The Nome daily nugget., 1935-12-03

Income.
 Now we come to another group, and in the transition it Is well to remind ourselves that there is bound to be some duplication in segregating the various classes.
 Six Kinds of Workers.
 The census bureau divides all workers into six classes-profes- sional persons, proprietors and man. agers, clerks, skilled workers and foremen, seml-sllilled workers, and unskilled workers. At least the un- skilled and semi-sklled workers come into the class of less than S2,OO0 income. There were nearly 100000 semi-skilled workers listed in the 1880 census, but this figure has probably shrunk considerably since then because of the increase in unemployment.
 Among the "clerks and kindred workers" in 1880 there were 4,S77.- 235 men and 3,O72, ,22O women, most of whom were office workers and lowered just little below the $2,OOO mark. Most of them live in houses or flats of three to five rooms, and some have small car. You don't really begin to get above the S2,OOO mark untn you get into the skilled workers and foremen," and even then it is difficult to tell just how many are above. The group which the depression has injured least is that labeled "proprietors and man. agers.' Unskilled workers, of course, have suffered most, although not much more than the professional persons"
 The great bulk of the 3,339, COP persons whose income in 1883 was between $2,500 and S5,00O comprises 'proprietors and managers" These folk, on the whole, live comfortably In the better suburbs in houses that cost $12,500 up and were all built several years ago. They have econ- omlzed largely by limiting them. selves to only one car, cutting down on the number of servants and send- ing their children to the state uni versailles instead of the more ex- pensive private schools.
 They and their families are the great middle class" Figuring four to family. this class totals about 13,950, 900 persons. Of all the Amer jeans filing income tax returns on incomes of more than $2.5OO. 91 per cent were in the $2,5OO to S5,OOO class. There were only SIS, ,456 per- sons, or about 1,273,S24 in families with revenues between $5,0OO and S10,O00. Certainly this would indi- cate that the top class, in regard to income, the class making more than $10,000 a year, constitutes a very small slice of the nations pop ulation.
 Another group severely hit by the depression has been the "profes- sional" class-doctors, lawyers, ar- tists, actors, reporters and the like. Many of these in the past two or three years have dropped into the division below $2,OOO and many more are even worse off. Relief rolls include plenty of dentists, doc tors and artists.
 Teachers Have Suffered. There are of course a few at the peak of each profession who have large incomes. But the majority of artists, authors, actors and re- porters have not. A recent survey, which was concerned principally with metropolitan newspapers, where the wage scale Is higher than it Is on small town papers, placed the average reporters salary at a little more than $3S week. At the end of our study of the population are the 46 persons whose incomes are more than $1,OOO, 900 a year. They are, to most of us who | read newspapers, not class but a group of individuals whose names are more or less familiar in head lines.
 This, then, is America" We have to remember the problems of all
 these vastly different classes when
 we ponder with the orator over
 "what America needs" Q Western Newspaper Union.