women and girls were living
in lodging- or boarding-houses at an average cost of $5.18 a week for
prime necessities, leaving only $2.24 for clothing and all other expenses.
The following comment is made on this government report by the
Massachusetts Minimum Wage Commission:--

Although more than half the adrift women (in Boston) live in lodging-
or boarding-houses,--numbering be it remembered between 11,000 and
12,000 girls and women,--two thirds of them lack the use of a
sitting-room and must entertain men as well as women in their
bedrooms. Not a few indications were seen in the course of the
investigation of the demoralizing results of this practice. Many of
the young women in lodgings were young and were friendless and were
earning very low pay. Eighteen per cent of those who were reported
without the use of a sitting-room were under twenty-five. The housing
or food, or both, were reported as bad for a number of these
perilously defenceless young women.[16]

Consideration of wages and standards of living leads to the question, What
is a living wage? Studies in different parts of the country agree that it
is about $10 a week. An estimate made by social workers for the
Massachusetts Minimum Wage Commission places the minimum at $10.60 for
girls who are adrift, and $8.37 to $8.71 for girls and women living at
home. This estimate, however, made no allowance for unemployment,
sickness, accident, or old age.[17] The Portland Vice Commission and the
Consumers' League of Oregon have adopted a $10 minimum.[18] The first
conference called by the Oregon Industrial Welfare Commission adopted
$9.25 a week, or $40 per month, as "the sum required to maintain in frugal
but decent conditions of living a self-supporting woman employed in
mercantile establishments in Portland."[19] To this, however,
representatives of the employees on the conference made objection, stating
that a straight $10 a minimum was the only safe one.

If the minimum is rightly placed at $10, and if the investigations are
true in showing that the majority of self-supporting women the country
over are receiving less than this amount, we may now come to a more
detailed discussion as to the relation between underpayment and vice. It
is just here that it is easy to jump at conclusions. Most people approach
social questions not with a scientific mind, but with preconceptions which
mar their judgment. For example, the so