National Affairs: Working Girls' Lingerie

The fastest flip-flop ever executed by the Supreme Court was on the constitutionality of State minimum wage laws for women. In invalidating New York State's minimum wage law in June 1936, it created a legal "no man's land" from which both State and Federal legislation was barred. In March 1937, the Court adroitly reversed itself, to uphold an analogous Washington statute.

One of the results of that decision was a renewed drive for wage laws based on "adequate maintenance" standards as well as "value of service" and "prevailing wages." Of 22 States having minimum wage laws on their books all but six now take into account standards of living in fixing wages. Most of them have set up boards or committees whose duties include discovering how little a working girl can decently live on.

A committee set up under the District of Columbia's Wage Board, having pondered budgets for salesgirls submitted by employers ($14.50 per week) and employes ($21.50 per week), finally compromised on $17. Last week the New York State Labor Department, which devises its own working-girl budgets, arrived at the figure of $23.30 per week for a woman living alone. For a girl living at home the estimate was $20.70. This was of course pure theory, since the New York laundry industry for which the budget was prepared pays its female help as low as $6 per week and an average of $13. The board would be quickly put through the wringer if it attempted at one stroke to double any industry's wage scale.

As sociological documents, however, the two budgets presented a significant study in U. S. living standards. Comparative items:

New York D. C.

Stockings 20 (pairs) 24 (pairs)

Nightgowns 3 4

Brassieres 3 4

Dresses 8 7

Total clothes

budget $196.81 $149.38

Other items:

New York. Approximately one movie a week; one dry cleaning yearly for each of two coats and twelve for dresses; four tooth brushes; eight haircuts; six finger waves; three permanents in two years; eight visits to swimming pools; 36 visits to bowling alleys; "candy, sodas, cigarets" 30¢ per week.

Washington. For room & board, $8.75 a week; for lunches, $1.25; for clothing, $2.87; and $4.13 for everything else, including such things as health, recreation, transportation, personal care, savings & insurance, church & charity. Some annual clothing items: three hats at $1.95, one at $2.95; three sweaters at $1.69; three handbags at $1; one $3.95 raincoat every three years; one heavy coat ($29.50), one light coat ($16.95) every two years; four slips fit $1.69; two girdles at $3.95; one scarf at $1; two collar-&-cuff sets at 59¢; six bloomers and panties at 59¢; two pairs of shoes at $5, two at $4; two "dress-up" dresses, one at $5.95, one at $7.95.