e contained in one of the reports of the
Minimum Wage Board of the District of Columbia. "... Cost of living is
such an unstandardized subject that a mathematically accurate
determination is impossible. In each conference there are as many
different opinions as there are members. In general, the employers want
a wage sufficient to maintain existing standards of living in the
industry, while the employees contend that the standard of living should
be improved. The wage finally agreed upon is not a scientific
determination based solely on facts, but rather a compromise of opinion
between the two groups, modified as it may be, by the opinion of the
public."[117]

The reference contained in practically all definitions of the living
wage principle to the standards of a particular time and place assists
greatly in interpreting the principle into policy.[118] For this
reference is tantamount to saying that the standard of economic life
which shall be deemed to satisfy the principle, should be fixed
primarily by comparison with the standard of life of the wage earning
and middle classes in the community at the given time. This comparison
tends to govern the content of the living wage idea. It brings the
living wage determination into direct relation with--or makes it
relative to--the productive capacity of the industrial system at the
time and place in question. For a study of the standard of life of the
wage earners and the middle classes of the community is of great
assistance in indicating the standard of life to which it may be
possible to raise even the worst paid industrial groups, by those
adjustments in production and distribution which it is the object of a
living wage policy to produce. This essential relativity of the living
wage idea is well pointed out in a decision of Justice Brown of the
South Australian Industrial Court. "... The statutory definition of the
living wage is a wage adequate to meet the normal and reasonable needs
of the worker. In other words, the conception is ethical rather than
economic. The Court has not to determine the value of the services
rendered, but to determine what is necessary to meet normal and relative
needs. It should be obvious that in the interpretation of reasonable
needs the court cannot be wholly indifferent to the national income. The
reasonable needs of the worker in a community where national income is
high are greater than the reasonable needs of the worker in a community