The wageworker. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1904-????, 1907-10-25
THE QuINTEssENcE OF TOMMY


The Wageworker is in receipt of
Bulletin No. II of the Bureau of La
Dor, the same coming from the Gov
eminent Printing Office at Washing
ton, D. C. The only good thing about
the bulletin is that it provided work
for a large number of printers, press
men, stereotypers and bookbinders.
It is filed with mass Of statistics
that are of no earthly account be-
cause they are compiled by statisti-
clans who konw nothing but figures,
and the conclusions reached are gen
orally at variance with the facts. Any
housewife who keeps an account of
her household expenditures can take
her little old book and give the lie
to three-fourths of the conclusions as
to wages and prices compiled by these
expert statisticians of the Department
Of Commerce and Labor.
For instance, there is the bulletins
claim that an hours wages in 1892
would buy less food products than an
hours wages in 1906. This is arrived
at by calculating that the wages of
forty-one industrial occupations have
increased 24,2 per cent per hour in
1906 over ten the years of 1S90-99.
The facts are, and a little investiga-
ton of wages will prove 1t, that wages
have made no such increase. The bull
letin claims that the wage per hour
in the building trades has increased
402 per cent Is there a carpenter,
bricklayer, plumber or painter in Lin
coin who believes it? Is there one
whose wage today is 40 per cent per
hour greater than it was in 1899?
Evidently the statisticians RESPONSE
BILE for the bulletin figured the in
crease by taking into consideration
that shortening of the working day in
most of the organized trades. This
enables them to show healthy in
crease per hour" without showing
any increase to amount to anything
in the wage per day-and it is the
wage per day that should be taken in
to account. For instance, a man work
ing ten hours day for SO receives
30 cents an hour. Suppose he secures
a shorter work daylight hours
without any decrease in pay. He is
then getting 37k cents an hour, which
is an increase Of 25 per cent per hour
but 1t adds not a penny to the sum
total OF the wages he earns in month
or a year. Yet the government stats
believe that his wages have increased
rs per cent. The funny part of it Is
that this juggling of the figures de
ceives a whole lot OF workingmen
Here Is another sample of the uttel
absurdity of the statistical finding.
as shown in Bulletin No. H.
Average food cost per working
mans family in 1890, $31S.2O Aver
age food cost per workingman's famil,
in 1906, $35943'
According to this the workingman il
spending only $41.23 year more 70
food now than he did in 1890. Wha
workingman believes it? An increas
of only $3.50 month in the cost o
living for the average family of fiv
persons! The average workingman'
family OF five finds itself paying tina
much more for the single item O
meat IL it has fresh meat on the tabl
an average of twice a day, or eve
once a day.
Here is a real funny thing from tn
pages OF the bulletin: 1t reaches tn
conclusion that the average income pc
family of 5.31 members is $827.19
year. There are 312 working days i
year. According to the bulletin tn
average workingman makes an ave
age OF 1854 cents day every worl
ing day in the year-allowing nothin
for days lost on account of illness Q
weather conditions, lack of work c
any one of a dozen causes for Ell
forced idleness. The fact of the ma
ter is that the average annual incom
per family Of the craftsmen of tn