Earnings

“ Earnings is often used as exactly equivalent to wages, but may be used with reference to the real value of work done or service rendered, and even applied to inanimate things; as, the earnings of capital. ”

“ Your fellow-workers in the United States of America realized from their statistics a few years ago the awful fact that every time they produce eight dollars, they only get one dollar returned them as wages. Now I want them to keep that other seven dollars, and to devote it to building up their own capital and assisting to find wealth and employment for their fellows. And I want you to show them how to do it (applause) . I am going to ask you to club together your earnings to buy land and machinery and to employ each other. (A voice: “We never have any earnings.”) ”

“ The earnings of the business community, taken as a whole, are derived from the marketable output of goods and services turned out by the industrial process - disregarding such earnings as accrue to one concern merely at the cost of another. ”

“ The expectation was that the increased interest and effort and devotion put into the work by the men would be such as to make the total earnings of the employers greater, notwithstanding their sacrifice to the men of the half of the profits above ten per cent. ”

“ According to other statistics, the average annual earnings of a workman amount to $625, and one may safely presume that every able-bodied workman contributes every year 1/5 of his earnings to the increase of national wealth. ”

“ A number of workmen, who receive the same wages, earn together a certain sum. Had there been 7 more workmen, and had each one received 25 cents more, their joint earnings would have increased by $18.65. ”

“ I remembered having read in the papers of my time that the average yearly earnings of the working men, working women82 and children were over four hundred dollars, and I was inclined to estimate the average yearly income at about six hundred dollars. ”

“ Each man should have all he earns, whether by brain or body; and the director, the great industrial leader, is one of the greatest of earners, and should have a proportional reward; but no man should live on the earnings of another, and there should not be too gross inequality between service and reward. ”

“ Wealth can only be accumulated by the earnings of industry and the savings of frugality, and nothing can be more ill judged than to look to facilities in borrowing or to a redundant circulation for the power of discharging pecuniary obligations. ”

“ they do not lay by a part of their earnings to form a permanent capital, but spend their money much as they have earned it. ”

“ The highest federal court has declared that when a distribution of earnings is made by a corporation among its stockholders, the question whether such distribution is an apportionment of additional stock representing capital, or a division of profits and income, depends upon the substance and intent of the action of the corporation, as manifested by its vote or resolution; and ordinarily a dividend declared in stock is to be deemed capital, and a dividend in money is to be deemed income of each share. ”

“ A company may earn a large net profit, yet the directors may think it should be used for improvements or kept for a future contingency in business, perhaps a time of business depression. Courts will not interfere in such cases. Corporations are sometimes organized with the well understood intention that the earnings shall be kept until a large surplus has been accumulated. On the other hand directors are not permitted to abuse their power; they must act in good faith. They cannot withhold dividends in order to depress the value of the property and buy its stock at a lower price. ”

“ General Definition. 'Gross income' includes gains, profits, and income derived from salaries, wages, or compensation for personal service, of whatever kind and in whatever form paid, or from professions, vocations, trades, businesses, commerce, or sales, or dealings in property, whether real or personal, growing out of the ownership or use of or interest in such property; also from interest, rent, dividends, securities, or the transaction of any business carried on for gain or profit, or gains or profits and income derived from any source whatever. ”

“ Wages, profit, and rent, are the three original sources of all revenue, as well as of all exchangeable value. All other revenue is ultimately derived from some one or other of these.
Whoever derives his revenue from a fund which is his own, must draw it either from his labour, from his stock, or from his land. The revenue derived from labour is called wages; that derived from stock, by the person who manages or employs it, is called profit; that derived from it by the person who does not employ it himself, but lends it to another, is called the interest or the use of money. ”

“ Therefore, the payment of wages presupposes production by labour for which wages are paid. And as the employer generally makes a profit, the payment of wages is, so far as he is concerned, but the return to the labourer of a portion of the wealth he has received from labour. So far as the employee is concerned, it is but the receipt of a portion of the wealth his labour has previously produced. As the value paid in wages is thus exchanged for a value brought into being by labour, how can it be said that wages are advanced by capital? ”

“ Take, for instance, the common notion so plausible at the first glance, of the encouragement given to industry by lavish expenditure. A, who spends his whole income, and even his capital, in expensive living, is supposed to give great employment to labor. B, who lives on a small portion, and invests the remainder in the funds, is thought to give little or no employment. For every body sees the gains which are made by A's tradesmen, servants, and others, while his money is spending. ”

“ Remember that we do not sell our labor. We sell our strength to work our laboring power, our labor power. Labor is the expenditure of labor-power. See Value, Price and Profit, pages 71, 72 and 73. When we apply for a job, we do not offer to sell our WORK, but our strength to WORK. The commodities we make are crystallizations of our work or of our LABOR, but it is our strength to labor, or laboring power—our labor-power which we sell to the boss. ”

“ Even for private accounting purposes there seems to be a wise tendency among accountants toward more accurate assignments to normal Economic categories. One business classification holds high Economic rank deservedly. This is that subcategory of Wages known as Interest. Interest may be rightly regarded as the Wages of Capital. ”

“ The market wage of our industry is paid to Labor and a minimum of 6% is paid to Capital. After these have been paid, together with regular operating expenses, depreciation reserve, taxes, etc., and after the Sinking Funds have been provided for by setting aside 15% of the next profits for Labor and 15% for Capital, the remaining net profits are divided 50% for Capital and 50% for the operatives, and the latter sum divided in proportion to the amount of each one's pay for the period.... A true partnership must jointly provide for losses as well as for the sharing of profits.... ”

