A LIVING WAGE

Hokitika Guardian, 5 August 1929, Page 6

A LIVING WAGE

“AMERICA'S GREATEST NEED.” SAN FRANCISCO, July 10. “Much advertised' American prosperity is a myth,. and belief in it is a stupid blindness that can lead only to catastrophe,” was a charge, which startled the fifty-sixth annual meeting of the National conference of social workers, held in' San Francisco, it was made by Mrs: Daisy Lee 'Worthington Worcester,' of the fashionable Worcester school in San Diego, Southern California, and lecturer there for the University of California extension division. Mrs Worcester’s speech, greeted by long applause, was a direct attack on■ the conclusions reached ’by President: Hoover’s National Bureau of Economic Research, which recently reported on economic changes in the United! States. ' “Prosperity is being enjoyed only, by the onerfourth of the population which owns all the wealth of America,” declared Mrs Worcestej. “The* standard of living of the masses of the people is The-,only true index, of prosperity. The rise and fall or nations in tho .past., luis been' largely due to the 'fact;, thata condition or, prosperity thas wiis ehjoyed -byAa at . the top Qflf;hd''; J ec&idi\d.c scale qid| got permeate'tile "low strata of 1 soc-f iety. . “ALL OF FAMILY. MUST WORK.” “The report ignores/real wages"and; talks, only of 'what./the workers might; earn , if they' worked steadily. The ..report ignores individual earnings an<L speaks of the family as the economic unit.-. In other words, in prosperous, America all members of the -family must work to keep itself- alive. The report carefully points, out the , free goods that workers receive and includes charity. Apparently the grim, irony of counting a mounting charity bill as part of the worker’s income, or as evidence of national prosperity, quite escapes the author of this report. i V- -

■ . “The nation’s j/llyast’income of 'B9* billion dollars,, if/ 'equally distributed! would give each'; dmin, woman, audj child 745 dollars. Instead, we find! that 43 per -cent;,of the total goes to capital, 19 per eegt to salaries and 33,; per cent to wagesi And of the 400; billions of wealth/ 59 per, cent is. owned by’i" per "bent of the population; 90 ,pea,v.qent As owned, by .13 < per cent. Think - * tif it! Seventy-six per cent of the’people of America are. without property of any kind. The share of these propertyless pfeople in national ‘.prosperity* must, therefore, come frQHi'"int ! dihe': 1, ’

“The report attempts to prove that since 1913 real wages have gone nip, while theicost-ot living has gone down All that is proved, however, is that the working man now has 28 dollars more than he did in 1913 to bridge the gap from 600 to 1000 dollars that lies between his wage and the cost of' a fair standard of living. ONE-FOURTH ENJOYS LUXURIES; “Why boast of a million young men and woman in our colleges when a million and a-lialf of our children are toiling on farms, in mines and; factories contributing to that family income which we ane assured wei must accept as the basis of our economic life? It is a pity that the report should condone any such system in recounting the changes which have led to nationr-wicLe prosperity.

Mrs Worcester said that the statistics showing a vast increase in use of automobiles and the consumption of fine foods meant little, because, these things were used largely by the “one-fpurth that owns all the wealth.”’ ‘‘Poverty is a plague that affects humanity. Even this report on- oui'f. national prosperity does not obscure that fact. Its cause is as definitely established as is that of yellow fever. It is the prevailing wage scale in' American industry. The most-needed; of all reforms ’in the richest nation; ort earth is the,y.establishment of a living wage.”