Ten Thousand Out of Work [Reprint 2016 ed.] 9781512801392

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INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH DEPARTMENT WHARTON SCHOOL OF FINANCE AND COMMERCE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PHILADELPHIA

RESEARCH STUDIES XXII

TEN THOUSAND OUT OF WORK

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS OF THE INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH DEPARTMENT I. Earnings and Working Opportunity in the Upholstery Weavers' Trade in 25 Plants in Philadelphia, by Anne Bezanson. $2.50. I I . Collective Bargaining Among Photo-Engravers in Philadelphia, by Charles Leese. $2.50. I I I . Trends in Foundry Production in the Philadelphia Area, by Anne Bezanson and Robert Gray. ( 1 . 5 0 . IV. Significant Post-War Changes in the Full-Fashioned Hosiery Industry, by George W. Taylor. $2.00. V. Earnings in Certain Standard Machine-Tool Occupations in Philadelphia, by H. L. Frain. $1.50. V I . Help-Wanted Advertising as an Indicator of the Demand for Labor, by Anne Bezanson. $2.00. V I I . An Analysis of Production of Worsted Sales Yarn, by Alfred H. Williams, Martin A . Brumbaugh, and Hiram S. Davis. $2.50. V I I I . T h e Future Movement of Iron Ore and Coal in Relation to the St. Lawrence Waterway, by Fayette S. Warner. $5.00. I X . Group Incentives—Some Variations in the Use of Group Bonus and Gang Piece Work, by С. C. Balderston. $2.50. X . Wage Methods and Selling Costs, by Anne Bezanson and Miriam Hussey. $4.50. X I . Wages—A Means of Testing Their Adequacy, by Morris E. Leeds and С. C. Balderston. $1.50. X I I . Case Studies of Unemployment—Compiled by the Unemployment Committee of the National Federation of Settlements, edited by Marion Elderton. $3.00. X I I I . The Full-Fashioned Hosiery Worker—Hie Changing Economic Status, by George W. Taylor. $3.00. X I V . Seasonal Variations in Employment in Manufacturing Industries, by J . Parker Bursk. $2.50. X V . T h e Stabilization of Employment in Philadelphia through the LongRange Planning of Municipal Improvement Projects, by William N. Loucks. $3.50. X V I . How Workers Find Jobs—A Study of Four Thousand Hosiery Workers, by Dorothea de Schweinitz. $2.50. X V I I . Savings and Employee Savings Plans, by William J . Carson. $ 1 . 5 0 . X V I I I . Workers' Emotions in Shop and Home, by Rexford B. Hersey. $3.00. X I X . Union Tactics and Economic Change—A Case Study of Three Philadelphia Textile Unions, by Gladys L. Palmer. $2.00. X X . The Philadelphia Upholstery Weaving Industry, by C. Canby Balderston, Robert P. Brecht, Miriam Hussey, Gladys L. Palmer, and Edward N. Wright. $2.00. X X I . Wage Rates and Working Time in the Bituminous Coal Industry, 1 9 1 2 1922, by Waldo E . Fisher and Anne Bezanson. $3.50.

TEN THOUSAND OUT OF WORK

BY E W A N CLAGUE Director of Research Community Council of Philadelphia and WEBSTER POWELL formerly of the Staff of the Community Council of Philadelphia and Director of Research and Statistics Pennsylvania Department of Welfare

PHILADELPHIA UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS

1933

Copyright, 1933 by the U N I V E R S I T Y OF P E N N S Y L V A N I A PRESS

Printed in the U N I T E D STATES OF A M E R I C A

FOREWORD Ten Thousand Out of Work is the third of a number of studies growing out of unemployment relief in Philadelphia. The first, Neighborhood Relief in Philadelphia, and the second, A Cooperative Study of School Breakfasts, have already appeared in pamphlet form. Others will follow. The Community Council acknowledges with appreciation the generosity of the Department of Industrial Research of the University of Pennsylvania in publishing the present material. The Committee for Unemployment Relief, under the chairmanship of Horatio G. Lloyd, acquired, during the two years of its existence, a fund of knowledge and experience concerning the problem of unemployment relief. This experience involves facts which, if known, would affect measures for relieving or preventing the distress growing out of the present depression. Recognizing the importance of this experience, the Community Council in the spring of 1931 began a number of studies of the records of the committee. The most comprehensive and the most accessible material seemed to lie in the field of work relief. Through the interest of the committee's Emergency Work Bureau unemployed men were employed as part of the program of work relief in securing from their fellow employees such facts about their work history and experience as might, when published, promote a better understanding of unemployment and what its treatment and prevention involve. Schedules were filled out for 8,722 persons who were employed at made-work. This was done under the general direction of Ewan Clague, Director of Research of the Community Council. Additional schedules from 1,439 persons who were applicants for work relief were obtained by Webster Powell, at first working as a graduate student of the University of Pennsylvania, and later as a member of the staff of the Community Council. In view of the similarity of the material and the complementary character V

vi

FOREWORD

of the research, the two studies were partially merged in order that a well-rounded picture might be presented. T h e person who desires to acquaint himself quickly with the two studies here presented can do so by reading the summaries given at the end of each chapter and the conclusions, Part I, pages 77 ff., and Part II, pages 125 ff. C O M M U N I T Y C O U N C I L OF P H I L A D E L P H I A

Robert Dechert, President Karl de Schweinitz, Executive Secretary

CONTENTS CHAPTER

FACE

FOREWORD

Ν

INTRODUCTION

XV

P A R T I — A S T U D Y O F 8,7*2 I N D I V I D U A L S A T

PLACED

MADE-WORK

В Т EWAN CLACUE I T H E W O R K E R AND H I S REGULAR JOB

3

I I U N E M P L O Y M E N T — W H A T IS T H E RESPONSIBILITY OF INDUSTRY? Ι Π PREVENTION OF D E S T I T U T I O N — A THE F A M I L Y IV

RESPONSIBILITY T H R U S T

.

17

UPON

CONCLUSIONS

43 77

P A R T I I — A S T U D Y OF F I N A N C I A L RESOURCES IN T H E F A M I L I E S O F 1,439 A P P L I C A N T S F O R M A D E - W O R K В Т WEBSTER P O W E L L F A M I L Y ECONOMICS IN PROSPERITY AND DEPRESSION

95

APPENDICES A

T H E M A D E - W O R K PROGRAM IN P H I L A D E L P H I A

В

COMPARISON OF SAMPLES

137

С

R E L I A B I L I T Y OF D A T A

141

D

T H E FAMILY

166

Ε

M I G R A T I O N PERIODS OF P H I L A D E L P H I A NECROES

168

F

SUPPLEMENTARY TABLES

170

INDEX

179

vii

13S

CHARTS CHART

PACE

I White and Colored Workers Classified by Longest Job I I White and Colored Workers Classified by Weekly Wages on Longest Job

ιa iS

III Made-Work Employees and Total Gainfully Employed Males in Philadelphia

31

IV Length of Time Since Last Permanent Job

36

V Home Ownership vs. Car Ownership VI Colored and Foreign-Born White Workers Classified by Date of Arrival in Philadelphia

56 64

VII Relative Proportions of Native-Born White, Foreign-Born White, and Colored Males

66

iz

TABLES TABLE

PACE

ι School Attendance of Male Made-Work Employees 2 School Attendance by Birthplace

5 6

3 Comparative Length of Time on One Job

14

4 Comparative Stability of Older and Younger Worker«

16

5 Average Wage on Longest Job for Each School Attendance Class . . . .

χ1

6 Reason for Leaving Last Permanent Job

23

7 Made-Work Employees and Firms Held Accountable for Them Classified by Number of Employees Laid Off per Firm

29

8 Occupation on Longest Job

34.

