The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-01-06


 bill including a start of the Missouri River Valley development plan. A i third bill, authorizing 800 million dollars worth of postwar rivers and harbors improvement, was held over for the present session of Congress. But even three billion dollars worth of construction sounds like a lot If judged by pre-war ideas until 1t is translated into man. years of work to see how many jobs will be provided and how much more authorizing and appropriating con- greSs will have to do to achieve this mythical full employment and 50 million postwar jobs.
 WAGE RATES AS FACTOR
 The number of jobs provided will of course depend on what the stand ards of pay will be. Wage rates on construction jobs have scared dur ing the war and overtime has made the labor costs eat up large pro- portion of the total outlay on any building project. Engineers do not believe these high wage rates will prevail on postwar jobs, so as a basis for our estimates they go back to 1940 and 1941 employment figures assuming there will be a return to those levels.
 First take the public roads bill, providing authorizations for 8 bil- lion dollars worth of construction a year for three years, half of the money to come from federal, the other half from matching state or local government appropriation.
 The Bureau of Public Roads in the Federal Works Agency estimates that for every 100 million dollars spent there will be 1850 man-yearS of work provided at the site and 43, ,120 man-yearS of indirect work provided of the site in building road machinery, making cement, quarrying stone, and so on. For one billion dollars that would mean only GIT, 700 man-years of work pro- vided - for three years.
 Now take the flood control bill, which breaks down little different ly and isn't quite so easy to figure in clear-cut jobs Two hundrd mill lion dollars of the total authorized for postwar flood control goes to the Bureau of Reclamation in the Department of the Interior for pre- liminary work on the Missouri River Valley plan. The work will stretch over several years with varying en- ployment, the peak coming in the second year of construction when 1t 1t is estimated there will be some 100000 men employed for part of the year. The average would be less than 30,000 full man-years of work for three years.
 ARMY GETS $95O, 100000
 The Army Corps of Engineers share of the flood control authoriz- ation includes another 200 million dollars for work on the Missouri Valley development, plus a lot of other projects in many states, some already previously authorized. In all. the Army is given some $50 mil lion dollars for postwar work cov- ering several years. This does not include a number of projects au- thorized and appropriated for be- fore the war but held up for post wal CUllipACG4Oll'
 Army engineers figure that on the average of their jobs. about 40 per cent of the total goes into labor costs, 35 to 40 per cent for mater ials, 20 to 9 per cent for indirect cost in design, equipment and such things. Forty per cent of the $50 million would be 380 million dollars for wages. Figuring construction la- bor at 50 cents an hour, $80 per month or $960 a year--the pre-war average - this would divide out to a total of only 396,000 man-years of work to be done. Say it took three years to complete all jobs. That would average only l32,000 jobs a year.
 Add all these varying and admit tedly rough estimates and you see that Congress has thus far provided for less than a million jobs for three years. The bad news of that is that three billion dollars worth of author ization won't begin to take up the slack If public works are expected to contribute anything substantial towards relieving postwar unem- ployment