Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1917-06-29
WAGES LOSE IN RACE
Fail Il, Keep Up With the Advance
in Food Prices.
Uncle Sans Figures Show High Cost
of Living Cut Workers Pay IS
Per Cent in Nine Years.

IF a dollars worth of food, bought
in 1907, weighed the market basket
down ten pounds, in 1916 that dollar
purchased only trif1e more than sew
en- pounds. The retail prices of food
jumped 80 per cent in 1916, as COM
pared with 1907, according to the in
vestigations of the bureau of labor sta
tistics in Uncle Sans department Of
labor.
Despite an average increase of 10
per cent in wages per hour in the same
period, and a reduction in hours
worked Of per cent, the rising cost
of foods has operated to cut the pay
Of the American workingman about 10
per cent expressed in terms of food his
wages will buy. A workingman who
made three dollars day in 1907, work
ing ten hours, in 1916 worked nine
hours and SO minutes day and drew
$3.4S for it; but it cost him SALT to
buy the same quantity Of food his So
would cover in 1907; so he really was
SO cents worse off.
The bureau of labor statistics gath
ers figures from 4S leading cities of
the United States, on union scales Of
wages, and from 46 cities on food
prices. In these cities live about one
fifth (twenty million) of the nations
people. The wage returns come from IL
groups of organized workers. These
figures are taken from two bulletins,
| giving scales of wages and hours Of
labor, and retail prices of food. Index
| numbers, percentages showing proper
tomato rates of increase or reduction,
are shown for each year.
A vital fact should be considered,
however, says report of the bureau.
Those figures do not account for idle
time. Until recently the department
could not get satisfactory figures ON this
| point. But it is a matter of common
| knowledge that jobs now are chasing
| men. In 1907 there were no jobs to
dodge. The land was crowded with
| idle men. At conference of workers
held at the department Of commerce
and labor in 1909 to discuss the prob
lem Of unemployment, Samuel Com
pers, president of the American FEEDER
| alton Of Labor, stated that "since Oc-
tober, 1907, nearly 100000 workers
were out of jobs" who had been work
| ing steadily prior to that time. Other
estimates placed the number of men
| then idle at from three to four millions.
| Nowadays every man who wants work
can find it, and that is a very impor-
| tant fact.
"To make the difference in living
costs palmer, take the experience of
| Denny O'Neill. Denny worked on the
railroad in 1907 for $1.4O day of ten
hours. Denny is steady man and he
kept his work right along. He got $40
a week in 1907. Denny's pay now-on
the averages found by the department
of labor, is 1915 week. He works
about twenty-odd minutes less each day
than he did. In 1907 Denny paid five
dollars a week for food. So Denny's
living was actually cut during these
nine years of rising wages. He loses
| 60 cents a week, not counting rent,
which has not changed for Denny, nor
counting clothes, which cost him more,
"The averages of food and of pay
qualified by reductions in hours worked
rose at about the same rate from 1917
to 1915, so that during that time wages
would pay for about even quantities
of food each year. Actually, workers
enjoyed better conditions in 1915 than
in 1912, because they had more and
steadier work. But war losses got into
the equation in 1916 and pushed up
food prices faster than wages.