Evening star., 1940-03-13

{ Z IL u IL EEM
comforting con-
clusion that Charles G. Ross.
there are not from 100000 to
IL 900 900 unemployed persons in the
United States, but mere 1000 900.
1t seems that the journalists and
the politicians and the Government
statistical agencies, to say nothing
of such privately financed agencies
as the National Industrial Confer
ence Board, have all been wrong.
1t seems there is hardly anything
in the unemployment situation that
can't be set right just as handily as
Miss Thompson, with the aid of her
pencil and her Charlie Mccarthy,
has corrected the figures with which
the New Dealers and the Repub-
licans and John L. Lewis-strange
bedfelloWs-have been deluding the
public.
So-as Miss Thompson herself
asks-so what?
Sievelike Magic.
So this: The calculation by which
Miss Thompson magically reduces
unemployment to a comparative
handful is as full of holes as a sieve.
The Grouse" needs better exam
pie with which to point up his con-
clusion that anything which 'is in
all the papers all the time" is prob
ably untrue. It's in the papers all
the time that we haven't made
much of dent in the unemploy-
ment problem: that there are around
100000 unemployed, and these
happen to be the facts.
There isn't space here in which
to deal with all Miss Thompson's
inaccuracies, but the citation of a
few of them will show how far OF
the mark is her conclusion. In
part, she achieves her shrinkage of
the total unemployed to 2,000,000
by counting the w. P A. workers
as employed. This is odd. and par
ticularly odd coming from Miss
Thompson. Even the leftists
among the New Dealers think OF
the unemployment total in terms
of those who are without jobs In
private industry. If we are going
to count the people on w. P. A. as
employed workers, We can appro-
pirate few more billions. put all
the unemployed on the w. P. A. and
say that we have solved the un-
employment problem. This is SUBJ
stantially the way, I believe, in
which Russia and Germany have
solved it.
But the quarrel with Miss Thomp-
son at this point is on the score
of terminology and may be passed
over. If the people on w. P. A. are
classified as unemployed, then Miss
Thompson's total jumps at once from
100000 to around 100000 Even
so, her figures tell only about one
half of the truth.
Miss Thompson gets her results
by comparing the total of the gain
fully employed in December. 1929
(according to the National Indus
trial Conference Boar6, with the
number SO employed in December,
1899. (Right here it should be
interpolated that there is a catch
in these employment figures. They
don't tell the whole story at all. A
person is listed as employed If he
has job at the time the estimate
is made. He may work only day
and yet be counted as an employed
person. This is only one of the many
quirks you run into when you begin
to dig into the question Of unem-
ployment)
December, 1929 and 1899.
In December. 1929, there were
46,344,00O employed persons. In
December, 10 years later, the COM
parable total was some 100000 less.
Miss Thompson here throws in her
w. P. A. figures. some 1900 900, and
says that actually there we're 1885,
983 more persons employed in De-
cember, 1899, than 10 years before.
Then she properly makes allow
ance for the population increase,
which she places at 100000. She
takes the December, 1929, employ
ment figure as the standard of a
reasonable prosperity, calculates
that according to this standard 80
per cent OF the population should be
working, applies this percentage to
her 100000 and gets 100000 as
the extra unemployed caused by
population growth. From this figure
she subtracts her 1855 1888 and ar
rives at the conclusion that in pro-
portion to total population we now
have only 1,934,017, roughly 1000 900,
fewer persons employed Gas of De-
cember, 1880 than we had 10 years
earlier. Putting it in another way,
she says that 38 per cent Of the
population were employed In the
boom year of 1929, and that 81 per
cent remember that she's including
the w. P. A. workers. are employed
now. So, she asks in effect, what's
all the shooting about?
IF December, 1929, is a high
mark" she summarizes, then our
unemployment is 100000, not
5000, ,00O."
Now for the "bugs." BY De-
cember, 1929, employment had de-
clined 100000 from the boom-time
peak, which had been reached In
September. Therefore in Decem-
Der Of last year, the number in pri-
vate employment was not 100000
less but 100000 less than the 1929
peak. Add 100000, right OF, to
Miss Thompson's figures.
Miss Thompson's figures on unem-
ployment-or, If you want to grant
her point that w. P. A. workers are
employed persons-add about o
million.
Population Increase in Error.
Then there's the matter of popu-
lation increase. There's another
mistake here. Loring Wood, one Of
the statisticians of the Bureau Of
Labor Statistics, points it out. Hs
estimates the population increase
during the last 10 years at 9,100, 900.
But, he says, because of the decrease
in the number of children during
that period, the increase in the