Wage earner

“ The first theory, or rather group of theories, is that to which some of the leaders of the scientific management movement have given their sanction. The central idea of this group of theories is that in the output of the wage earners, considered either as individual output or as the output of a small group engaged on a common task, is to be 42 found the final and just measure of wages. It is frequently assumed in the course of the reasoning used in support of these theories, that wages can and should measure a separate contribution which the individual wage earner makes to production. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If the wages of all classes or groups of wage earners are to be increased when the profits return in industry as a whole is above the approved level, the question arises as to the best way to calculate the wage increases, and the 255 most satisfactory basis for distributing them among the different groups of wage earners. ”

“ Whether we like it or not, the American wage earner and the American housewife are a lot better economists than most economists care to admit. They know that a government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. ”

“ If the numbers in any group of wage earners are high relative to the uses in which the employment of the members of that group results in a considerable addition to the product of market values, the wages of that group will be low, and vice versa. The need of the productive system for any kind of labor, relative to the supply available to fill that need is an important factor in determining the reward paid for that labor. ”

“ Any exact correspondence between wages and the price of the product would exclude the wage-earners, as such, from all share in the advantages of improvements in production, cheapening of carriage, and the fall in the rate of interest, which might otherwise be turned to account in an advance in the workman’s Standard of Life. ”

“ Since profits generally are large, production tends to be stimulated and the volume of production increases. The turnover of industry is quickened somewhat. Plants are more fully utilized, and unemployment is small. More overtime is worked. The total earnings of the wage earners are likely to advance more than wage rates. The extent of the divergence between the increase in hourly or piece rates and weekly or yearly earnings is likely to vary greatly according to the nature of the causes of the price movement. ”

“ It should be observed, first of all, that neither 220 of these two doctrines upholds the rights of particular groups of wage earners. They aim to bring all wage earning groups to perceive that they are part of a larger whole; they emphasize the fact that the wages of each group are what they are, more because the total wage income is what it is, than because of the special type of work performed by the group. ”

“ In certain instances, especially when the combination has first been made, wages have been increased. The Trust and Wages. On the whole, however, it is probable that as yet the wage-earners have succeeded in getting an increase of wages in circumstances substantially similar to those under which their wages would be increased by single corporations. An increase of wages comes only through pressure on their part. Under a prosperous condition of industry it is possible, without materially lowering profits, to increase the wages. ”

“ The employers are not likely to seek such wage rates as will not procure the needed labor supply; and only in rare cases are the wage earners likely to press for increases of wages that would bring about an increased measure of unemployment. ”

“ Separate studies were made of the metal industry, building and construction, printing and publishing, railroad and street transportation, clothing manufacture, department store work, and clerical occupations. The wage-earners in these fields of employment constitute nearly 60 per cent of the total number of persons engaged in gainful occupations and include 95 per cent of the skilled workmen in the city. ”

“ I am not prepared to give an estimate how the national income is distributed between hand workers, brain workers, and men who live on their income without doing any useful work, because such an estimate could be arrived at only by guesswork. However, it is quite clear that it is untrue that the wage-earners receive only one-third, one-fourth, or one-fifth of the wages which they ought to receive, as is constantly stated. ”

“ The scheme of wage relationship must recommend itself as just to the wage earners and the community in general. The ultimate distributive question to be met is the division of the product between profit and wages. ”

“ At present, wages in different industries or occupations are not settled in accordance with any principle which includes them all and which is the basis of an ordered scheme of wage relationship. The existence of a very high profits return throughout a particular industry is an almost prima facie justification for a wage demand on the part of the wage earners employed in it. ”

“ Over 60% of such companies paid some type of premium or gratuity to their wage earners for work performed on Sundays or holidays, the extra pay ranging from 25% to 100%, in addition to the regular rate of pay. ”

“ It is a claim the justice of which could be denied only under unusual circumstances. It has in the past brought considerable benefits to the 108 wage earners, because they have usually stood to gain by any vigorous assertion of their interests. ”

“ Inasmuch as the wage-earners now receive on an average a little less than one-half of the whole profits of the industry, from this socialization of industry alone the laborer's will ultimately have their compensation doubled by increase of wage and decrease of prices.
By "worker" is not meant what we now call workingmen alone. It includes all engaged in industry through the work of their hands or their heads. ”