9 Average Size of Family and Number of Wage-Earners

44

10 Families with Total Unemployment Classified by Number of WageEarners

46

11 Number of Employable Wage-Earners per Family—Industrial Research Department Census and Made-Work Employees

47

ix Families Classified According to Wage-Earning Members

48

13 Average Normal Wage Income of Families Classified According to Working Membe s

jo

14 Methods of Getting Along for White and Colored Families (Families of Made-Work Women Included)

52

15 Home Ownership by Weekly Income of Family (White Families Only)

59

16 Home-Owners and Renters Compared in Their Use of Certain Methods of Getting Along (Families of Women Workers Included)

61

17 Employment Status of Male Native-Born White, Foreign-Born White, and Colored Workers

69

18 Comparison of Made-Work Employees with Total Male Wage-Earners in Philadelphia

70

19 Ratio of Made-Work Employees to Male Colored Population by Periods of Migration

72

20 Summary of Reserves Held by 1,114 White and 325 Colored Families at Beginning of Unemployment Period 21 Indebtedness of Families Classified by Type and Amount

108 112

22 Methods of Getting Along Used by Unemployed Families before They Became Applicants for Made-Work

ixt

23 Families Classified by Number of Methods Used

122

xi

APPENDIX TABLES TABLE

PAGE

Β- ι Four Groups of Made-Work Applicants Classified by Sex and Color

138

B- 2 Powell Sample Classified by Color and Application Status C- ι A g e Variations on Three Sets of Duplicate Schedules

139 14.7

C- ζ Variations in Length of Time of Residence in Philadelphia on T w o Sets of Duplicate Schedules

148

C- 3 Variations in Length of Time Out of Work on T w o Sets of Duplicate Schedules C- 4 Length of Time Out of Work on T w o Sets of Duplicate Schedules .

ijo 15z

С- j Variations in Length of Time on Last Regular Job on One Set of Duplicate Schedules C- 6 Variations in Wages on Last Job on One Set of Duplicate Schedules C-7 Variation in Number of Persons in Family on Three Sets of Duplicate Schedules C- 8 Accuracy of Replies on Particular Questions (Powell-Clague Duplicates) C- 9 Accuracy of Replies on 20 Questions (Clague Duplicates)

i$3 1 j6 ij7 160 161

C-i о Accuracy of Replies on Particular Questions (Jewish Welfare-Clague Duplicates)

162

C-11 Accuracy of Replies of Individual Workers on A l l Questions

163

F- ι Relationship of Wage-Earners to Size of Family by Sex and Color of Applicants

>70

F- 2 Marital Status of Emergency Work Bureau Employees (Men) — Comparison of T o t a l Applicants with Clague and Powell Samples F- 3 Workers Classified According to Religion F- 4. Trade Union Membership F - j War Service F- б Length of Time of Residence in Philadelphia—Comparison of Total Applicants with Clague and Powell Samples F- 7 Age Distribution—Industrial Research Department Unemployment Census and Emergency Work Bureau Employees

170 171 171 171 17z 17z

F- 8 Length of Time of Males on Longest Job

173

F- 9 Length of Time on Longest Job (Women Only) F - i o Average Length of Longest Job Compared to Average of Total Possible Working Time by A g e Groups F-11 Length of Time Out of Work

174 175 176

F - i z Full-Time Wages per Week on Longest Job F-13 Male Made-Work Employees Compared to Males Normally Employed in Philadelphia Industries

178

F-14 Illiteracy—Male Urban Population of Pennsylvania vs. Lack of Education—Emergency Work Bureau Workers

178

xiii

177

INTRODUCTION Readers of The Bridge of Satt Luis Rey will recall the incident upon which that book is based. The foot-bridge across a chasm had suddenly collapsed, precipitating five persons to death in the abyss below. Deeply impressed by this accident, young Brother Juniper took upon himself the task of discovering the answer to the question: Why did this happen to those five? Why were these particular persons destined to be on the bridge at the moment that it fell? What was the sequence of events that brought them to that fatal place at that exact time? Mr. Thornton Wilder's story relates the findings of Brother Juniper. The fate of the unemployed in our present economic disaster may be compared with that of the victims of The Bridge. And similar questions suggest themselves. What are the reasons for the unemployment of the unemployed? Why are they the particular ones to experience this disaster? Being unemployed, why are they obliged to appeal for help? The present study is an effort to answer, in a measure at least, some of these questions and so far as possible to ascertain some of the factors in personality and circumstance that have played a part in the fate of those who have suffered in the collapse of the bridge of industry. The men and women selected for study constitute a fairly representative group of unemployed. At first, applications to the Emergency Work Bureau for made-work1 were received only through the social agencies, which recommended for placement the chief wage earners in families where unemployment alone was the chief need. But, later on, there were established in different parts of the city five application centers, where the unemployed might make application independently. The result was that many workers who had never been in 1

For further details on the made-work program, see Appendix A. xv

xvi

INTRODUCTION

contact with a social agency applied for made-work, and were accepted for placement if their state of need justified it. The process of selection begun by the social agencies (and therefore affecting all workers sent by them) was carried further in the final placement by the Emergency Work Bureau. Insofar as certain principles of selection were applied, the placed workers would naturally differ from the applicants with respect to these principles. Urgency of need, number of dependents, and previous work record were three important factors of selection; heads of families were given preference over their children, men were chosen rather than women, single persons were placed only when they were members of a large family of dependents. Married couples without children were practically ineligible. Hence, those characteristics of the wage earner and his family that bear any relation to the above selective tests would in some degree vary from the normal in the population as a whole. On the other hand, the requirements of the job often necessitated the modification of the above principles; an actual shortage of workers in certain occupations, for example, sometimes operated to give a decided advantage to applicants qualified for that work. There was no discrimination with reference to race, color, or religion. We have then a certain cross-section of the needy unemployed. Below them were the wage earners in about 35,000 families2 being cared for by the Committee for Unemployment Relief and the various relief organizations (including the municipal Department of Public Welfare) through direct relief in the home; in these families were included the handicapped, the sick, the old, and the incompetent wage earners as well as many able-bodied workers, of course. Above them were families which, while suffering from the unemployment of some of their wage earners, had not yet been reduced to destitution. The workers and the families studied here con* Some of these were duplicates. Social agencies sometimes gave supplementary relief to the families of wage earners employed at made-work.