“ Economy in personal and family expenditures was the text from which the lesson was drawn.
In my prosperous days when I made large annual profits, I did not realize how foolishly extravagant was my scale of living, for every year I was adding a handsome amount to my accumulations which were steadily increasing, and yet, looked at from the standpoint of this clear-headed, successful business man, I was expending far more than what should have been regarded as my income. ”

“ Thus may any Gentleman, with very little trouble, apportion his Income:—and as no two Gentlemen live exactly alike, this Table will shew, by inspection only, what branch of Expense may best be curtailed, so as to afford an addition to any other branch, and still keep his whole Expenses short of his actual Revenue. ”

“ The net output thus obtained is obviously for each industry the only fund from which first, wages, salaries, interest on capital, rent, royalties and profits are, or can be, paid, and secondly, taxes, rates, depreciation, advertisement and sales expenses. ”

“ Wages, profits, interest and rent take the product.—It is common to consider distribution as made in the forms of wages for labor given without risk as to the product, profits to the one whose labor is associated with risk of loss as well as gain, interest to the one who furnishes capital in any form and waits for his compensation, and rent to the landlord, or owner of estate, whose property is used for a definite time and returned. ”

“ If the wages paid to all employés shall equal twenty per cent, of the entire expenditure in the business, including interest and salaries of members of the firm, then twenty per cent, of the net profit will be distributed to employés. ”

“ Senior says that of the income of £4,000 which a lawyer or a doctor draws, only £40 are wages for his labor; £3,000 are a rent paid for the possession of extraordinary talent, or for his good luck, and £960 as the interest on his intellectual capital, which is also the chief element of wealth. ”

“ Even you, Monsieur Gagnon, could look into the future on those terms. When the expenses exceed the income, what takes place? One pays out all one's ready money, one borrows, sells a cow, a horse, a piece of land. ”

“ What the term for natural compensation out of human production for human service in aid of production might better be, is of no importance provided the term be treated distinctively. For Labor compensation out of Labor-produced Wealth, Wages if treated distinctively is an appropriate term, and its long time comprehensive use in Economics entitles it to preference. Wages, then, the technical term in Economic science for that natural allocation of some Wealth to Labor, which produces all Wealth, demands primary consideration in any study of the Economic phenomena of Wealth Distribution. ”

“ When we are all in the business working together, we all ought to have some share in the profits--by way of a good wage, or salary, or added compensation. And that is beginning now quite generally to be recognized. ”

“ The workmen were generally the members of the company. They paid themselves the prevailing rate of wages, then divided among themselves either equally or in proportion to their wages the net profits of the business, when there were any, having first reserved a sufficient amount to pay interest on capital. ”

“ As to the wages paid to the men engaged in the routine of competitive selling, as salesmen, buyers, accountants, and the like, - much the same holds true of them as of the income of the business men who carry on the business on their own initiative. ”

“ In a word, what the company says is income shall be income, and what it says is capital shall be capital.' 'In most if not in all cases, the inquiry as to the time when the profits were earned by the company is an immaterial one as between the tenant for life and remainder-man. ”

“ In common language the word income applies to money received from any source. It may be qualified as gross income and net income. It may be limited by words defining the source of the income, as, from land, merchandise or banking, but, in its general sense, it means gross savings from all sources. When received in money it is an income and not until then. ”

“ OF PROFITS.
§ 1.⁠Having treated of the labourer's share of the produce, we next proceed to the share of the capitalist; the profits of capital or stock; the gains of the person who advances the expenses of production—who, from funds in his possession, pays the wages of the labourers, or supports them during the work; who supplies the requisite buildings, materials, and tools or machinery ”

“ A now receives his income, not from the produce of his capital, but from some other source of income belonging to C, probably from the rent of his land, that is, from payments made to him by farmers out of the produce of their capital. ”

“ Of the net profits of persons in business, a part, as before observed, may be considered as interest on capital, and of a perpetual character, and the remaining part as remuneration for the skill and labour of superintendence. ”

“ Suppose the index number of profits so calculated for a given period of time proves to be, for example, 18 per cent.—6 per cent. higher than the approved level of profits. On the basis of this profit showing, the wages of all classes of wage earners could be increased for the subsequent period, with some hope of effecting a transfer to the wage earners of at least part of the product of industry represented by the 6 per cent. ”

“ In determining the net profits, interest on all capital invested is calculated as an expense at the rate of six per cent., and a reasonable salary is allowed to each member of the firm who gives his entire time to the business. ”

“ If we accept the Assessments as representing the actual wages earned by the ordinary labourer we can estimate with approximate accuracy the total income of a labourer’s family, for we have defined the wage-earner as a person who depended wholly upon wages and excluded from this class families who possessed gardens. ”

“ Since Labor produces all Wealth, and Capital is a distinct form of Wealth—Wealth devoted to the production of further Wealth,—Labor is the producer of Capital; and inasmuch as the use productively of Capital increases Wealth, a share of that increase is properly assignable in Distribution to the Distributive category called Wages, though for discriminative purposes to a Wages subdivision. ”

“ NOW if the Annual proceed of the Stock, or Wealth of the Nation, yields but 15 millions, and the expence be 40. Then the labour of the People must furnish the other 25; which may be done, if but half of them, viz. 3 millions earned but 8l. 6s. [9] 8d. [10] per annum, which is done at 7d. per diem, abating the 52 Sundays, and half as many other days for accidents as Holy days, sickness, recreations, &c. ”