existence and life with the opportunities for self-improvement that should
belong to a human being.

It will be of value, then, to note some of the facts about wages that have
appeared in recent surveys made by the Consumers' League of Oregon, by the
State of Massachusetts, and by the Federal Government. After showing that
the minimum cost of living for a self-supporting woman in Portland is $10
a week, the Oregon Survey shows that in the nine principal occupations
employing women in Portland, from 22 to 92 per cent are receiving less
than $10 a week. The table is as follows:--

Occupations Per cent
under $10

Department stores 58.2
Factories 74.7
Hotels and restaurants 49.2
Laundries 92.6
Offices (clerks) 46.4
Offices (stenographers) 22.4
Printing-shops 56.1
Telephone exchanges 50.
Miscellaneous 48.7

Another table shows that in five different employments,--laundries,
factories, offices, department stores, and miscellaneous employment,--out
of 509 women all but 31 (office workers) close the year with a deficit.[8]

A significant point is that among all but factory workers the excess of
expenditures over incomes is greatest among those who live at home. This
disproves the statement often made that those who live at home do not need
a living wage. In conclusion, the _Report_ of the Oregon Survey says: "The
investigation has proved beyond a doubt that a large majority of
self-supporting women in the State are earning less than it costs them to
live decently; that many are receiving subsidiary help from their homes,
which thus contribute to the profits of their employers; that those who do
not receive help from relatives are breaking down in health from lack of
proper nourishing food and comfortable lodging quarters, or are
supplementing their wages by money received from immoral living."[9]

The Massachusetts Commission on Minimum Wage Boards reports even lower
standards in wages for women. Among wage-earning girls and women over 18
years of age, 93 per cent of the candy-workers, 60 per cent of the workers
in retail stores, and 75 per cent of laundry-women receive less than $8 a
week.[10] In the cotton textile industry, among the 8021 women over 18
years of age whose wages were investigated, 38 per cent received less than
$6 a week.[11] Among the individual stories that are buried