Living Costs Barely Affected, as Yet, by Wholesale Cuts

Living Costs Barely Affected, as Yet, by Wholesale Cuts

Rent Dominates Almost Every Household, or If Not, Then Commuting Fares, Coal and Repairs---How Prices of Food Have Fluctuated

By JOHN WALKER HARRINGTON.

SLOWLY the cost of living is taking the down grade under the impetus of the sweeping declines in wholesale prices made a few days since. Thereby may be seen a bit of history over again, for the readjustments now in progress are very much like those which continued for ten years after the civil war. It was not indeed until the dawn of the American Renaissance which came in with the Centennial Exposition that prices had come back to about their normal level. There were then certain commodities which never did come around, so it will be found, very likely, that whatever economic changes may take place, many prices which obtained prior to 1914 will not be reinstated.

Taking all conditions into the count, however, the developments of the last week show that come what will, the eternal law of supply and demand is asserting itself. As long as commodities are scarce and materials and labor high, and as long as there are those who are willing to pay for what they get without question, prices will soar. The time has come, however, when the public has gone on strike, when the ultimate consumer has asserted himself, and against them even the greediest of profiteers cannot avail.

Has Not Reached Retailers.

The day in price reduction is yet young, for although the wholesale dealers and the manufacturers have announced substantial cuts, it will take weeks and months before the difference will be manifest in business at the counter. When great textile mills, for instance, proclaim that 33 per cent. goes off the price of cotton fabrics, or that woolen, are to be 20 per cent. less, they may not bring about substantial reductions in clothiers for months to come.

Despite the general demoralization in the labor and material markets, however, dealers in wearng apparel all over the country are selling at close margins and are preparing for the period of sweeping reductions.

Most retail dealers do not take the broad vision of economics which is shown by the great mail order houses and the department stores which do business on a large scale. Their volume of sales is comparatively small, and their overhead percentage and their systems of distribution faulty. Either they must cut halls and mend their profiteering ways or go down in the days of reorganization which are bound to come.

The most significant condition at present has to do with rents, which are so closely associated with the housing situation and the building materials markets. When the eld line economists prepared the family budgets a few years ago---and there have been such radical changes that the average economist must be an intellectual celibate to keep up with the shifting of prices---they counted a certain percentage of expenditures for the statistical family of five. It was set forth, for instance, that in the case of a father and mother and of three children, about 18 per cent. of the family income could be spent for rent. All such rules as these pass into the discards in this day and generation. The war stopped building operations to such an extent that building materials and structural steel could not be obtained and supplies of all kinds required in domestic architecture could not be had. The rent, therefore, often accounts for at least one-third of the family budget.

How Rents Have Jumped.

In the city of New York the sharp rises began in 1918. Looking backward for a year and considering all classes of houses, the increase in rent has been at least 20 per cent., and the Mayor's committee on rents thinks that 75 would be a closer figure on flats and residences. On apartment houses from 50 to 100, and even more than 100 per cent. have been frequent.

To-day the people of New York being surrounded, as the cold weather advances with a cordon of unsanitary shacks in which human beings have been existing during the summer, the tenant class find themselves in a quandary of perplexities compared with what they endured a year since.

In certain classes of apartments and tenements, the rise was checked last March by the State laws, which limited increases to 25 per cent., otherwise the plight of the householders might be far worse. Taken all in all, however, any man who pays rent is lucky if the landlord only zooms on his horizon 50 per cent. larger than he did in the autumn of 1919.

In their efforts to escape from the plague of high rents, many citizens of New York took refuge in the suburbs. In some sections long lines of new wooden houses have appeared along the main travelled roads. Rents are somewhat cheaper in the country than they are in the city, and yet the difference is by no means as large as it would seem to be at first blush.

Commuting Rates Up.

Hardly had the new commuters got well settled in their new abodes, when they were beset by a new factor, for within the last year the price of railroad tickets for the suburban dwellers has gone up 20 per cent. If, for example, of a man lives within twenty miles of the metropolis, for instance, and pays from $75 to $100 for his house a month, he must foot his commutation which was formerly $8 is now about $10.50. Thus the railway keeps up with the city in holding up the price of housing.

If the citizen still fleeing from the high costs of the city seeks to escape from paying lug rents he is face to face with the lofty costs of building materials of all kinds.

Added to the extraordinary costs of materials are the demands of labor in all the building trades. The wages are so high that it is difficult to keep the process of erecting habitations under ordinary strategies.

The man who would keep a house in order has on the whole a much harder problem to face than he did a month ago. If he burns coal in the heating of his house in the city or country, or pays for having the landlord set fire to it, he is much more heavily involved with the fuel problem than he was in 1919. The chances are that in the coming winter, especially if there should be unusual snow and ice conditions in the neighborhood of the great cities, he will have added expenses for heat and light.

