Farm-Operator Family Level-of-Living Indexes for Counties of the United States, 1930, 1940, 1945, and 1950

Margaret Jarman Hagood

No 335396, Miscellaneous Publications from United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service

Abstract: Excerpts from the report: In 1950, the average level of living of farm-operator families in the United States was 22 percent above the level in 1945, according to county indexes compiled by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics. With 1945 used as a base of 100, the average county in the United States had an index of 75 in 1930, of 79 in 1940, and of 122 in 1950. Between 1940 and 1950, the increase in this measure of level of living of farm-operator families was 54 percent. County data from the last Census of Agriculture have been used to construct indexes for 1950, and similar data were used from an earlier census to compute indexes for 1930 that have not previously been published. The items on which these farm-operator family level-of-living indexes are based are the following: (1) Percentage of farms with electricity; (2) percentage of farms with telephones; (3) percentage of farms with automobiles; and (4) average value of products sold or traded in the year preceding the census (adjusted for changes in purchasing power of the farmer's dollar). Data on these items from the Censuses of Agriculture were combined into indexes by methods explained in the Appendix of this report.

Keywords: Community/Rural/Urban Development; Consumer/Household Economics; Labor and Human Capital; Research Methods/Statistical Methods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 88
Date: 1952-05
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:uersmp:335396

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.335396

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