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By this time men who were on wages that had been satisfactory before, by 1940 and '41, when employment in the so-called defense industries had begun, were beginning to scream that the old lady couldn't make ends meet on their wages because the cost of living had gone up so. It was true that when the wages were fairly low slight changes, even in the food supply, would make a considerable pinch in the utilization of the family budget. Of course, they now also had high defense wages and could buy things they had never afforded before. Also more people had wages. Wages really hadn't yet gone to their high peaks. That came later. The wages had gone up a little, but only a little really in '40 and '41. But more people, many, many more people, were earning money. The boys in the family had gone to work, and the girls in the family had gone to work. Mama had gone out and gotten a jobs as the demand for labor increased. So there was more money in the family. They then wanted to buy things like beefsteak, a car, electric toasters, household equipment. They wanted to buy what I would call luxury food—that is, beefsteak. That apparently had always been their ambition, but they couldn't afford it. Now there was money and they could buy it. So it was really true that the buying habits took a splurge because everybody now had some money.