The average householder is now paying about $15 a ton for his anthracite, according to quality and size, as contrasted with the $13 to $13.50 which he was paying last winter. In regions near New York where there is not so much lighterage to be paid for the prices are less. Where soft coal is available the purse strings are not so much loosened for fuel. The increase of wages granted last spring to the hard coal miners and the rise in freight rates which soon followed are permanent additions to the family coal bill, no matter how rosy a view of the future the average citizen may have.

Those who take thought as to how they shall be fed find some comfort in the price of certain food commodities, but on the whole, costs of maintaining the family larder are about as much as they were a year ago. In the recent flurry, flour and wheat have descended to levels lower than those of 1919. The sudden slump in sugar has been very welcome to all of us, for it was only a few months ago that dealers, to satisfy their trade, were actually laying it in at 25 cents. The last quotations in the Review show that sugar at wholesale was 9 cents in September of 1919 as compared with 14.75 in the current year.

Consumer Still Mulcted.

There have been notable drops in the prices of certain food staples this year as contrasted with last year's wholesale rates, but it does not by any means follow that the general public is getting the benefit of it The small grocer or the vegetable man, with whom the average consumer deals, finds that he is still paying a large price for potatoes, although the reports from Aroostook, the potato capital situate in Maine, show an abundant crop. Potatoes of good quality may be obtained at wholesale this year for $3.50 a barrel as compared with the $5 of 1919.

Cabbages, which two years ago were considered like the luxuries of kings, are now down in the scale, and they are fully 25 per cent. cheaper by the barrel than they were last year. Onions continue to be sold at the same rate they were in 1919. Beans, which were $11.50 in 1919, are fifty cents cheaper by the barrel at this present writing. Peas, which were quoted last year at $6.70 a barrel, may now be had at wholesale for $5.50.

Molasses has been rising for the last year, so that it is now $1.02 a wholesale compared with seventy-six cents a gallon for 1919. It retails at from $1.25 to $1.60 a gallon in most grocery stores.

One of the bewildering difficulties of the householder these days is the constantly mounting prices for the products of the chicken yard, which are always perching higher and higher. Eggs which are considered reasonable these are sold in this market for ninety cents a dozen. At wholesale they are eighty-one cents, as compared with the wholesale of seventy-five cents which obtained a year since this month.

Chickens fly so high that the ordinary consumer of poultry hardly feels justified in purchasing them at all. It is not unusual for $1.50 a pound to be asked for fowl in suburban districts, thus bringing the cost of a fowl chicken prepared for the table in the neighborhood of $3.

Choice creamery butter is quoted this year in large quantities at 59 1/2 cents a pound, while a year ago it was 58. At retail it brings from 70 to 80 cents a pound, although in some markets it may be had for 65 cents. The ordinary grades are quoted at wholesale at 56 cents a pound this year, one cent lower than they were last. American cheese is about 2 cents a pound cheaper.

If the people of the country could have at reasonable prices the fruits of the earth, which are produced in such abundance, they would find the scale of living much reduced. As it is, the large crop of apples this year is finding its way to the larders of the consumers at lower prices. The best apples can be had now at $3 wholesale as compared with the $4 a barrel of a year ago. It also will be found that there is a marked decline in the wholesale prices of dried fruit of all kinds.

Little Difference in Meat.

In the retail meat markets there is not much difference in prices between this year and last and with some cuts the prices are slightly higher. Beef on the hoof was quoted in September at $9.75 a hundred as compared with $8.20 at this period a year ago. Bacon at wholesale is 29 1/2 cents a pound, whereas last year it was quoted in the wholesale marts at 27 cents.

Analysis made in New York city markets recently showed that sirloin steak was selling on the average at from 40 to 44 cents a pound, as contrasted with a rate of from 39 to 43 cents a year ago, and that bottom round brings 46 cents now, while then it could be had from 43 to 46 cents. Lamb is the same at the shops now as it was in 1919.

Closely associated with the livestock market are the prices of leather and shoes. On account of the falling off of the war demand, however, the price of leather has been receding in the last year. No. 1 native hides, for instance, are quoted at 28 cents the pound, according to the last report, although they bright 48 cents a pound in 1919. Leather of high grade can now be had for 46 cents the pound, which 12 cents less than the price for the same grade last year. The cost of labor in the making of shoes, however, has kept up to a large extent and has prevented as much recession in retail footwear prices as might have been expected.

The time has come, however, when the public will not pay the enormous prices for shoes which they gave a year ago. Shoes are few $22 shoes to be seen on the shelves of our leading focteries. The new stocks which are now coming in are being offered at from 20 to 25 per cent. of what they were sold in the autumn of 1919.

Shoes for which $15 to $16 was obtained a year since now bring from $12 to $12.50 in good shops. The $19 and $13 shoes of yore are advertised at $12, and, in fact, the nearer a pair of shoes can be brought to $10, even though perhaps not quite so good in quality, the better the public likes it. The tendency is to balk whenever the $10 limit on footwear is exceeded. Shoe extravagance, with the accumulating luxury taxes, seems a thing of the past.

Silk Shirts Shrink Sharply.

