"This second standard being the lowest which scientists are willing to term an 'American standard of living,' it follows that nearly three quarters of the steel workers could not earn enough for an American standard of living.
"The bulk of unskilled labor earned less than enough for the average family's minimum subsistence; the bulk of semi-skilled labor earned less than enough for the average family’s minimum comfort." …
The minimum of subsistence level is the lowest level for mere animal well-being with little or no attention to the comforts or social demands of human beings. The minimum of comfort level allows for a "modest amount of recreation."
This Commission also found that:
"A comparison of common labor earnings in steel with common labor earnings in five other major industries in the Pittsburgh district for the latter part of 1919 on the basis of a common standard week showed steel labor the lowest of the six."
It is under such long hours and low pay—the Twelve-Hour Hell Shift System—that the powerful Trust magnates would have us believe the steel workers can have any but wretched living conditions and miserable family and social life.
Shocking Housing Conditions
This degradation of the steel workers was brought home to the Senate when it investigated the Steel Strike of 1919.
"Senator Sterling: Now, about the housing conditions, will you describe those?
"Father Kazinski: Well, two rooms as a rule, are the headquarters of the workers. The lower part is a kitchen and upstairs is the living room, if you can call it such, and the sleeping room for the family, and they have to sleep there. Sometimes they have boarders and sometimes there are four or five sleeping in a room.
"Senator Sterling: As a matter of fact, do many of them have less than four rooms?
"Father Kazinski: Yes; most of them have only two rooms."
And the Interchurch Report goes on to say:
"A dozen years ago the Pittsburgh Survey revealed conditions of housing which shocked public opinion and which Pittsburgh authorities state, have been improved practically not at all since then. It was impossible to conduct another such exhaustive housing survey in this investigation but sufficient observation was made to bear out the local statement, that housing was as bad as ever… The census takers found in Braddock, for example, that in this steel suburb of Pittsburgh 200 families were living in 61 houses; 35 boarders were in one house
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