The passage of minimum wage legislation in 1950 led to one of the odder chapters in the history of French bureaucratic committees. Paul Bacon, Minister of Labor, convened a High Commission on Collective Bargaining in April of that year to measure a model worker’s budget. Over thirty members strong, the meeting assembled major leaders of all three unions, representatives of large and small employers, artisans, managers, family associations and a number of state bureaucrats. Over the following two months, these men hashed out the principles and the practice of a new republican minimum standard of living. No point proved too fine for debate, from theoretical reflections on science and measurement to the durability of underwear.The minimum wage commission appears an exemplary moment in postwar French consumer society. First, it enacted a political contest between unions and employers, mediated by the state and family associations. Second, as it called upon expert testimony, the commission participated in the emergence of an empirical, policy-oriented postwar social science. Third, the commission’s work reflected French citizens’ everyday struggle to reconcile scarce resources and expanding consumer desires