One of the most striking evidences of a certain recalcitrance of a once docile buying public is the sharp decline in the price of silk shirts. It was only a twelvemonth ago that swarthy sons of toil gladly paid $10 for a bright silk shirt. They would not look at anything less in price. They insisted upon the softest fabrics which the purse could buy.

Often mechanics who could find no place to sleep save in the park, because housing was scant, could be seen slumbering in silk array. The bottom dropped out of the Japanese raw silk market, and with that rapidity which shocked all Nippon. The confection in green and bright pink which our able puddlers and longshoremen wore are now to be had as low as $6 and $7, and sometimes bargains are advertised at $5.85. Madras shirts of fairly good quality can be bought at $3 at some shops, while from $4 to $5 gets an excellent shirt of that variety.

The white collar men on meager salaries have seen a drop in their favorite panama. There are no more thirty cent collars, and some dealers in order to attract trade are even offering such neckgear at two for a quarter. In men's wear there may be seen some very good silken scarfs at from $1 to $11.50 each.

Men's clothing of all kinds is practically as high in price as last year, despite the determined efforts being made to keep down the prices. Many dealers are doing business on a very scant margin in view of the wavering reluctance which have been shown. In this connection, an advertisement by a well known firm of clothing dealers printed in THE NEW YORK HERALD is illuminating. It sets forth that material represents approximately 26 per cent. of the cost of men's clothing and labor 49 per cent. Thus in these two items is absorbed 75 per cent. of the cost. Other items, such as rent and taxes, are charged, and the assertion is made that the actual profit to the clothing merchant comprises in only 5 per cent.

High Wages Felt Heavily.

If we were back in those halcyon days when the good wife went to the fullers and brought back her yards of cloth with which to make the good man a pair of brecks clothing might be somewhat cheaper. The quotations of the wholesale markets show that woollen cloths are now to be had at $4.50 the yard, as compared with the $6.25 of a year gone. The high wages paid to the tailors, especially to the piecepakers, keep up the prices, however, to the lofty level.

There are to be seen, however, suits at from $60 to $70 placed in front row position in leading popular priced clothing stores. Subdued shrinking modestly in the background are suits at $80 to $90 each. Men's suits with an extra pair of trousers are to be had anywhere from at from $32.50 to $150, according to the neighborhood in which they are purchased.

The retail garment dealers are holding forth alluring promises, however, of a general recession in the prices of apparel for men, and probably in the spring the man tribe will have some reason to recant from the resolution to buy no more new clothes and to hold to the simple faith of Gov. Coolidge.

The prices of men's hats are still holding their own, and in fact some of the very high grade makes are more than they were at this time last year. A well known brand of headgear now sold at retail at $10 could be had for $9 in 1919. Some derbolds are $1 higher. Hats of excellent quality, although not rejoicing in noted trademarks, can be had for $5 each. Taken all in all, the price of ordinary derbies and fedoras is about the same as it was twelve months ago.

In many of the large stores and specialty shops sales of women's wear at pre-war prices are advertised, which may be taken as symptomatic of a general decline.

There are many indications, however, that the retail marts are not yet alive to the high cost of living problem, which show that the descent in prices is actually under way and that it is likely before many months to accumulate an impetus which will be felt around the world. The high cost peak certainly seems to have been passed, if the action of two noted mail order houses in Chicago which sell all kinds of merchandise from a paper of needles to a force pump may be taken as an index.

Motor Trade in Line Now.

The reducing down of the Ford automobiles to pre-war prices and the reductions announced by other automobile makers are along the same lines. The official reports from the Labor Bureau in Washington and a report on business conditions made by the American as especially of six general trend. Reductions in eleven lines are announced on the report of an investigation made by the Federal Reserve Bank of the Philadelphia District, the list including such inconditional items as bituminous coal, shirts, hosiery and staple groceries.

Another ray of sunshine in the brightening situation is the report of the Merchants' Association that production is increasing throughout the country and that the laboring classes are recognizing that more output is necessary to the welfare of all.

A slight fallng off in wages is reported by the Massachusetts State Employment Bureau, with the exception of the wages of domestic servants. One of the inconsistencies of the present situation is the plight man of ordinary means the employer must feed and lodge at the high rates now prevailing and at the same time increase wages, just as though they were affected by the enhanced cost of living.

The wages of servants of all classes are about 50 per cent. higher than they were, responsive largely to that unextinguishable law of supply and demand. The average householder who is so lucky as to have "domestic assistants" has to pay fully 50 per cent. more for that distinction than he did in the autumn of 1919. With increased immigration it may be that cooks, waitresses and chambermaids may be brought wages within the reach of persons of moderate means.

Taken all in all, there are many signs which point to the readjustment which is bound to come, in the opinion of experts who have studied this matter. There will probably be several other more or less sensational drops, just as there were when this nation was recovering from that great cataclysm of the War of the Rebellion. As Secretary of the Treasury Houston has said, stable prices may not be reached for several years, and yet the movements in the markets of the country which have already taken place are of the this point of view that have significance.