accounts ? Over what period of time were these accounts kept? 26. How often has Faculty Member taken a Sabbatical? If not, why not? 27. What are the important and desirable things you now find yourselves without? INDEX Age, 251 ; correlated with rank, 61 ; with size of family and in- come, 63 ; with promotion, 107, 260-262. See also Income; Rank Academic salaries. See Salaries, academic Academic standard of living, 37- 43 Accuracy, 47, 117 Administrative work, 84, 95 Advancement. See Promotion Alberti, cited on use of income, 5 Alumni, 26 American standard of living, 13, 34-37 Amusements. See Recreation Anglo-California Trust Co., bud- get distribution, 143 Assistant professors, sources of income, 93, 97 (which see) ; property income, 103; gifts, 103 (see also Gifts) ; range of income, 255. See also In- come; Promotion; Rank; Sal- ary Associate professors, sources of income, 94, 97 (which see) ; property income, 102; range of income, 255. See also Income ; Promotion ; Rank ; Salary Associates, sources of income, 92, 97, 104 (which see) ; prop- erty income, 102; range of income, 255. See also Income ; Rank ; Salary Associationism, 20 Associations (not professional organizations), 123, 124, 219- 221, 225, 275, 279; in typical budgets, 229-249 passim Automobile, 123, 124, 196-198, 225, 226, 269-270, 279 ; in typi- cal budgets, 229-249, passim Bank of Italy, expenditure al- lotment, 142 Birth. See Nationality Birth-rate, 62 Boarding and lodging, occupa- tion of helpmate, 99, 100 Books, 213, 215 Bruce, Dorothy Hart, et al, cited, 161 Bruere, M. B. and R. W., cited on expenditures of high school teachers, 141 Budget studies, 29 ; of the masses, 32-33 ; Budgets, 12 typical, 229-249 Business (consultant research), source of income, 84, 87, 98, 256 Charity, 123, 124, 221-223, 225, 276, 279; in typical budgets, 229-249 passim Children, in academic families, 62, 63 ; supplementary earnings, 98, 101, 104, 105, 258 Church, 123, 124, 221-223, 225, 226, 276, 279; in typical bud- gets, 229-249, passim Citizen service. See Public ser- vice Cleaning supplies, house, 1^3, 181, 268, 279; personal, 123, 181, 184, 185; in typical bud- gets, 229-249 passim, 268, 279. Cleveland Society for Savings, budget distribution, 143 303 304 INDEX Clothing, expenditure for, 122, 123, 124, 125, 139-140, 141 ; in relation to income, 126, 133, 134; to rank, 135, 159-160; of husbands and wives compared, 156-158; gifts of, 158-159; in- fluence of economic pressure, 162; in typical budgets, 229- 249 passim; summary of find- ings, 265-266, 279 Coaching, source of income, 81, 85 ; occupation of helpmate, 99 "Comfort" standard of living, 34-35, 280 Consultant research (business), source of income, 84, 87, 256 Cost of being born, 41 footnote. Cost of living, test of rate of pay, 29 Data, method of collecting, 46; reliability, 47; social, 59-89, 251-252 Departments in study represent- ed, 51-53 Dependents (outside the home), 123, 124, 207-209, 225, 226, 269, 279; in typical budgets, 229-249 passim Domestic service, 267 Earnings. See Income Education, expenditures for, 123, 124, 211-214, 225, 279 ; in typi- cal budgets, 229-249 passim Engel's law, holds true by income levels, 126, 265; reversed, 146- 147 Expenditures: method of han- dling, 117 ; in relation to stand- ard of living, 118; to income, 119, 135, 264, to rank, 121, 145, 264; major divisions of, tabu- lated, 122, 123, 124, 133, 134, 135, general conclusions, 139- 140, summary, 264-281 ; of high school teachers and faculty members, compared, 141 ; com- parative distribution of, tabu- lated, 143 ; personal preference, 263 ; summary of findings, 264- 281 ; the outstanding fact, 278. See also Budgets ; Income ; Standard of living ; and under each of the thirteen subdivi- sions of "Miscellaneous" Extension work, income from, 16, 81, 85, 86, 92 Extra-mural occupations, source of income, 84. See also Admin- istrative work ; Consultant re- search (business) ; Public service Faculty helpmates, earnings, 97, 100, 104, 105, 258 ; occupations, 99 ; correlated with rank, 100 ; vacation, 260 Families, selection of, 48-49 ; size, sex, maturity, 59-60, 252 ; com- position of, 62, 252 ; size of, in relation to age and income, 63 ; nativity, 65, 251 ; size corre- lated with food, tabulated, 154, 155 ; expense histories, 227-2?