Dr. CAMPBELL. They go in and pick up the wholesale prices and they give the wholesale prices-merely an indication.

Mr. ANFUSO. What about retail?

Dr. CAMPBELL. In the retail stores.

Mrs. PRYOR. These are retail prices in this list.

Dr. CAMPBELL. This is the Daily Guide.

Mr. ANFUSO. The Daily Guide?

Mrs. PRYOR. This is the Daily Guide.

Mr. ANFUSO. This is a Daily Guide put out by the Department of Markets of the City of New York, Bureau of Consumers' Service. Is this published in any newspapers?

Mrs. PERSINGER. Some of the columns use it. A number of the newspapers have food columns. You can always find out if you

wanted to what is a food buy for that day.

Mr. ANFUSO. Do you think more of this should be done? Do you think that this should be done in a form of an attractive ad in the newspapers?

Mrs. PRYOR. Yes.

Mr. ANFUSO. We will take this for the record if you don't mind. (The statement referred to is as follows:)

[From Department of Markets, City of New York, Bureau of Consumers' Service and

Research]

WEEKLY RETAIL PRICE REPORT, NEW YORK CITY

FOR WEEK ENDED OCTOBER 3, 1957

Meat: Two popular beef cuts are lower in cost this week: Porterhouse and round steak are both 6 cents a pound lower than the previous week. Lower prices are also noted on sliced bacon. All other cuts are unchanged in most shops.

Poultry: All poultry prices remain at the general levels of a week ago. Butter: Butter production is keeping pace with demand and prices continue at the advanced levels of 2 weeks ago.

Milk Milk advanced one-half cent per quart during the week. Current prices are at record high-2 cents a quart higher than in October 1956.

Eggs: Large and medium grade A eggs advanced 2 cents a dozen, partly reflecting higher wholesale costs.

Fish: Yellow pike dropped sharply-30 cents a pound, whitefish and carp are also lower in cost as an aftermath of the heavy holiday demand for fresh-water fish last week.

In the salt-water category, scallops and shrimp show a downtrend while Boston mackerel registered a rise of 4 cents a pound.

Fruits and vegetables: Snap beans, cucumbers, eggplant, escarole, radishes, squash, and tomatoes show advances of 2 to 4 cents per unit of sale. On the other hand cauliflower and white and red cabbage are lower in cost.

In the fruit listings, advances are indicated on cantaloupes, table pears, and plums.

For good buys, listen to the department of markets' food guide program over station WNYC at 8:45 every morning from Monday through Friday and at guest time at 8: 40 every Tuesday morning over station WNYC.

All prices are based on good quality products.

Mrs. FRANCES FOLEY GANNON, Director. Mr. ANFUSO. The request has been made by the distinguished gentleman from Maine whether you ladies would join us this afternoon. Mr. McINTIRE. I am from the farm area so I am interested from a

producer standpoint. From a consumer standpoint, generally would their observation be that the quality of this produce is not satisfactory in relation to the price they have to pay for it, or that it is the price and not the quality which they may feel is out of line?

Mrs. PERSINGER. It depends. Sometimes it is one and sometimes it is the other. I really had to shop around to find a decent head of cabbage, for example, because it looked pretty bad.

I went to several stores just to see what the situation was. Sometimes your lettuce is awful and sometimes good.

Mrs. WERBELL. On the oranges I think we pay too much for the type of orange we are getting, 6 cents for the small ones and 8 cents for the large ones. I think that is rather a high price. I do not know what the farmer is really getting, but I do think it is high; and you get an odor from the skin of the oranges and it has to pass off after a day or two. They must use chemicals on them.

Mr. McINTIRE. The average housewife, is she familiar with the quality of that product, or is it the eye appeal?

Mrs. WERBELL. The eye appeal.

Mrs. PRYOR. I think the average housewife is conscious of quality, and I think that if you would like a suggestion of something that you could do, we would like to be able to distribute pamphlets and literature to the housewife that would make them alert as to the quality and prices. Ours is voluntary work. We cannot get out and do research and so forth.

We, certainly, could reach a thousand people through circulars if we had this material available, and we do have an educational program and need such material.

Mr. ANFUSO. Tht is why I asked you the question before.

Mr. McINTIRE. With the ability of the housewives to buy today they can get 55 percent more food, I mean, she can buy 55 percent more from weekly earnings than in 1937. Will she pick up a melon which I like to do, which has a desiccated spot in it because it is nice and soft and ripe, or will she pick up the hard one because she thinks it is nice and firm?

Mrs. WERBELL. I know she will not pick a hard one because she has to keep it a week or two in her home before she can use it. The merchant himself will advise her to do otherwise.

Mr. COOLEY. I should like to make one observation. I do not think anyone will deny that today, even when food prices are high, our wages will buy more and better food than ever before in all history. That indicates that wage scales or wages are apparently doing all right.

Mrs. WERBELL. Not in all departments?

Mr. COOLEY. I know. This was a blanket statement that an hour of wages will buy more and better food today than ever before in history. That is beside the fact that we could tell you about statistics, but still that leaves us with the problem that the cost of living is increasing constantly and the spread between the producer and the consumer is becoming wider and greater as the months come and go. What I would like to say, Mr. Chairman, is that I hope we have more merchants here this afternoon. I trust Mr. Fisher will be back because I think it has been very fine having these ladies testify and give us the information that they have about their problems, for that is what we will try to do something about.

Mr. ANFUSO. Thank you.

Mrs. PRYOR. Do you think it would be possible for a committee, such as yours, to work out a price chart so that the average housewife would be able to look at the chart and see what she should pay, for example, for meat, what do you call it, a graduated scale, 10 cents up to a dollar? So when she goes to the store to buy meat that is a dollar a pound, and buys three-quarters of a pound, could you work out such a scale to show how much she should pay for the three-quarters of a pound? That is the problem of the housewife. They can't figure and

the merchant gets a lot of them, gets the extra penny. She could then say "I ought to pay 80 cents for that, three-quarters of a pound"—or whatever it might be.

Mr. ANFUSO. I think you have made a very excellent suggestion but this is an educational body. However, we have administrative officials here who I am sure have noted your question.

I will ask our food friend, Mr. LeMay, who is quite an expert, and Dr. Wilcox to look into it. Thank you very much.

Mr. McINTIRE. I ask unanimous consent to have inserted in the record at this point a table showing indexes of weekly earnings of workers in various categories.

Mr. ANFUSO. Without objection that will be made a part of the record at this point.

(The table referred to is as follows:)

Indexes of weekly earnings of workers in manufacturing, retail food prices, and the farm value of foods in the market basket

NOTE.-Amount of food which could be purchased with a week's earnings in 1947 and 1957 as compared with 1937:

Mr. ANFUSO. We will now stand recessed until 2:30 o'clock this afternoon.

(Whereupon at 12:40 p. m., the above hearing was recessed, to reconvene at 2: 30 p. m., the same day.)

AFTERNOON SESSION

Mr. ANFUSO (presiding). The committee will come to order. This morning I failed to call upon a gentleman who was here and is here now-you will see his name on the program-Mr. Angelo De Lewis, from Wallkill, N. Y.

I want to tell you that Mr. De Lewis has some very interesting testimony to give. He testified before our committee in Syracuse. Mr. De Lewis, will you please come up?

Will you please tell us what you have in mind?