INTRODUCTION

XVII

stitute a middle group, certainly with respect to need, probably with respect to quality of wage earners. Another point of importance concerns the representative character of the sample of made-work employees included in this study. Roughly, about three men out of every five on made-work were surveyed. Were those who were missed sufficiently like the others that the results of the study are equally applicable to them? The one point at which the sample might be questioned is the omission of men employed at made-work in the municipal street cleaning department; these men could not be surveyed for certain special reasons. Since many unskilled and casual laborers were assigned to jobs in this department, the problem is whether these types of men were adequately covered in this study. Tests of sex and color (see Appendix B ) give no indication of sampling discrepancies; yet there is the likelihood that the data as presented are affected in some small degree by an under-representation of the casual and unskilled labor groups. However, it is our conviction, after careful study, that the findings reported here would apply to the entire body of made-workers without substantial modification. Finally, there is the question of the reliability of the data collected. The survey was made on short notice, there was little time for training the interviewers, the men were interviewed on the job where they had to rely wholly on memory in answering most of the questions, language difficulties often presented themselves—these were only a few of the problems which had to be faced in making the survey. The importance of this matter of accuracy and reliability led to our making a special detailed analysis of this point; the limitations of the study in this respect are set forth in Appendix C. To summarize, we feel that we have here an average group of unemployed workers and their families, that no sampling difficulties encountered in the study have seriously affected the representative character of the group, and that the data reported by them are sufficiently reliable to be accepted as social facts.

PARTI A S T U D Y O F 8,722 I N D I V I D U A L S P L A C E D A T

MADE-WORK

BY THE PHILADELPHIA C O M M I T T E E FOR U N E M P L O Y M E N T BY EWAN СLAGUE

RELIEF

CHAPTER I THE WORKER AND HIS REGULAR JOB Practically all of the many thousands of men and women who applied to the Philadelphia Emergency Work Bureau for made-work had at one time or another held a regular job of some sort. There were a few young boys who had never yet worked and a small number of women whom .necessity had forced to seek work for the first time. But the sum of these was negligible. It is possible to go further and say that most of the made-work applicants had in the past held fairly steady jobs. What had happened to these jobs and why were these workers no longer in them? In particular, was the worker himself in any way responsible for his own unemployment? On the one hand, it is obvious that the responsibility of the worker himself must be very limited. Having no voice in the management of industry he cannot be held to account for the business depression. Nor is there anything that he as an individual can do to hasten the processes of recovery. On the other hand, many men are still at work in industry and business^ for some reason they managed to retain their jobs when others were being laid off. These last were selected for layoff on some basis or other} was it a matter of relative efficiency on the job? If so (and we have every reason to suppose that each employer in his own self-interest would be trying to apply the efficiency principle in the conduct of his business), we should expect to find our made-work group consisting largely of the lower grades of the labor market—"the last to be hired and the first to be fired." In that case we might gently hint to each worker that he is partly to blame for his plight. Competitively, he failed on the job while better men were succeeding. Even though he did not directly cause his own unemployment, it is his fault that he rather than someone else is out of a job. Within those limits, at least, some personal responsibility still exists. [3]

4

TEN THOUSAND

OUT OF WORK

But suppose it were discovered that these unemployed workers represented all classes and grades of labor, that there were among them men fully as efficient and conscientious workmen as those still employed. Such findings would indicate that perhaps even the best of performance on the job is no guarantee against unemployment, that being out of work is a disaster which cannot be circumvented by individual action. If such is the case the worker himself and the general public as well should be informed of these facts. The morale and self-respect of the competent workman should not be destroyed by vain searchings of personal conduct to find an explanation of his difficulties, and the public should be educated to a more sympathetic consideration of the unemployment problem. The question then finally comes down to this: Did the worker make good on his regular job? To answer such a question directly would require data which were not available, even though they might exist. But with the material at our disposal we have endeavored to obtain an indirect answer. The individual worker's record of training and experience, as reported by himself, has been examined to see what indications this might give of his success or failure as a worker. Furthermore, these unemployed workers have been compared in certain respects with the rest of the population to discover, if possible, the existence of important variations. What are the characteristics of these men who were laid off? How do they differ from other people? Through these we may arrive indirectly at an answer to our broader question—did these workers make good? EDUCATION

Since education is assumed to be an important element in success, whether in business or industry, the relative educational advantages of these made-work employees is a matter of great importance. Was there anything in their education (or lack of education) which would to some extent account for their unemployment? When interviewed the workers were not only asked to state the number of years spent in school,

THE WORKER

AND HIS REGULAR

JOB

5

but they were also urged to give additional information about business college or trade school training. The record for the men is tabulated below j the women workers were not considered sufficiently representative to justify their inclusion at this point in the study. T A B L E SCHOOL

ATTENDANCE

OF

MALE

Ι MADE-WORK

Number

School Attendance Grade Completed

EMPLOYEES

Per Cent

White

Colored

White

Colored

8.177

5,8I8

2,359

100.0

100.0

4 years и 3 2 и I

22 18 39 19

18 18 33 16

4

0.2

6 3

О-З °·3 о.6 °·3

High School 4 years и 3 2 и I и

19З 96 302 328

170 89 268 271

23 7 34 57

2.9 ΐ·5 4.6 4-7

I .0 0.3 1-4 a-4

Grade School 8 years а 7 6 и и 5 и 4 3 2 I

1.967 891 946 769 996 439 231 107

1,65α 7°5 67ι 463 519

315 186 275 306 477

"3 58

118 49

28.4 12.1 II.s 8.0 8.9 4.2 1 ·9 ι .0

13-3 7-9 11.7 13.0 20.2 8-3

None

671

417

254

7.2

10.8

No report

14З

95

48

1.6

2.0

Total College

141

—

ι

97

—

°·3 O.I

S-o 2.1

There was considerable difference between the white and colored workers. Among the white men, 85 had had some college training and 798 had gone as far as high school. A l together, approximately 45 per cent of the total number reporting had gone at least as far as the eighth grade. At the lower extreme there were 4 1 7 without any formal schooling

6

TEN THOUSAND

OUT

TABLE SCHOOL ATTENDANCE

OF

WORK

Ι BY

BIRTHPLACE

Education Birthplace

Total IN one

Grade High School School

ColNo lege Report

Grand Total

8.177

671

6,346

919

98

ИЗ

White—Total

5,818

417

4,423

798

85

95

Native-Вогп

3,4i6

28

2,645

651

68

24

Foreign-Born

2,39 2

388

1,772

HS

'7

70

1,188

28S

829

34

I

39

331

34

3

220

8

I

13 5

134

36

215

28

4 7

11

Italy Eastern Europe—Russia, Poland, etc Ireland Great Britain Rest of Europe All Others No report Colored—Total Native-Born South Carolina Georgia Virginia North Carolina Pennsylvania Other Northern and Western States Other Southern States.. Alabama State not reported Foreign-Born No report