° ; typical budgets, 229-249 Food, expenditure for, 121, 122, 123, 124, 139-140, 141 ; in rela- tion to income, 125, 133, 134, to rank, 135 ; amounts allocated for food, 149-152 ; food and size of family, 152-155; in typical budgets, 229-249 passim; sum- mary of findings, 265-266, 279 Fourier, cited on pay for talent, 6 Franklin, cited on use of income, 5 Fuel. See Heat and fuel Full professor, sources of income, 95 (which see) ; property in- come, 102 ; minimum and maxi- mum salary, 108; range of income, 255. See also Income ; Promotion; Rank; Salary Furniture and furnishings, 123, 183, 184, 185, 186, 268, 279; in typical budgets, 229-249 passim Garbage removal, expenditure for, 123, 179, 184, 185, 268, 279 Gifts, 103, 123, 124, 209-211, 225, 259, 274, 279; correlated with INDEX 305 rank, 104, 259 ; in typical bud- gets, 229-249 passim Government official, occupation of helpmate, 99 Health, 123, 124, 203-207, 225, 271-272, 279; in typical bud- gets, 229-249 passim Heat and fuel, expenditure for, 123, 171, 184, 185, 267, 279 Helpmates. See Faculty help- mates High school teachers, expendi- tures of, compared with those of faculty members, 141 "Higher wants" (life), 35, 278 House operation, expenditure for, 122, 123, 124, 140, 141 ; in pro- portion to income, 128, 133, 134, to rank, 135 ; detailed discus- sion, 169-186; tabulated, 184, 185, 186, 187; in typical bud- gets, 229-249 passim; summary of findings, 267-268, 279 Housing. See Shelter Human relations, wider, factor in rising standards of living, 16 Ice, expenditure for, 123, 174, 184, 185, 279 Incidentals, 123, 124, 217-219, 225, 274, 279 Income, correlated with : age and size of family, 63-64, salary, 70, 74, 75-77, 252-254, with rank, 89-97, 255, with expenditures, 119, 145 ; range of, 72, 254-255 Non-pecuniary, 106, 259-262 ; vacation, 106, 259; promotion, 107, 260 ; length of service and salary, 108, 261-262 Sources, 78-79, 255; work, kinds of, 80-83 ; money returns from, 83-89, in relation to rank, 89-97, tabulated, 98; help- mate's earnings, 97-101 ; chil- dren's earnings, 101 ; property income, 98, 101-103, 258-259; gifts and miscellaneous sources, 103, 259; income tabulated in correlation with rank, 105 Supplementary, 78-98, 255, 259; money returns (earn- ings), 83-98, 256-258; gifts, 103, 259. See also Income, sources Instruction, children's, expendi- ture for, 213-214 Instructors, 93, 102. See also Income ; Rank ; Salary Insurance, life, 193, 196, 273, 279; accident, 194, 195 Interviewers, duties of, in this study, 46-47 Investment (insurance, savings), expenditure for, 123, 124, 188, 225, 273-274, 279; in typical budgets, 229-249 passim Jaffa, M. E., food budget, 151, 153 Laundry, house, and supplies, 123, 182, 184, 185, 268, 279 Lawyer, occupation of helpmate, 99 Lectures, sources of income, 81, 85 Length of service, 108-115 ; corre- lated with promotion (rank), 109, with salary, 111 ; tabu- lated, 114, 115 Library assistant, occupation of helpmate, 99 footnote Light, expenditure for, 123, 171, 184, 185, 267, 279 Literature, as source of income, 88, 94 Loyalty, penalized, 113 Manager of apartment house, oc- cupation of helpmate, 99 Marriage, time of, 49 ; proportion married, 50 Masses, a consuming class, 31- 33 Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, budget distribution, 143 Mill, cited on standards of con- sumption, 44 306 INDEX "Minimum" salary required to meet professional academic standard, 280, 281 Miscellaneous, expenditures for, 122, 123, 124, 141; in propor- tion to income, 130, 133, 134, to rank, 135; broad details, 137- 139 ; index to standard of liv- ing, 144, 145, 146; intensive analysis of 13 items : invest- ments, insurance, savings ; auto- mobiles ; recreation ; health ; de- pendents ; gifts ; education ; professional expense ; inciden- tals ; associations ; church ; charity; tobacco: all of which •see, 187-226; tabulated in fam- ily budgets, 229-249 passim; summary of findings, 268-281, 279; tabulation of items, 284- 293 Money income and goods, 3 Morgan, Agnes