Note:
Gunnar Myrdal died in 1987, less than 70 years ago.
Therefore, this work is protected by copyright,
restricting your legal rights to reproduce it.
However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now.
Read more about copyright.
Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 16. Income, Consumption and Housing - 3. The Family Budget - 4. Budget Items
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
370 An American Dilemma
help} more often do they bake their own bread rather than buy it} less often
do they purchase processed foods. They have fewer cars, washing machines,
and vacuum cleaners than have white families in similar economic circum-
stances—^partly, perhaps, because it is more difficult for them to obtain
installment credit. Most of these things mean that there is more work for
Negro women to do in their own homes. Yet they take on gainful work,
outside their homes, to a much greater extent than do white women.^*
It should be mentioned, too, in this context, that expenditures for sup-
port of relatives and friends are higher among Negroes than they are among
whites even at given income levels.^® The explanation of this is simple
enough. A Negro with an income of, say, $8oo is much more likely than
a white person with the same earning power to have relatives who are still
worse off.
Also it seems that urban Negroes allocate a somewhat smaller fart of their
total expenditure to basic necessitiesy such as food and sometimes housingy^
and a greater part of it for clothingy personal carCy and certain miscellaneous
itemsy such as tobacco, recreation, reading, medical care, than do white
families with similar incomes (Table 2). This may possibly be due, to some
extent, to poor spending habits.®* There does not seem to be any significant
difference of this kind in rural areas, however. It must be emphasized,
further, that the absolute amounts that most Negro families can spend on
thin^ other than basic necessities are extremely small.®® Most Negro
families are much too poor to develop into real spendthrifts.
4. Budget Items
This becomes even more apparent when the detailed data for various con-
sumption items are inspected. Let us consider clothing. The absolute amount
spent by nonrelief Negro families in Atlanta with an income of less than
$500 was only $24. Those in the income group $500-$999 spent $72, which
was exactly the same amount as that expended by white families of equal
economic status. These two income groups, together with the relief families,
included more than four-fifths of all “normal” Negro families in Atlanta,
whereas almost three-fourths of the white families had incomes above this
limit. At successive income levels, Negro outlays for clothing showed a
somewhat more rapid increase than did corresponding expenditures in
white families.®® Much more important is the fact that clothing expenditures
are so restricted in these income groups in which most Negroes are con-
centrated.®^
Expenses for medical care for Atlanta Negro families with incomes under
$500 averaged $19. For the group $500-$999 the amount was $42. When
we know that white families having incomes of $3,000 and more, although
afficted by sickness to a much lesser extent,* spent an average amount of
See Chapter 7, Section 5, and Chapter 15, Section 4.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