458 238

77 4

176

I

279

18

I

I

I

S3

3

43

5

10

1

6

2

2,359

254

1,923

121

13

48

2,307

251

1,880

11

13

48

692 418

83 49 43 36 4

S

21

571

344

I

—

—

17

S

7 9

13

2

S

229

16

2

6

148

40

I

I

IS7

15 4

I

3

I

2

2

I

I

24 7

I

—

—

47

2

39

6

—

—

5

I

4

—

—

351 289 194 189 126

39 9

13 11 11

292

108

—

I

THE WORKER

AND HIS REGULAR

JOB

7

whatever, 7.2 per cent of the total. This is over twice the percentage of illiteracy reported in the 1930 population census for the state of Pennsylvania among the urban population of white males 21 years of age and over. 1 The educational advantages of the colored workers were still more limited. On a percentage basis the colored had much less than half as many men of high school or college training as the whites. In the eighth grade the proportion of colored was only slightly less than half the corresponding figure for the whites, while in the lower grades the proportions were almost exactly the reverse. No less than 10.8 per cent of the colored reported no formal school training of any kind, a figure considerably more than double the illiteracy rate for the urban colored population of Pennsylvania. Roughly 40 per cent of the white workers surveyed were foreign-born, of whom almost exactly half were Italians. T h e second largest group was composed of those born within the borders of Old Russia, or what is now represented by the U.S.S.R., Poland, Lithuania, Esthonia, and Latvia. A considerable proportion of this group was Jewish. Ireland, Great Britain, and Germany ranked next in order. The difference in schooling between these foreign-born workers and the native-born white Americans was very marked. Table 2 shows the native-born whites, the more important nationality groups among the foreign-born, and the Negroes classified into four major educational groups. Four-fifths of all whites with college education were native Americans, and the relative number with high school training was even higher yet. But less than one per cent of this group reported no education. On the other hand, the foreign-born, even when the figures are reduced to a strictly proportionate 1 A n illiterate is defined by the U . S. Census Bureau as a person unable to read and write in English or any other language. Undoubtedly, some of these made-work employees w h o reported no school attendance could read and write after a fashion (some could sign their names in a halting w a y ) , but their proficiency was slight. However, while "uneducated" is not the equivalent of "illiterate," it is probable that the two are fairly closely related. In other words, the percentage of men without school training among made-work employees indicates a high percentage of illiteracy.

8

TEN THOUSAND OUT OF WORK

basis, had twenty times as many men without schooling as the native-born. However, not all the foreign-born were alike. The Italians showed by far the least educational advantages; very nearly one-fourth of all those born in Italy had never attended school, and only about 3 per cent had gone beyond grade school. Of the Slavic-Jewish group born in Eastern Europe about one-sixth never attended school, but about one-twelfth had been in high school or college. The Irish were quite unique in their educational attainments, having very few without schooling or with a higher education; an extremely high proportion had attended grade school only. On the other hand, the British showed about 20 per cent attendance in high schools. There are two points of interest with reference to the educational standards of the colored group. The first is that they showed a much smaller percentage without schooling than the foreign-born whites; in fact, they had nearly as large a proportion of high school and college men as the foreign-born. Second, the educational opportunities for the Negroes are obviously very much restricted in the southern states. Only one native-born colored Philadelphian out of 147 had never gone to school, and there were only three others from the rest of the state of Pennsylvania. All the other northern and western states taken together showed only 13. But 28 per cent of all colored men born in Alabama had received no education. The Big Four (South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina) each averaged in the neighborhood of 1 2 per cent. The above figures indicate that the comparison previously made between the percentage of made-work employees without education and the percentage of illiteracy among males in the urban population of Pennsylvania2 holds good for the three major groups of the population—native-born, foreignborn, and colored. In all three the made-workers showed higher percentages. Recognizing that the comparison is not * See Appendix F, Table F-14., p. 178.

THE

WORKER

AND HIS REGULAR

JOB

9

strictly valid, we still think the disproportion is so great as to warrant the conclusion that in the matter of illiteracy the made-work employees were somewhat worse than a comparable group of the population. Comparatively few of these workers reported any professional or trade training in regular schools. Only 78 white men had attended business college and 16 had gone to trade school, certainly not a large proportion of 5818 men. Furthermore, this additional training was somewhat correlated with formal education, as shown by the fact that only six of those attending business college had failed to get at least as far as the eighth grade. The majority were eighth grade graduates and high school graduates preparing for a job after leaving school. Business college requirements undoubtedly had a good deal to do with this; those with lower education would not be admitted. Of the trade school group more than half had finished the eighth grade. Only four colored men out of 2359 reported attending business college and none had gone to trade school. To what extent this situation is due to lack of opportunity rather than lack of interest, there is no way of knowing. Probably the difficulties of obtaining admittance played some part in the final result. The absence of detailed comparative data prevents a more effective comparison between the educational attainments of the made-work employees and those of the general population. Such data as we have indicate that the made-workers were somewhat below average all along the line, from the illiterates through to the college graduates. Furthermore, some made-work groups were very seriously handicapped, particularly the Negroes from the South and certain foreignborn nationalities. Yet the very fact that a large native American group with much higher educational attainments were eligible for made-work indicates that lack of education alone is not the key to the unemployment problem. Education was undoubtedly a factor in this situation, but there must have been other factors of greater importance.

10

TEN

THOUSAND

OUT OF

WORK

S T A B I L I T Y ON T H E J O B

One simple test of success on a job is the length of time that the job was held. If a worker proved unsatisfactory his employer would speedily eliminate him from the payroll. If a worker's performance was entirely satisfactory, presumably he could remain on the job indefinitely, at least until some final disaster forced the employer to let him go. Those men who move about frequently of their own accord are likely to belong to either of two extreme classes: first, casuals or unemployables who are not satisfactory workers, or second, ambitious men who change their jobs in the interest of their rapid advancement. But, generally speaking, the majority of workers in business or industry tend to remain settled and immobile in the absence of outside disturbing influences. It is this fact which justifies the use of length of time on the job as a test of steadiness and ability. In this analysis it has been considered that the longest job the man ever held constitutes a better indication of his true job status than the last job. In the present unemployment crisis many workers had to accept temporary makeshifts of various kinds in order to tide themselves over the emergency. A carpenter who has had to take a laboring job is not considered as having left the carpenter's trade and he should be judged on his work record as a carpenter and not as a laborer. Furthermore, for about 50 per cent of all the white men covered in this study, the last and the longest jobs were identical. This large proportion indicates the stable character of these men, and further emphasizes the fact that it is not easy to pick up temporary jobs after a worker has lost his regular job. For purposes of classification, a steady or regular job was interpreted to mean a job of three months or longer. On this basis, only 5.4 per cent of the white men were casuals who had never had a steady job as far back as they could remember. Not all these men were necessarily shiftless or incompetent, but the chances are that a majority of them would fall in this class. Some necessarily were classified here because

