Table No. 1, showing the retail prices quoted for the entire bill of supplies, is so arranged as to indicate its comparative costliness by localities, the lowest priced city, town, or village appearing first on the table and the others following in the order in which the advance in price over the lowest is shown, the highest being as a matter of course, the last place named on the table.

Sixty-six localities representing all parts of the State, are represented in this table, and the prices quoted for the bill of goods range from $10.915 at Califon, Hunterdon County, the lowest, to $17.356 at Rutherford, Bergen County, the highest. Next to Califon in lowness of prices comes Glen Gardner, Hunterdon; Allenwood, Monmouth; and Jersey City, Hudson, with prices quoted that range from $12.579, to $12.997. In ten municipalities the prices at which the entire bill of goods may be purchased, range from $13.035 to $13.985. In thirty-one municipalities, or nearly 50 per cent. of the total number represented on the table, the prices range from $14.017 to $14.980; in seventeen, the range of prices is from $15.00 even to $15.998; in three others, the range is from $16.089 to $16.920, and in one municipality alone, Rutherford, the price is more than $17.00 ($17.356).

The average cost of the bill of goods for the entire State is shown by the table to be $14.660. In 1911, the average was $13.743, an increase of $0.917, or 6.7 per cent. is therefore shown in the cost of the bill in 1912, as compared with the average for 1911.

In presenting these totals, it was found necessary to use small decimals to show the slight variations in the prices so far as the fractional part of the dollar was concerned. An examination of the table will show that, generally speaking, prices are lowest in the smaller country towns and highest in the most select residential communities. This can be explained in great part, if not entirely by the difference in store rent, salaries of clerks, store fittings, delivery, and other expenses incidental to store management, which are, as a matter of course always very much greater in the large cities and towns. In these places dealers handle groceries alone, while in the country store all kinds of goods are usually sold in addition to food supplies, and there is therefore a much wider range of merchandise from which the profits of the business may be drawn.

Table No. 2 shows the average prices throughout the State for each of the fifty articles contained in the bill, these being placed in comparison with the average prices which prevailed in 1911. Of the entire list of fifty articles, thirty-eight show increases, and twelve decreases of prices in 1912, compared with 1911. The greatest increase is in the price of "old potatoes," which, in 1911, averaged $0.898 per bushel, and in 1912, $1.387 per bushel, an advance of $0.489, or more than 54 per cent. This increase was offset to some extent by a reduction of $0.263 in the price of "new potatoes." Flour per 25 lb. bag, first and second qualities, shows an advance of $0.c68 and $0.063 re-. spectively. The various cuts of beef show increases ranging between two and three cents per pound, and pork, mutton and lamb, show smaller increases. The average prices of meats are not as high as they are said to be in offhand discussions of the increase in the cost of living. The prices quoted for "sirloin steak" averages 25.5 cents, "round steak," 22 cents, and "rib roast," 20.7 cents per pound, and "bacon" shows an actual reduction of six-tenths of a cent per pound below the average for 1911. The net increase in average prices is, as pointed out in the review of Table No. 1, $0.917, or 6.6 per cent. In 1911, the average yearly earnings of the approximately 350,000 operatives, including men, women and young persons of both sexes employed in manufacturing industry throughout the State, skilled and unskilled, was $531.94. In 1912, the average earnings were $544.30, an increase of $12.36, or 2.3 per cent. So far as food supplies are concerned therefore, the earnings of factory and workshop employes show a net falling off in purchasing power of 4.4 per cent. in 1911, as compared with 1910.

Table No. 3 shows in comparison the cost of practically the same bill of goods in 1898 and in 1912. The only material difference in the list and that presented in Tables No. 1 and 2, is that the price of flour per barrel instead of per twenty-five pound bag is used in the comparisons, and number of articles compared is reduced to forty-three, seven articles not in the bill of 1898 having been dropped so as to leave the list exactly the same for both years. In considering flour, the substitution of barrels for twenty-five pound bags as the basis of quantity in the comparison, necessarily produces a large increase in the total cost of the bill for both years.

In 1898, the list of forty-three articles showed a total cost of $16.901; in 1912, the price at which the same goods may be purchased is, as shown by the table, $22.708; the increase that has taken place during the past fourteen years in the bill of goods in therefore $5.807, or 34.36 per cent,. which is an average of 2.45 per cent. for each of these years. Of the forty-three articles included in the comparison only five show slight decreases in 1912 as compared with 1898; these are: Oatmeal in package, java coffee, and the three varieties of tea— black, green and mixed. All others show increases. Flour, first quality, shows an increase of 41.15 per cent.; second quality, 46.67 per cent.; butter per pound, 81.06 per cent. The highest percentages of increase are shown by the several varieties and cuts of meat-beef, pork and mutton. The advance in bacon is 74.38 per cent.; fresh pork, 67.86 per cent.; ham, 53.78 per cent.; beef-corned brisket, 60.00 per cent.; corned round, 49.17 per cent.; sirloin steaks and round steaks, 36.36 and 44.74 per cent. respectively, and ribs of roast beef, 32.69 per cent.

Of the 38 articles showing an increase, 8 have advanced less than ten per cent.; six show increases of over ten, but under twenty per cent.; five show increases ranging from twenty to forty per cent.; six show increases of over forty, but under sixty per cent.; and thirteen are in the class showing advances ranging upward from sixty to the highest-eighty-one per cent.

It would be impossible to make a reasonably accurate estimate of just what the percentage of increase has been in the outlay per family for food supplies, from any deductions drawn from the figures shown by the table. The entire bill of goods is, it is true, 34.36 per cent. higher than it could have been purchased for fourteen years ago, but it should be borne in mind that the abnormally great increase in the prices of a comparatively small number of articles contained in the bill is responsible for producing the high average increase shown by the table. A definite knowledge of how far the increase of prices has affected incomes can be arrived at only by ascertaining to what extent families have turned to the use of the lower priced cuts of meat and other varieties of foods as substitutes for those showing the greatest increases.

With regard to how far wages or earnings have responded to the upward movement of prices, we find that as shown by the

"Statistics of Manufactures of New Jersey," the average yearly earnings of all classes of labor, skilled and unskilled, men, women and minors, employed in the factories and workshops of New Jersey in 1910, was, as stated above, $531.94; in 1911, the average for these same employes as shown by the same authority is $544.30; the increase for the year is therefore, nearly 2.3 per cent., while the increase in the bill of food supplies for the same time is 6.6 per cent., which leaves the purchasing power of incomes, earnings and wages, in factory and workshop industries, just 4.3 per cent. lower than it was in 1910.

Since 1898, a period of fourteen years, the average annual earnings of factory and workshop employes in New Jersey have advanced 24.5 per cent., which falls 9.8 per cent. short of offsetting the increase in prices.

TABLE No. 1.

The Cost of Living in New Jersey-Total Cost of the Entire List of Articles in the Various Cities and Towns of the State.