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 - 4. Budget Items - 5. Food Consumption
<< 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.
Chapter 1 6. Income, Consumption and Housing 371
$253 for the same purpose, we get some Idea about the tremendous health
needs in the low-income Negro population. It has been estimated that
adequate medical and dental care, when purchased on a group basis, can
be had for about $25 per person per year and for about $100 for a family
of four.^® The corresponding minimum cost for Negroes, usually buying
such services on an individual basis and suffering from much more illness
than the white population is, of course, much higher; it may well run into
several hundreds of dollars per family per year. The effect of poverty, in
the absence of cooperative organizations and of adequate public health
provisions, means that most Negro and white low income families fail to
get nearly as much medical care as they need. In addition, some families
may have their finances completely upset when hit by severe disease or
physical accidents requiring extensive medical care. There were some Negro
and white families in Atlanta with incomes under $i,000, who had to spend
$100 to $200, or even more, for medical care during the year 1935-1936.^®
Expenses for recreation and tobacco were quite small for Negro families
in the average Negro income brackets.^^ The difference in standard was even
greater than the figures indicate, since Neg\oes had much less access than
did whites to free public recreational facilities, like parks, libraries and so
on.®
One gets the same impression whatever part of the family budget one
takes up for closer inspection. The effects of Negro poverty are apparent
everywhere. In order to avoid too much detail we must concentrate our
attention on the two main items: food and housing. Those are the items for
which one would expect the racial differences in standard to be least pro-
nounced. For low income people generally spend a larger part of their
budgets on these basic necessities than do more well-to-do families; and for
this reason, the percentage of the,total Negro income used for buying food
and housing is higher than is the corresponding percentage of the white
income. Yet we shall find enormous racial differentials in standards even in
respect to these items.
5. Food Consumption
Dietary conditions are crucial. The progress of the science of nutrition
during the last few decades has made us understand that there is a large
difference between barely avoiding starvation and enjoying a real “health
diet.” We have in this case a more objective basis for formulating the
requirements for a minimum standard of living than we can find in regard
to any other major item of consumption.
It goes without saying that there are huge differences between the diets
of Negro and of white families. In the main, they depend on the obvious
fact that Negroes are so much poorer than whites. In addition, however,
• Sec Chapter 1 5, Section 5.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