THE WORKER

AND HIS REGULAR

JOB

11

of the nature of their work, and their irregularity could not be wholly attributed to their own shortcomings. T h e next group in order were those whose longest job had lasted between three months and a year. These were primarily seasonal workers, and they constituted less than 8 per cent of the whole. Thus the seasonale and casuals together comprised about one-eighth of the total number of white men.® O n the other hand, approximately half the men had been on the job for over five years, and nearly a fifth had been anchored for more than ten years. N o fewer than 117 of these men had service records with the same plant of more than 25 years, and one man had established a record of 45 years. T h e Negroes do not have quite as good a record for stability as do the whites. Their casuals amounted to 9 per cent, and seasonal workers to 12 per cent, bringing the total for these two classes up to more than a fifth of the entire number. Likewise, the number having over five years' service was less than one-third, while only 45 had held jobs longer than 15 years. This scarcity of longer jobs among the Negroes is unquestionably due in part to the fact that a very large proportion of them migrated to Philadelphia in recent years, as noted in another connection (see pages 62 ff.). Thus they did not have the opportunity to establish service records as long as those of the white men, of whom a majority had lived in Philadelphia all their lives. T h e figures also tend to lend support to the widespread opinion among the Negroes themselves that they are the first to suffer unemployment when layoffs become necessary. T h e contrast between the white and colored workers with reference to length of service on the job is portrayed in the " T h e s e classifications are necessarily arbitrary. Certain kinds of seasonal work last less than three months, so the first group may contain some seasonal workers. So, too, the group holding· jobs from three months to a year may contain workers who are not seasonal at all, but w h o just happened to change jobs frequently. However, it is thought that in numbers as large as those given here, the proportion of such unusual cases would not be large enough to modify the general classification.

THE

WORKER

AND HIS REGULAR

JOB

13

accompanying chart. For charting purposes a slightly different classification from that discussed above has been introduced. Workers with jobs of six months or less have been grouped, then all workers with jobs ranging from seven months to eighteen months inclusive have been classed together, and so on up to five years, after which no monthly figures were available.4 Also, to facilitate comparison the data have been converted to a percentage basis. T h e proportion of colored workers is shown to be far in excess on the shorter jobs, but after five years the lines cross and in all longer jobs the whites are far ahead. In interpreting the meaning of these figures on length of service, it is necessary to take into account the fact that the men reported for varying periods of times. In other words, we do not have the f u l l working record, especially of the older men. From five to ten years was about as far back as most workers could remember, with the exception of those who had had very long jobs which carried them back almost to the beginning of their working lives.® * This classification seems much more realistic than the alternative one: Less than one year, between one year and two years, etc. Workers tend to report in round numbers, and among those reporting '4wo years" there may be almost as many a few months short of the full 24 months as there are those in excess of that figure. 'These "long jobs" require some interpretation. Any man working ten, twenty, thirty years with one concern must have had occasional layoffs. In the early years of service these would be regarded by the worker as definite breaks in service (many workers undoubtedly hunted other jobs during the layoff), but as time went on the worker would come to rely more and more on the regular job and to consider himself permanently attached to the firm. In looking back on it now he ignores the six-month layoff of 1921, the one year in the army in 1918, etc., etc. In other words, the worker's interpretation of length of service does not necessarily coincide with that of the firm for which he has worked. For confirmation on this point in a given situation, see Clague and Couper, "The Readjustment of Workers Displaced by Plant Shutdowns," Quarterly Journal 0} Economics, February, 1931. Another variation is found in the case of seasonal workers, such as building tradesmen. One man reported working 17 years with the same concern, yet the facts were that he was regularly laid off in the late autumn and reemployed in the spring. He counted on that job every spring and only when it failed to materialize did he consider himself unemployed. Was the worker right in calling thah a 17-year job, or should he have reported "no job of more than one year?" The long jobs tabulated here undoubtedly include some of this last type.

14

TEN THOUSAND

OUT OF WORK

T o bring out the f u l l significance of the service records of these workers, there was constructed an index of stability measured in terms of the ratio between the length of time on the longest job and the total time available during the working life. This total available working time was computed both for white men and for colored men, using eighteen years of age as a starting point. Obviously, some workers had regular jobs before their eighteenth year, but it is also true that many others remained in school until beyond that period. In addition, at least the first two years of work would be likely tc T A B L E

3

C O M P A R A T I V E L E N G T H OF T I M E ON O N E

JOB

Time

White

Colored

Total

Average available working years Average number of years reported Average number of years on longest j o b . . . .

19.7 9.0 6.0

!9S

6.2

19.6 8.2

3-8

5-3

consist largely in training and experimentation which could not reasonably be counted against the worker. Using eighteen years, then, and counting all the elapsed time since that date, it was found that the average total available working time for white and colored alike was just under twenty years. Table 3 shows the relationships among the average available working years, the average period of time for which data were reported, and the average length of time on the longest job. These figures make it possible to evaluate the stability of these workers. T h e average man on made-work had had a working life of 19.6 years (counting from 18 years of age), gave a work record covering 8.2 of those years, and reported 5.3 years on one job. This long job, of course, must have occurred within the period covered by the work record. Thus, nearly two-thirds of the time which the men could remember had been spent on the job. In recent years, at least, these men had an impressive record of stability. O n the other hand, the average length of the longest job

THE WORKER

AND HIS REGULAR

JOB

15

was 27.0 per cent of the average available working time since these men were 18 years of age. This percentage is probably too low since there may have been, in the early life of some of the older men, some longer jobs than those actually reported in recent years. There is no way of making any allowance for this fact, so the final index of stability must remain at 27 per cent} this means that, on the average, more than one-fourth of the entire working life of these men had been spent on one single job. Considering the fact that all seasonal and casual workers are included in the total, and in view of the well-known instability and uncertainty of business conditions, these figures are little short of remarkable. Of course, no allowance has been made for temporary layoffs or lost time. The colored workers did not make as good a showing of stability as the white. With an average working life approximately equal to that of the latter, they reported their job experiences for a period of 6.2 years, as compared with 9.0 years for the whites. The responsibility for the shortage can probably be divided between poor memories and recent migration. Furthermore, the average length of job was only 3.8 years as compared to 6.0 for the whites. T h e percentage ratio of the longest job to the total working life was approximately 20 per cent for the Negroes and 30 per cent for the whites. About one-fifth of the entire working life of these colored men had been spent on one job. Though less impressive than the data for the whites, these figures do not by any means condemn colored men as being essentially unstable. An additional point of some importance in connection with stability is brought to light when the workers are classified by age groups. T h e figures® emphasize the steady increase in the average length of the longest job in the older groups of men. This is to be expected, since the older men obviously had a longer time in which to build up service records; but when allowance is made for age in calculating the stability ratio the results are striking. ' See Appendix F, Table F - i o , p. 175 for details.

