Page:Wages in US 1908-1910.djvu/21

Rh "but I don't suppose there are many families of five that are forced to live on so low a wage." The student ponders for a moment, and then replies, "Well, I really can't say. There is no study which shows what wages really are."

And so for a dozen pages, problem after problem might be stated, which, in the last analysis, depends for its solution upon an answer to that question,—"What are wages?"

Thus, an attempt to answer the question—"What are wages?", has led to this collection of material on "Wages in the United States." There are at least three directions in which such a study, if carefully made, would be of supreme importance,—first, in the discussion of wage theories; second, in the discussion of the cost of living; and, finally, in the problems arising out of the standard of living investigations. The constant demand for the facts in any one of these fields would justify their presentation in this work; the aggregate necessity of the three problems makes the presentation of the statistics of wages ultimately imperative. The development of the "wage system" has