Spending of Middle-Income Families: Incomes and Expenditures of Salaried Workers in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1950Most previous investigations of family expenditures have dealt either with families of wage earners or with all families without differentiation. This Heller Committee study centers on white-collar families in which the chief breadwinners were employed in salaried occupations with earnings between $4800 and $7500--a group about whose spending habits little has previously been known. The author analyzes the expenditures of 159 San Francisco Bay Area families. The reader will find not only the sums spent for each general category of expenditure but also the kinds of goods purchased; for example, information is included on ownership and rental of homes, purchase of new and second-hand automobiles, and types of household equipment purchased. Similar details will be found for each category of expenditure, and for the use of installment purchasing. In addition, non-consumption expenditures, mainly provisions for insurance and retirement, are set forth in considerable detail. The study also includes a comparison of the economic behavior of these middle-income families with that revealed in a 1950 Bureau of Labor Statistics Bay Area survey of families with lower incomes. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1957. |
Contents
Scope and Method | 1 |
Summary | 12 |
Family Characteristics and Income | 26 |
Expenditures for Food and Alcoholic Beverages | 43 |
Expenditures for Housing | 52 |
Expenditures for Household Operation | 65 |
Expenditures for Housefurnishings | 71 |
Expenditures for Clothing | 78 |
Expenditures for Medical and Dental Care | 105 |
Expenditures for Personal Care | 134 |
Expenditures for Recreation | 141 |
Expenditures for Education Reading Tobacco and Miscellaneous Items | 146 |
Nonconsumption Expenditures | 150 |
Installment Buying | 159 |
Changes in Assets and Liabilities | 166 |
Expenditures for Transportation | 91 |
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Common terms and phrases
159 families alcoholic beverages amount spent assets and/or automobiles average cost average expenditure average family bills Bureau of Labor cars cash cent Number cent of total cent reporting expenditures cent spent clothing purchases Committee study Consumer Finances coverage current consumption debts decreases deficit dental care expendi expenditures for food expenses fami families Mean families received Families reporting expenditures Families reporting Mean families spent less families with incomes family expenditures family income family members full-year owners gifts girls home owners hospital housefurnishings household operation housing husbands income before taxes Income class increase in assets installment credit Labor Statistics less than $100 Mean Median Range memberships miscellaneous money income mortgage nonconsumption nonhospital nonmoney income Number of families Number Per cent paid payments penditures personal insurance premiums prepayment plans rent sample spent an average sums spent surplus TABLE total consumption expenditures total expenditures transportation tures Type of Expenditure wives