16

TEN THOUSAND

OUT OF WORK

To develop this comparison the workers were classified in two groups, using 30 years as the dividing line. Thus the younger group is composed, generally speaking, of those who entered industry in the decade 1920-1930 and enjoyed the prosperity of that era. The older group mostly dates back to the war and pre-war days. T A B L E

4

COMPARATIVE S T A B I L I T Y o r O L D E R AND Y O U N G E R

Age Groups

WORKERS

Ratio: Longest Number Average Avail- Average Time Job to Availof able Working on Longest able T i m e men T i m e (Years) Job (Years) (Per Cent) White

Total Under 30 years. 30 years and over

5,601 1,444

19.7 6.6

6.0 3-4

30.5 51-5

4,157

24.1

6.8

28.3

3-8 2.6

19-5 35-1

4-3

18.6

Colored Total Under 30 years. 30 years and over

2,310 674

1

1,636

23.1

9•5 7-5

From these figures it is evident that the younger group had an exceptionally good record of steady work. The whites, with only 6.6 years available on the average, established a service record of 3.4 years and a stability ratio of 51.5 per cent. This is not far from twice the ratio for the older group. Likewise, the young colored workers achieved a ratio of 35.1 per cent. It is most significant that these high ratios were established by a group of young workers in a period of great prosperity. The meaning of these results is not entirely clear, but the figures seem to indicate that, despite the high labor turnover rates in good times, the bulk of even the younger (?nd pre-

THE

WORKER

AND HIS REGULAR

JOB

17

sumably more volatile) workers stick closely to their jobs. If the initiative is left to them, they do not change jobs very often. WAGES

If stability on the job measures in some degree the employer's confidence in the worker, the rate of wages measures the level of achievement attained by the worker in his trade or occupation. Wages furnish at least an indication of a man's success on the job. W h a t had these workers achieved in wages? T h e answer to this question is given by Chart II, which classifies white and colored workers according to the fulltime weekly wages reported. N o allowance has been made for losses due to part-time, but that would not be necessary for the purpose in view here. T h e most important point in connection with this chart is the marked contrast between the white and colored workers. O f the former, the largest proportion of workers reported earnings of $25-329 per week inclusive, with another large group at $30-$34; but there was a plentiful representation of whites all through the higher wage groups, over one-third of all workers earning $35 or more per week. T h e Negroes, on the other hand, were quite different. First, they were much more concentrated at one level. By far the largest group reported wages of $2θ-$24 per week, while nearly 62 per cent of all colored workers fell between $20 and $29. Secondly, there were very few colored workers in all higher wages classes and very many in the lower ones under $20. Various social agencies in Philadelphia, particularly the Family Society and the Jewish Welfare Society, have from time to time worked out what they call "minimum adequacy budgets"—the bare minimum income on which a family can maintain health and decency. T h e Family Society budget for 1929 (which should represent a price level roughly comparable to these wage rates) was $21.63 per week for a family of five persons. O n this basis the great bulk of the Negro

TEN THOUSAND

18

i

OUT OF WORK

о

Μ Б

S я

Μ

Ιί 9

it t

s

£

E S S

t-

11

S i l

11

SS к sЯ i l ι*

ES3S

S1

ί ь

u il

1

il il '" *"· Ο -о, У «ι

° οi εl

THE WORKER

AND HIS REGULAR

JOB

19

workers were not much above a bare subsistence level. By the time an adjustment is made in full-time wages to allow for short time and lost time, few of the workers in the $20$29 classes (and, obviously, none of those below $20) would be able to support their families, with their own earnings, on a minimum adequacy level. Furthermore, the opportunities of these families to save money and build up reserves must necessarily have been very limited, and any long-continued period of unemployment would be sure to reduce them to destitution. If the weekly wages of the whites are translated into annual earnings on the basis of an estimated 44 weeks' work a year, it will be found that the middle wage groups belong in income classes ranging from $1100 to $1500 per year. In view of the fact that these men were practically all the heads of families, these earnings cannot be considered as making possible a very high standard of living, but it is clear that these men would be able to maintain their families at something better than a subsistence level. These wages are quite on a par with those paid generally in this state. T h e Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry reports every month on the average weekly earnings in various industries. The report for May 15, I930T (which may be taken as representing the period when many of the workers later given made-work were being laid off from their regular jobs) shows average weekly earnings as follows: Blast Furnaces $30.80 Steel Works and Rolling Mills 30.16 Machinery and Parts *7·9θ Automobiles 30.80 Locomotives and Cars 30.02 Shipbuilding 30.61

Railroad Repair Shops Glass Cement Petroleum Refining Rubber Tires Construction

$29.16 25.21 32.13 31.96 30.23 28.49

These industries were selected because they employ very few women workers, and their workers are therefore more nearly comparable to the made-work employees. In most of these industries, however, there is a considerable proportion 7 Labor and Industry, August, 1930, pp. 23-16. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Labor and Industry.

20

TEN

THOUSAND

OUT OF

WORK

of colored workers, so the earnings reflect to some extent the lower wages of the latter. The made-work men in the present study reported average earnings of $32.23 for the whites and $25.43 f ° r the Negroes. The above industries taken together show an over-all average of something more than $30 per week. The figures indicate that the Emergency Work Bureau's workers were about up to the average of industry as a whole in wages received. It is of interest to note the influence of education upon the workers' success in their jobs. In the first place, the education of these men, both white and colored, was correlated with the length of time on the job, but the results were inconclusive. This was partly due to the fact that the more highly educated men were the younger ones, who would have had a much shorter time in which to build up service records. However, even when some rough allowance was made for the age factor there did not seem to be very much connection between education and length of service. But the latter is not necessarily conclusive evidence of success; a very capable worker may change jobs frequently through rapid promotion and advancement. The second test involves the correlation of education with wages. Presumably the advantages of higher education should be expressed, to some degree at least, in higher income. In actual fact, the data do show that education has some influence on earnings. Table 5 shows the average weekly wages for those workers in each education class. E v e n making all due allowance for the inaccuracies and uncertainties in the reports on earnings, the steady upward trend of wages as education increases is very apparent, especially in the case of the whites. It is no accident that college graduates average $48.31 as compared to $29.01 for those with no education. Note also how almost every additional forward step in education is accompanied by at least a slight rise in earning power. The sharp increase for high school graduates over those who did not finish the high school course is very striking and undoubtedly quite indicative of the ad-

THE

WORKER

AND HIS REGULAR

JOB

21

vantages of that achievement. T h e wage reflects to some extent the additional opportunities in the way of jobs which are open only to those with a high school education. In the same way, the sharp increase for eighth-grade graduates over those who stopped after a lower grade is very suggestive. BeT A B L E

5

A V E R A G E W A G E ON L O N G E S T J O B FOR E A C H S C H O O L A T T E N D A N C E CLASS

White School Attendance Grade Completed

College

4 years

High School

3 2 I 4 3 2 I

Grade School 8 7 6 S 4 3 2 I None N o report

и

и и и и и и и и и и и и и и

Number of Men 16 16 30 15 164 84 248 250 1,587 671 622 436 490 218 107 53 376 80

Colored

Average Weekly Wage Μ-31 42.25 40.13 37.8o 38.55 34 16 34-21 34-05 33-34 30.17 31-47 31-55 30.91 30-94 28.56 29.77 29.01 31.81

