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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 16. Income, Consumption and Housing - 2. Income and Family Size - 3. The Family Budget
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Chapter 1 6. Income, Consumption and Housing 367
than in white families that the arrival of children forces the level of living
below any minimum health standard—^that is, when it was not already below
such a standard even before the children arrived.
If family income fails to increase with the number of minors in the
family, it does increase somewhat, on the other hand, with the number of
adult family members. This is so for two reasons. First, families in which
one or more of the children have reached mature age are likely to have a
family head who is in his more ^^productive” age. This factor, however,
is much less significant for Negro than for white families. The average
earnings of the husbands varied more with age in white than they did in
Negro families^^ which is quite understandable in view of the fact that
Negroes have slim chances of being promoted, or even of getting ‘^steadier”
jobs, as they become more experienced.®
The second reason why income tends to increase with the number of
adult members in the family is, of course, that, on the average, there are
more supplementary earners in the family when it is large. This is particu-
larly true about Negro families. Their greater poverty forces family mem-
bers out on the labor market much more often than happens in white
families.^^
3. The Family Budget
The Negro is generally believed to be an inefficient consumer. The truth
of the matter is that, with few exceptions, we are all more or less bad
consumers, regardless of our income and the color of our skin. However,
when poor people use their income in a reckless manner, it is, of course,
particularly harmful. We have a strong reason, then, to plan educational
measures in order to ameliorate the situation, and such educational measures
may well become a significant complement to other social welfare efforts.
But the need for them should never be used as a moral excuse for not
doing anything about poverty itself.
Most Negroes have little education. We cannot expect them to know
more about a balanced diet than do the rest of us. Their incomes are not
only low but also insecure, which, of course, tends to make budgeting and
planning very discouraging. Many of them work in hotels and restaurants
where white people do not always display habits of thrift. In the urban
areas there are many children of Negro migrants from the rural South who
do not believe that their parents can teach them how to organize one’s
life in a city. In the slums to which they are confined they do not see much
prosperity based on thoughtful economic planning, but they may listen to
poolroom tales about somebody’s making easy money in the numbers
“See Chapter 13, Section 9, where it is pointed out that unemployment risks of Negro
workers show a much less pronounced tendency to decrease with age and experience than do
the unemployment risks of white workers.
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