The Effect of Infation on a Weekly Budget after the First Year of the War.

This is an interesting article from "The Great War a History" published “The Gresham Publishing Company” in 1916, which talks about the inflation rises in the first year of the war.

It is interesting how the writers thought that the poorer working-classes felt the effects of inflation less because they were used to lower quality and quanity in purchases!

The biggest inflation rise on a weekly item was fish which nearly had a 50% increase.

It was estimated that most families in 1915 spent approx £2 a week on their: food, clothing and utilities, which was about 75% of their total income.

"The Board of Trade for instance, called together an ad­visory committee of persons who influenced the wholesale prices of groceries. The committee met once a fortnight to recommend the prices to be adopted by the retailers, and the Board of Trade saw to it that these prices were fair and reasonable. Prices varied, of course, in different parts of the kingdom, but the follow­ing was a London housewife's weekly budget for July, 1915, which, without attempting completeness, may be ac­cepted as fairly representative of the increased cost of living among' the middle classes since the beginning of the war. It was the weekly budget of a middle-class family of' five people, including one small child, and the husband a professional man, whose income had, if anything decreased as a result of the war.

The cost, like that of the war itself, rose as the months slipped by, and the National Budget of September, 1915, still further increased the impost on sugar and tea, and raised the income tax all round. That, however, lies outside the scope of the present survey, which ends roughly with the first twelve months of the war. People learned in the hard school of experi­ence to practice economy by a slight lowering of the standard of living. When new-laid eggs, for example, rose to 3 ½ d. each most people were content to go without, and grumble less at the monotony of the breakfast rasher.

London's food prices were no worse than those in many other parts of the country. They were better, indeed, than some, though there were variations in different items everywhere.

In Manchester it was estimated that by the end of the first year of war the cost of living had risen by some 35 per cent. For many of the poorer classes this inevitably meant a reduction both in the quality and the quantity of the food consumed, but the working-classes as a whole probably felt the increased cost of living less than most people.

Wages rose proportionately as labour grew scarcer. Men and women worked day and night in countless numbers in the manufacture of war supplies of every description, earning more money by overtime and largely increased personal effort, as well as by some general rise in the rate of wages, than they had ever earned before. "