Number of Men

Average Weekly Wage

4

>29-75

4 3 20

32.25 24.66 27.50 28.85 27.61 25.12 25.18 25.02

—

7 34 54 З03 175 266 29З 460 188 "3 48 236 47

—

25-93 25-35 25-43 25.17 25.07 26.1a 25.21 25.46

low the eighth grade, however, there does not appear to be any very great influence of education upon earnings. A man with a seventh grade education averages very little better than one with none at all. Among the Negroes this latter point is even more strikingly illustrated. A l l through the grades there is almost no variation in the average wages and in fact it is only with the second year in high school that a new, slightly higher level

22

TEN THOUSAND

OUT

OF

WORK

of income is reached. The figures seem to indicate the existence of a decided limitation in the opportunities of educated colored men. Education apparently does not give the colored man the wage and income advantages that it does the white. In interpreting the above data, both for white and colored, one very important qualification must be made. There is some evidence that the more highly educated men were attached to those industries and to those jobs in which employment was much steadier. On the other hand, the men with poor education were usually laborers, many of them attached to the construction industry. The wages of the latter compensate to some extent for the insecurity and irregularity of their employment. A bricklayer's helper may report fairly good weekly wages, but his average earnings over a period of a year would be very much lower, perhaps even less than half as much. The weekly earnings of a clerical worker, however, could be translated into annual income on practically a fulltime basis since these workers usually have very steady jobs. The differential which exists between the income of the welleducated man and that of the poorly educated is much greater than it appears to be in terms of weekly wages. Unfortunately, no data were available on the annual income of these workers and therefore this final comparison cannot be made. In summary, it appears that for colored men the advantages of an education are decidedly limited, but that for whites there is a persistent and steady increase in earnings as a higher education is attained. Furthermore, if account were taken of steadiness of employment by a comparison of annual incomes, the economic advantages of higher education would be more clearly evident. Loss OF JOBS If, then, these workers were satisfied with their jobs and were filling them satisfactorily, why did they lose them? Was it in any sense their own fault? In one question on the schedule the worker was specifically asked to state the reason for leaving his last permanent job. These replies were tabulated and the reasons analyzed.

THE WORKER

AND HIS REGULAR

23

JOB

Obviously, the answers to this question are subject to a number of qualifications. In the first place, the question was inserted in the schedule after the study had begun so that over 700 white men and more than 300 colored did not have an opportunity to answer it. These have been omitted from the tabulation, which fact accounts for the absence of any "unknown" classification in the table. Secondly, some men gave much more specific answers than others. One might report that he lost his job because the firm went bankrupt while some TABLE

6

R E A S O N FOR L E A V I N G L A S T P E R M A N E N T J O B

Per Cent

Reason for Leaving Job Total Layoffs Finns bankrupt, merged, moved a w a y . . Quits Illness or accident Discharges All other

White

Colored

100.0

100.0

8a. 8

86.0

8.5

5-4 a.4 »•7 ΐ·4 2.1

1.9

a.4 ι .0 2.4

fellow-worker of his would content himself with the more colorless phrase "laid off." Undoubtedly the latter term concealed many more definite causes which could have been segregated had the worker chosen to give a more specific answer. Finally, it may be questioned whether the worker always knows the reason why he lost his job. Except in the case of voluntary quitting or a strike, the initiative came from the employer and the latter is the only one who could say definitely why this particular worker was separated from his job. With these qualifications in mind, we can interpret the figures shown in Table 6. The chief point brought out by the figures is that the loss of job was due to the worker himself in only a small proportion of the cases. About one per cent of the men admitted be-

24

TEN THOUSAND

OUT OF WORK

ing discharged; a somewhat larger proportion quit of their own accord, but these two reasons taken together constituted less than 4 per cent of the total, both for white and colored. Another small group was out of work because of illness or accident which may or may not have been the fault of the worker. Thirteen white men and one colored admitted being on strike and so a certain part of the " a l l other" may be ascribed to the workers' own choice. But it is clear that the overwhelming majority of these workers lost their jobs through the employers' initiative. Five-sixths of the whites and six-sevenths of the colored reported layoffs as the reason for the loss of job (and in this class are tabulated such answers as "poor business," "introduction of machinery," etc. which were occasionally mentioned). In addition, such answers as "bankruptcy," "merger," "firm moved out of town," etc. really belong in this class although they have been given a special tabulation. It is striking that nearly 6 per cent of the whites and about 4 per cent of the Negroes reported "mergers" as the basic cause of their loss of a job. Bankruptcies rank next in order in this class, while the employer's moving out of town was comparatively unimportant as a cause. Adding this group to those laid off, we find that well over 90 per cent of the total number of workers, both white and colored, became unemployed because of business conditions. It is possible, of course, that they were laid off because they were the least efficient or the least willing, but in view of the comparatively long service records of these men, even this reason does not fully account for the loss of jobs. In the case of bankruptcies, mergers, firms moving out of town, etc., many very competent persons must have been dismissed. If these figures seem unduly high in layoffs and low in other causes of separation from the job, attention is called to the data on labor turnover published monthly by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. These data are furnished by employers and not by workers. For the entire year 1931, 8 the "See Monthly Labor Review, February, 1932, p. 346. U. S. Department of Labor, Washington, D.C.

THE

WORKER

AND HIS REGULAR

JOB

25

layoff rate for the industries represented in the series was 34.27, or nearly three times the combined quits and discharges. Over 70 per cent of all separations were due to layoffs, on the employers' own tabulation. These figures make it seem that the made-workers were perhaps too much inclined to blame the employer. T h e layoffs shown here are probably too high, and the quits too low. Possibly some of the discrepancy between these figures and those of the Bureau of Labor Statistics can be accounted for by a genuine difference in interpretation between the employer and the employee. In any case, our final conclusion must be that so far as the loss of the job was concerned it was not the worker who was primarily responsible. Outside forces, over which he had no control, brought about the condition which led to his dismissal. T h e loss of the job cannot be blamed upon personal failure. T h e responsibility belongs elsewhere. SUMMARY

T h e facts developed in this study show that the Emergency Work Bureau's workers were somewhat below average in their educational attainments. Regardless of whether they were native white, foreign-born white, or colored, the proportion without school training in each group was far in excess of the percentage of illiteracy for comparable groups in the state of Pennsylvania as a whole. There is every reason to believe that they were also somewhat below average in higher education. Since education is a factor making for better jobs, more stability of employment, etc., it is clear that these workers were somewhat handicapped in this respect. T h e y were, however, by no means an uneducated or unprepared group. Their educational attainments were not wholly inadequate, and the fact that some of them were far above the average of the community in their schooling is evidence of the fact that lack of education would not alone account for their difficulties. T o the extent that length of service is a test of success on the job, these workers were well qualified. Only about 5 per cent of the white and 9 per cent of the colored could be

