Cheap at 3,600 Times the Price

On dollar-a-year men, Congress discovered last week, it is not the cost but the upkeep that counts. Each of them, on the average, said WPB, costs $3,600 a year in expenses and travel allowances.

Dollar-a-year men get $10 subsistence allowance for every day spent in Washington or on official trips, plus first-class travel allowances (parlor car or lower berth). At that, they are a bargain. Most of them spend about $20 a day to live with their wives in crowded Washington. When they go home for weekends, they pay their own expenses and lose their $10-a-day allowance. During all trips away from the capital they also have to go on paying hotel rent—or find their room taken by others when they return.