“ This is true of the salaries of clerks, teachers, and public officials, and of many professional fees. It is also true, to a considerable degree, of wages.
In recent years salaried men and wage earners have been losing; for, while salaries and wages have risen, they have not kept pace with the rise in prices. Some wages have remained unchanged for months or years after the cost of living has risen, and then they have only been forced up by strikes. According to the figures of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, real wages, i.e. ”

“ It would be idle to deny that wage-earners have certain different economic interests from, let us say, manufacturers or importers, just as farmers have different interests from sailors, and fishermen from bankers. ”

“ Important decisions in 1888 and 1889 showed this belief Meaning of “wages.” to have been ill-founded. The essential point lies in the definition of the word “wages” as the “recompense, reward or remuneration of labour,” which implies not necessarily any gross sum in question between employer and workmen where there is a contract to perform a certain piece of work, but that part of it, the real net wage, which the workman was to get as his recompense for the labour performed. ”

“ That argument is that it will prove impossible to maintain uniform standard wage rates throughout an industry in which the various enterprises are distributed over a wide area; in the several parts of which area the cost of living, the general conditions of labor, and the demand and supply situation for labor differ considerably. ”

“ Were the business of the country in the active condition in which it could not avoid being if our money system were perfectly adjusted to industry, and if employers were competing for laborers with the same degree of eagerness that laborers are competing for employment, the average wage of a day for a working man would not be less than $2. ”

“ And, secondly, what may be called for a lack of a better name, the doctrine of special reward—by which is meant, that the wage differentials between the standard wage levels of different types of labor should be regarded as special rewards, given in order to make it reasonably certain that industry will be provided with at least the existing proportion of the more skilled grades of labor, and to make it reasonably certain also that the more arduous, irregular, dangerous and disagreeable work will command the service of as much labor as at present. ”

“ These can only be understood by a study of the economic facts and arrangements which govern distribution, and by weighing many questions of social and economic expediency. To talk about basing wages solely on the effort of the worker is to ignore the obvious fact that much of the most laborious work is the worst paid.
The exponents of scientific management have not discovered a law of wages; they have simply elaborated a method of wage payment. ”

“ All day long this man would toil thus, his whole being centered upon the purpose of making twenty-three instead of twenty-two and a half cents an hour; and then his product would be reckoned up by the census taker, and jubilant captains of industry would boast of it in their banquet halls, telling how our workers are nearly twice as efficient as those of any other country. If we are the greatest nation the sun ever shone upon, it would seem to be mainly because we have been able to goad our wage-earners to this pitch of frenzy; ”

“ The standard of life and comfort affects the wages of labor, and there is constant effort to make the wage correspond to this standard. It is an unending and often bitter struggle, nowhere better summed up than by Thorold Rogers in his "Six Centuries of Work and Wages,"—a work upon which economists, however different their conclusions, rely alike for facts and figures.
We must then admit in degree the tendency of wages to a minimum, especially those of unskilled labor, and accept it as one more motive for persistent effort to alter existing conditions and prevent any such culmination. ”

“ It is not merely the wage scale that must be kept up but the amount of wages that a worker receives over the course of a year. This is only another way of saying that what we need, fundamentally, is a broader distribution of the profits of industry. ”

“ The actual amounts paid to the men and women who do the work of the industrial world are extremely small. Current wage rates, placed side by side with the expense accounts of thousands of families whose sole claim to income rests upon their ownership of property, are startling in their paucity. Five hundred dollars a year paid to an able-bodied man whose back was bent three hundred days of the year in his efforts to support a wife and four small children ”

“ Professor Lucy Salmon, of Vassar, who has devoted much time to this subject, reports that, on examination of testimony from three thousand employees, it is found that on a wage of $3.25 a week it is possible to save annually nearly $150 "in an occupation involving no outlay, no investment of capital, and few or no personal expenses." The wages received are relatively higher than those of other occupations ”

“ If the union is strong and has a good control over the labor supply, admission fees are higher and regulations as to apprentices and helpers are more stringent than if the union is fighting to gain a foothold.
Earnings
No industrial workers in the city are paid better wages than those employed in the building trades. More than one-half of the skilled workers are in trades that pay an hourly wage of 50 cents or over. ”

“ Basic wage pay has been based on the place of employment and not on the work performed. Wage scales for identical work have differed substantially between branches of the economy and industry. In industry, wage scales have been lower in branches manufacturing consumer goods than in branches producing capital goods ”

“ He writes, "The wages paid to a group of workers in a given industry and a given area depend, in fact, very often not on the conditions obtaining in that industry in other areas, but on the conditions obtaining in that area in other industries." ”