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Postmans salary9/1/2023 Our cost-of-living index is based upon 308 complete returns made between, I think, the 10th June, 1922, and 4th August, 1922. Remember that index, moreover, is based upon an entirely inadequate number of returns, as I showed last night. In this country we have only one cost-of-living index. In Belgium five series of cost-of-living numbers are applied to corresponding classes in the community, and in Switzerland there are three. This fact receives attention in some countries. The very fact that there is this extreme variation between the expenditures, not only, as I have said, between the several classes of the community in regard to one particular group, but also even for individuals within the same class, makes it impossible to construct a cost-of-living index for the country as a whole which, at the moment, will indicate with reasonable accuracy the change in the cost of maintaining the standard of living in any other section of the community except that in which the primary data to calculate the index have been originally secured. of the total household expenditure where the income is £3 and under, and rises to 19.5 per cent. According to our classification here sundries include soap, pipe tobacco, cigarettes and miscellaneous items. Where the income is £6 and upwards expenditure upon rent rises to 12.4 per cent. In the case of rent in households where the income is under £3, the proportion of the expenditure ascribed to rent is 5.3 per cent. of the expenditure is upon clothing, but where the income is £6 a week and over, the proportion of the expenditure upon that item rises to 17.7 per cent. For instance, in a household where the income is £3 and under, 15 per cent. The converse of this is true with regard to rent and certain other groups of commodities upon which our cost-of-living index is based. I have shown that as the income increases within a household the proportion which is spent upon food tends to decline. of the expenditure is made upon commodities within that group. of the expenditure is represented by the purchase of food, whereas in households where the income is under £3, 61 per cent. In a household where the income is £6 and upwards 41 per cent. Where the income is £5 it falls to 48, and where the income is £6 and upwards it falls to 41.4, upon food. Where the income is £3 that percentage decreases to 60.4. For instance, in a household where the income is under £3, we find that 61 per cent. We find that exemplified in the report of the Cost of Living Committee itself. The practical difficulty of maintaining the representative character of a cost-of-living index is very great, being due to the fact that the consumption relative to the aggregate consumption of the several commodities is not the same for all sections or classes within the community, and indeed is not the same for all individuals within a class. In general, I pointed out that over a period a cost-of-living index is reliable only so far as the commodities and the quantities upon which the index is based remain truly representative of the actual consumption of the class of the community to which the index is to apply. I also stated that the value of the index depends on the quantity of the articles actually consumed as well as on the prices of the articles, and that any change in the quality or quantity of the articles destroys the accuracy in the cost-of-living index as a reflex of actual living conditions. I showed that the standard of living selected as a norm might be lessened quite arbitrarily, that it might have no relation whatsoever to the actual living conditions of any section of the people, that the value of the index depends upon the degree to which the price movement of each group correctly represents the price movements of the group covered by the index as a whole. When the debate adjourned last night, I was discussing the factors which determined the accuracy or otherwise of the cost-of-living index as an indicator of the relative variations in the cost of maintaining a certain standard of living. Appearing before an Oireachtas committee.
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