Imperial Valley press., 1942-11-11
CAPITAL TALKS.
by
Peter
Edison

Two Washington ideas on unem-
ployment that have heretofore been
presented as gospel by New Dealers
| in particular and social planners
in general are gradually being re-
classified and relegated to the
realms of mythology under produc-
ton pressure.
The first is that the United
/ States must and will always have
a couple of million "unemployables"
people who never under any con-
ditions could be given any kind of
/ gainful work.
/ The second. a corollary to the
first, is that the country could new
er have full employment every-
body gainfully employed who
wasn't too decrepit or too i'll or too
physically handicapped to earn his
own living.
You have TO look no farther
than WPA remember?-tO get
evidence that both of these con-
cepts, so glibly presented during
the depths of despond and de-
preston, amt necessarily so.
Unemployment is now estimated
at only II million for continental
United States, WPA rolls are now
at cnly $4,000 and the trend for
both is down, down, down. On July
WPA had $4,000. The drop in
four months is 100000 In over
1000 of the 5000 counties, WPA has
completely shut down on all con-
struction projects. Whereas the
number of unemployed registered
and awaiting assignment used to
run over a million, it is now below
10000. Six states now have WPA
enrollments of under 1000 Only
! 10 states have enrollmentS over
10000. OF the $4,000 now on WPA.
! 38 per cent are cider women, wild
ows mostly, who are heads of FAM
! lilies.
Driving you nuts with a few
more statistics which are necessary
! TO complete the picture, the west
seems TO have reduced its WPA rolls
faster than the east or south. 1t
divides like this:
II eastern states plus DC. 10000
| IA southern states ....-....... 10000
/ II midwest and plains states $4,000
! II western states .....--....-- $4,000
Splitting the $4,000 another way,
by type of worker and project, the
! picture is this.
Construction, manual labor 163, 900
Service. white collar workers $4,000
In training for war produc
ton jobs ....................-..... $4,000
Miscellaneous .................--....-- 5000
| THEY'RE REMAINING
Now, no one is yet ready to take
these figures and dive off the deep
end with a prediction as to exactly
when or how WPA can be liquidat-
! ed. WPA is at present re-eXamin-
ing all of its $4,000 actually on the
rolls and the 10000 waiting, making
a study of characteristics as to age,
] skill and ability to be trained for
/ jobs in private industry.
The idea is to see just how en-
playable all these people at the
bottom of the "unemplOyable"
barrel may be, then to get them
moved along onto regular jobs.
| In a lot of cases where there are
labor shortages, this means get
ting the employers to take jobs
ordinarily performed by one
skilled worker to break those jobs
down so that three or four un-
skilled workers can each do parts
of the skilled operation, the com
bined efforts of a few unskilled
workers being thus equal to
skilled workers..
Over 250,000 have been trained
for war jobs, 235 900 have got them.
DRAFT HAS HELPED
Army and Navy inductions and
enlistments have of course taken
up a lot Of the slack in the ranks
of the unemployed. Social security
legislation has also helped a lot.
Two million people over IS years
of age are now drawing old age re-
tirement insurance, and Cnem-
ployment insurance, benefits run
ming higher than WPA wages keep
a lot of the temporarily unemploy-
ed who might otherwise find their
way to WPA. And the people get
ting direct relief from the states
still number quarters of a
million.
But the prevailing idea at
W?A headquarters today-an
idea held by Federal Works Ad-
ministrator Gen. Philip b. Flam-
ing, WPA Commissioner George
II. Field and Assistant COmmis-
siOner Florence Kerr-is that
there is no such thing as an un-
emplOyable.
Jobs can be found for blind men,
the lame, the halt. And as long
as that philosophy prevails, there
is a chance that WPA can be liq-