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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 16. Income, Consumption and Housing - 3. The Family Budget
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368 An American Dilemma
racket. They, just like white youth in similar circumstances, may too easily
be taken in by shallow values. Conspicuous consumption is one of them.
The answer to such conditions, of course, is more education, better housing,
increased economic security—not moral indignation.
Every observer knows that there is some conspicuous consumption and
reckless spending even among poor Negroes. It is not possible to say, how-
ever, whether there is more or less of it than there is among whites of equal
economic and social status. There are studies made on the subject, of course.
By far the best one is the Consumer Purchases Study for 1935-1936. The
Information on expenditures, however, is limited to nonrelief families,
which means that it is less representative for Negroes than for whites.^®
It is limited, furthermore, to such households from which it was possible to
obtain information concerning their expenditures for an entire year. In
spite of all commendable efforts to contact different sorts of families, and
the extensive use of field-workers, we cannot assume that anything near
the right proportion of the bad consumers were included in the study;
for they generally are much less likely to give reliable information about
their expenditures during a whole year than are others. Despite such limita-
tions of the Consumer Purchases Study, it is the best of its kind in the world
and can be used to understand all sorts of problems connected with income
and consumption.
One result of the study seems especially surprising. Negroes consistently
balance their budgets better than do whites in the same income groups. In
the low Income groups where expenditures usually exceed the income, the
average deficits are smaller for Negroes than they are for whites. In the
middle income groups (there are too few Negroes in the higher brackets to
be considered) the average surpluses are higher for Negroes than they
are for whites. It goes without saying, of course, that when all income
groups are combined, Negroes have much smaller surpluses—or higher
deficits—than have whites, but that is just an effect of the greater Negro
poverty. In comparable cases Negroes almost always seem to be the more
careful budgeters}^
These findings are, perhaps, not as unreasonable as they may appear at
first sight. There may be several explanations of the phenomenon. Negroes
may have greater difficulties in obtaining credit. The lower and lower-
middle income groups may include a greater number of whites than of
Negroes who have ^^seen better days” and have not yet become adjusted to
their present condition; or who anticipate improved conditions and, tor
that reason, spend more than they happen to earn at the moment. Negroes,
to a greater extent, can be expected to be ‘‘adjusted” to their low incomes
and, 0/ course, they usually have no economic raises to look forward to.
Finally, because of the general limitations in the opportunities for Negroes,
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