Wages in the United States 1908–1910
WAGES IN THE UNITED STATES
1908–1910
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO
SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., Limited
LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO
WAGES IN
THE UNITED STATES
1908–1910
A STUDY OF STATE AND FEDERAL
WAGE STATISTICS
BY
SCOTT NEARING, Ph.D.
Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Author of "Social Adjustment,"
"Solution of the Child Labor Problem," etc.
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1911
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1911
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1911
Printed at
The NORWOOD PRESS
Berwick & Smith Company, Norwood, Massachusetts
PREFACE
Since Professor R. C. Chapin estimated that a New York family consisting of a man, wife and three children under fourteen could maintain "a normal standard, at least so far as the physical man is concerned," on an annual income of $900, speculation has been rife as to the number of families whose incomes equalled that sum. Controversy was futile. No recent wage study had been made, and aside from the reports of the State bureaus of labor, which were popularly supposed to contain little or no data of importance, no available wage figures existed.
But some relation must be established between the $900 efficiency standard and the wages actually paid in American industry, else the Chapin Study would lose much of its force. The publication of a Federal Report on Wages in the Bethlehem Steel Works gave the needed impetus and we plunged into the work. This "we" is used advisedly,—not editorially, since Nellie Marguerite Seeds Nearing did a large amount of statistical compilation; Professor Robert E. Chaddock proved an excellent adviser on statistical method; and Miss Alice E. Roché ably directed the stenographic work. While, therefore, the present study is published under one name, it is, in reality, the product of several persons, all of whom played a part in the production of the work. I therefore take this occasion to thank them, and to say that they deserve a large measure of any credit that may attach to this product of our cooperative effort.
Unfortunately, this cannot prove a companion study to the Chapin Investigation. The New York Bureau of Labor publishes the wages of union members only, and even this incomplete data is not in a form available for such a comparison. Nevertheless, the evidence here adduced is of a nature to warrant the conclusion that a large portion of American workmen are unable to maintain an efficiency standard of living, and to justify such early steps as will result in the presentation of more complete wage statistics. While the conclusions here set down are by no means final, they are based upon such statistical proof that they must stand until overthrown by additional studies.
Scott Nearing.
University of Pennsylvania,
March 30, 1911.