The Connecticut labor news., 1921-09-16
LABOR'S WAGE IS LESS THAN THAT
 OF 30 YEARS AGO, SURVEY PROVES, \ DOWNWARD TREND COMING IN 1890
Analysis of Statistics Shows Workers Not Slackers and Lower ing of Standards Re- spOnsible for DiscOn- tent.

During the past 30 years the wages paid workers i'll this country have not increased, but actually have de- creased, Is the deliberate opinion of Prof, Paul H. Douglas, of the Uni Versity of Chicago, and Frances Lam person, eminent economists, who publish their studies and conclusions in the September issue of the Amer ican Economic Review.
 The commonly accepted belief that wages have been surely and steadily advancing since 1890 is completely disproved by these investigators. They admit that nominal pay rates in many industries are certainly higher than those which were granted dur ing the presidency ot Benjamin Harrison, but analyses of wages paid and living costs convince them that, when measured by what money will buy, the workers compensation has actually diminished over this period
 Wages, 1t is held, are meaningless unless prices are considered The period comprehended by the survey, 1890 to 1918, was one Of rising prices
 Wage rates also advanced, but prices outstripped them at every stage of the journey.
 Careful Studies Are Made.
 
 was available for the 28 years and their deductions seem to have been subjected to every test necessary to meet the requirements of science. In dices of prices and of wages were utilized The cost of food was taken as d sufficiently reliable measure ot the change in the cost of living, while hourly and weekly wage rates were deemed sufficient indications of the actual annual income of workers.
 Reckoned i'll the figures of the in dex, hourly wages i'll 1890 were 9o.4. By 1918 they had gone to the figure of 2II.3. The hours of labor had been shortened during that period, how ever, so that the weekly wages had moved only from Ioo.3 in 1890 to 87.7 in 1918. This suggested a nom inal increase of 87.4 per cent. in 28 years.
 Retail food prices during the same period, the indices show, had ad- vanced from 1919 in 1890 to 266.6 i'll had decreased more rapidly than wages had increased. When the in dex of real wages was elaborated for full time weeks 1t was found that the oo.4 of 1890 had gone down to 7o.4 in 1918.
 Concerning this, the authors de- clare that 'the purchasing power ot the established weeks work i'll 1918 was from 20 to 30 per cent. less than III the oo's, and from 10 to 20 per cent. less than in IoI5."
 After establishing, to their entire satisfaction, that the worker today receives less remuneration than was paid in 1890 for given amount ot service, the economists believe that they have found the answer to pre- vailing discomfort and unrest In spite of many optimistic statements worker becomes more difficult and burdensome.
 Another important service has been performed by these students in at lacking the hackneyed charge that the workers slacked during the war.
 American labor as whole" they say, "cannot legitimately be charged with having prohteered during the war. Rather, like Alice in Wonder land, 1t was compelled to run faster to stay in the same place"
 The purpose of this extended in quiry was to provide positive facts upon which might be determined, in the view of the authors, whether there IS not a fatal weakness in the contention of employers who hold that the liquidation of labor must precede economic recovery. The un- emotional statistics available reveal its insincerity and baselessness.
 The effect of this important contri- l button will be to tear down the mountain of propaganda lies that have been disseminated by interests that are concerned solely in furt h CT lowering the standards of workers, | until they "have finally reached the unsocial strata of absolute beggary."