British and American Motion Picture Wage Rates Compared

Abstract

British food prices to more than 60 per cent of American), rents for housing accommodation of equivalent quality are controlled at levels of 40 to 50 per cent of American rents, British massproduced clothing (of a quality relatively superior to that of American mass-produced clothing) costs about 85 per cent of American prices, and such consumer services as haircuts are 20 per cent of American prices, clothes cleaning and laundering 40 per cent, shoe mending 50 per cent, motion picture admission 50 to 60 per cent, spectator sports admission 20 to 30 per cent of American prices. In contrast, all luxuries (with such few exceptions as leather goods and television sets) are higher-priced in Britain than in America at the exchange rate l? = $4. This distinction between prices of luxuries and necessities may be illustrated by two extremes. Under British rationing laws, each individual can spend only 20 cents a week on meat, which will nevertheless buy him meat enough to equal two average American meat meals of good quality. On the other hand, cars being a luxury in Britain, an automobile of a size, weight, and orsepower that would cost $2,000 in the United States would cost $6,ooo in Britain, even though it would consume gasoline at a rate which would permit only 50 miles of travel per month at current ration levels of gasoline for pleasure use. Finally, the British motion picture worker's family bears a tax burden approximately twice as heavy as that borne by the Hollywood motion picture worker's family, in return for a considerably greater volume of free social services. It is not so likely that the mother of the British family will be working to augment the family income. T e second distinction between the