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Show THE COST OF LIVING. The car employes of Chicago, in requesting an advance in wages, have presented a comparative table of tha cost of living, in which figures fig-ures are produced to prove that the advance in wages has not kept pace with the increasing cost of the necessaries of life. A bulletin from the United Slates bureau of labor gave the retail prices of food in this country from 1S90 to June of this year. Tho lowest prices were in 1SD6, and the highest in May, 1012. There had been an advance in foodstutfs of 54.G per cent. Some of the prices paid in the Chicago market for foodstuffs in August, 1912, in comparison with the cost of similar articles in August, Au-gust, 1909, follow: -- -'. "" .nlBATS. Aug., '09. Aug., '12.( Round steak, a pound : 141&6 '220'" "' 'J Flank steak, a' pound 12c 20c "Roast beef, a pound 12lGc 22c Short ribs of beef, a pound 9(5)1 0c 12y2Mc Chuck steak, a pound 1 21.C 1 6lSc Veal Roast 16lSc lS22c GROCERIES. Aug-., '09. Aug., '12. Flour, half barrel $2.80 $3.00 Cornmeal, a pound 2Vic 3c Potatoes, a bushel 75c oc Eggs, a dozen ISc 30c Butter, a pound 27c 33c The government report takes fifteen articles which, it states, rep-sen rep-sen ts approximately two-thirds of the expenditure for food of the average workman's family. Fourteen of the fifteen articles, it sets forth, were higher in price on June 15, 1912, than on June 15, 1911. The percentage of increase varies from 2A for milk to 18.6 for round steak. Nine of the fifteen articles advanced more than 10 per cent during the year. Figures obtained from a wholesale establishment in Rochester, X. Y., shows that out of a list of 225 items in canned goods 143 have advanced, 67 remained stationary, and 11 have decreased since August, Au-gust, 1909. No wonder that the problem of the cost of living comes home to all of us who are not rich, and that the housewives of Ogden, through the Woman's Department of the Standard, arc studying the question in all its details. |