Fay, food budget, 151, 153 Music teacher, occupation of helpmate, 99 Nationality, 66, 251 Organist, occupation of help- mate, 99 Organizations ( professional ) , dues, 215, 275 Owners or tenants, 163-168 Pacific Oil Co., Amalgamated Oil Co., and Affiliated Co., budget distribution, 143 Participants in the study, 50-55 Payment according to needs, 29 Pittsburgh, Peoples Savings and Trust Co., expenditure allot- ment, 142, 143 Poor, The. See Masses Poverty line, 227 "Plain living and high thinking" discussed, 4 ; exemplified, Ii9 passim Price level, 48 Professional expenditures, 123, 124, 214-217, 225, 274, 279 ; in typical budgets, 229-249 passim Professor. See Full professor Promotion, opportunities for, 107- 115, 260 ; in respect to age and term of service, 261-262 Property, source of income, 98, 101-103, 258-259; correlated with rank, 102; with age and rank, 258-259 Public service, factor in rising standard of living, 17-18, 23; source of income, 81, 82, 84, 93, 94 Rank, as represented in the study, 54-56, 251; correlated with age, 61, with size of fam- ily, 63-64 ; in relation to salary, 75-76, to supplementary income, 78, 81, 89, 91-97; correlated with rentiers and property in- come, 101 ; correlated with gifts, 103 ; income of, accord- ing to sources, 105 ; rate of advancement, 107 ; in rela- tion to expenditure, 121, 135, 145, 146; and tenantry, 163 "Rational" spending (spenders), 5, 12, 31, 33, 144 Reader (at University), occupa- tion of helpmate, 99 Recreation, 123, 124, 198-203, 225, 270-271, 279; in typical budgets, 229-249 passim Rentiers, in relation to rank, 102, 163-164 Research, source of income, 82, 86 88, 93, 94, 96; two types of, 87. See also Consultant re- search Richards, Mrs. E., expenditure al- lotment, 142 Salaried professional class, stand- ard of living, 34-37 Salaries, academic, factors affect- ing, 3, 4-10, 16-18, 23; com- parative similarity of in all universities, 57 ; correlated with income, 70, 252-254; range of, 71, 254; compared with in- come, 74-77 ; increase in, corre- INDEX 307 lated with rank, 110, 254, 260, with term of service, 108, 111, 254, 260 Salesman, occupation of help- mate, 99 San Francisco Bay region, esti- mated expenditure allotment, 142 Savings. See Investment Secretarial service, 216, 274 Schedule, form of, 46, 294-301 Service (domestic, household), expenditure for, 123, 175, 184, 185, 186, 267, 279; in typical budgets, 229-249 passim; secre- tarial, expenditure for, 216, 274 Service income, 3 Sewing, occupation of helpmate, 99 Shelter, expenditure for, 121, 122, 123, 124, 140, 141, 162-168 ; in proportion to income, 127, 133, 134, to rank, 135; in typical budgets, 229-249 passim; sum- mary of findings, 266-267, 279 Social entertainment, 203 Social data, 59-89, 251-252 Social research, factor in rising standard of living, 17-18 Spenders, consuming class, 31 Spending, thrift, 12-13 ; spender's theory, 14; standard of, 279- 281 Standard of living, essential characteristic, 13 ; American, 34-37; academic, 37-43; justi- fication for, 44 ; similar in all university groups, 56, 145; ef- fect on, of social habits, 66 ; in relation to expenditures, 118; index to, 144, 145; conclusion regarding, 279-281; of the fac- ulty of the University of California, schedule for, 294- 301. See also Citizen service ; Expenditures ; Extension work ; Public Service ; Social Re- search. Stationary and postage, 123, 184, 185, 268, 279 Subsistance plus level, 266 Summary of findings, 250-282 Summer session teaching, income from, 81, 85, 86, 97 Sumner, cited on standard of liv- ing, 44 Teacher, occupation of helpmate, 99 Teaching (instruction), addition- al, source of income, 81, 84. See also Income Telephone and telegraph, expen- diture for, 123, 175, 184, 185, 279 Tests of rate of pay, 29 Textbook writing, source of in- come, 81, 87, 88, 96 Theatre. See Recreation Thrift, 12-13, 36 Tobacco, 123, 124, 223-224, 225, 226, 277; in typical budgets, 229-249 passim Travel, professional, 216 Vacation, non-pecuniary income, 106, 259-60; recreation, 202 Veblen, cited on standard of living, 36, 120, 264 Wants, classification of, 117; index to standard of living, 144, 188