26

TEN THOUSAND OUT OF WORK

classed as casual workers who had never had a steady job. Over one-half of the whites and nearly one-third of the Negroes had been on the same job for five years or longer, while service records of 10, 20, 30, and up to 45 years were not uncommon. In every way these men qualified as steady workers on regular jobs. Their wages, while not rated as high, compared very favorably with the wages of other workers on similar j obs in Pennsylvania. There were sharp differences between the whites and the Negroes, the latter reporting average full-time earnings of only about $2 5 per week as compared to $ 3 2 for the whites. Furthermore, these earnings represent full time; when allowance is made for short time and layoffs during the year, the annual income is not so impressive. Education has an influence on wages, especially among the whites. College graduates averaged weekly earnings over 60 per cent higher than those of men without any formal educaation, and if allowance could be made for the greater regularity of employment of the former, the differential would be very much larger. T h e loss of employment was not the fault of the workers. T h e vast majority of them were simply laid off for lack of work. Others lost their jobs when their firms went bankrupt, merged, or moved away. Considerably more than 90 per cent of these men were unemployed because of business conditions over which they had no control. Our conclusion is that the great majority of these men were by no means marginal workers who would be the first to be laid off and the last to be hired. On the contrary, there is much evidence that they were quite representative of industrial workers generally in stability and earning capacity. Their previous records indicate that, by and large, they had definitely made good as workmen. The trouble was that they, and perhaps their employers, were engulfed in an economic disaster of the first magnitude, a disaster too great for any individual action to be effective. Under such circumstances no blanket charge of personal responsibility can be laid against these workers.

CHAPTER

II

U N E M P L O Y M E N T — W H A T IS T H E RESPONSIBILITY OF INDUSTRY? If the worker may reasonably be absolved from the major share of the blame for his condition, what of the responsibility of individual employers and industries for this unemployment? In one sense the responsibility of the individual employer is simple and direct—he is the one who pronounces judgment and makes the decision which separates the worker from his job and his livelihood. Yet, back of the employer's decision usually lie many factors which may compel him to take these actions, however distasteful they may be. In many cases he, as much as his unemployed workmen, is the unfortunate victim of circumstance. Nevertheless, it is of interest to see from what direction the blow fell upon these workers. What firms and what industries contributed directly to this unemployment? T H E CONTRIBUTION OF INDIVIDUAL F I R M S TO U N E M P L O Y M E N T

T h e unemployment of these workers was charged against individual firms in accordance with the following principles: ( 1 ) Firms were held accountable only for those workers laid off since the decline in business began in the early summer of 1 9 2 9 ; a worker laid off during the prosperity period was considered to have had an opportunity to find another job, or at least the firm might reasonably have counted on his getting one. ( 2 ) Firms were held primarily accountable for workers who had been employed for one year or more; thus all seasonal workers were eliminated from this classification. ( 3 ) Each man was assigned to the first firm laying him off after the early summer of 1929. [27]

28

TEN

THOUSAND

OUT OF

WORK

( 4 ) Workers from three months' to a year's service

(largely

seasonal) were assigned to the employing firms on a modified, secondary basis. (5)

Secondary accountability was assigned to the firm employ-

ing the worker for the longest

period in the 1 8 months since the

depression began. T h e worker would not be assigned to the first firm which laid him off if some other firm had later employed him for a longer time. ( 6 ) Each worker was assigned to one firm only; there was no division among two or more firms.

On these bases, the unemployment of 5,428 workers of at least one year's service was traced to certain firms located in the metropolitan area (Philadelphia proper, Delaware and Montgomery Counties, and Camden, New Jersey). Likewise, an additional 1,469 short-job workers were assigned secondarily to certain firms. There remains a third group of workers who could not be assigned to any firm. These were the casual workers, members of professions, tradesmen, domestics, day workers, those in business for themselves, those formerly working for firms outside the metropolitan area, youngsters never having had a previous steady job, workers laid off some years ago, etc. For present purposes these may be omitted from further consideration. In this tabulation the women made-work employees covered in this study, to the number of 545, were included, but they have little effect on the figures since nearly all of them fell in this third group. The results of this assignment of workers are shown in Table 7. The two extremes in this table are of considerable importance. In the first class six firms had laid off a total of 965 workers, ranging from 122 to 198 each. Naturally, these firms represented those industries most subj ect to seasonal and cyclical disturbances such as radio, construction, machinery. On the basis of the 6,897 definitely assigned workers, 0.2 per cent of the firms had laid off 14.0 per cent of the men. Five of these firms were engaged in manufacturing and normally

THE RESPONSIBILITY

OF INDUSTRY

29

employed a total of 20,000 to 25,000 workers in prosperous times. Even under the most favorable interpretation, namely, that they employed men only, their working forces constituted less than 3 per cent of the male working population of the Philadelphia area. Y e t their unemployed constituted nearly 12 per cent of the assignable made-workers surveyed in this study. TABLE 7 MADE-WORK

EMPLOYEES

CLASSIFIED

Number of Employees Laid Off per Firm Total 100 and over 25-99 10-24

S-9 4 3 2

I

AND

FIRMS H E L D

ACCOUNTABLE

BY N U M B E R OF E M P L O Y E E S L A I D O F F

Number of

PER

FOR

THEM

FIRM

Percentage of Total

Firms

Employees Laid Off

Firms

Employees Laid Off

3,oi4

6,897

100.0

100.0

6

965 1,128

0.2 0.8 1.6

14.0 16.4

23

48 92

46 95 336

2,368

7!4 581

184 28s 672 2,368

30 ΐ·5 3-2 II .1 78.6

10.4 8.4 2.7

4-1 9-7 34-3

T h e intermediate groups are only of passing interest. In the second class 23 firms had laid off from 25 to 86 workers each, averaging slightly under 50 per firm. T h e addition of these firms to those in the first class shows that a total of 1.0 per cent of the firms represented here had laid off over 30 per cent of those workers who could be definitely assigned. These figures emphasize the importance of a comparatively few firms in the problem of unemployment. T h e other extreme is also of the greatest interest. A total of 2,368 firms were represented in made-work by one man each. Thus 78.6 per cent of the firms had laid off 34.3 per cent of the men. In other words, had these firms, as their contribution to unemployment relief in Philadelphia, elected to carry this one man on a regular job over the winter, the

30

TEN THOUSAND OUT OF WORK

financial burden of the Emergency Work Bureau would have been considerably reduced. Of course, these firms were of varying size and, too, they may have laid off many more than one man each, but the figures do emphasize the almost universal representation of Philadelphia industry in made-work. Altogether, a total of 3,014 firms were each assigned at least one unemployed man, and there are in addition other firms mentioned in the employment records to which no man could be assigned under the rules laid down. This list of firms comes fairly close to constituting a roll-call of Philadelphia industry. U N E M P L O Y M E N T BY INDUSTRIES

But, it may be objected, the individual employer is only in a very minor degree responsible for unemployment. Economic and industrial causes far beyond his individual control may force him to actions which he is powerless to prevent. T o what extent, for example, does the industry as a whole, rather than the individual firm, dominate the situation? T o test out this question, the unemployed workers were classified according to industry and occupation on the longest job. So far as possible these classifications were made comparable to those of the United States Census Bureau for the 1930 census.1 As a matter of fact, the unemployed workers could be classified not only according to industrial groups but also by their specific industries within these groups, such as hosiery, men's clothing, iron and steel, etc. The comparison for the city as a whole had to be confined to the limits set by the census figures, which do not include the more detailed classifications. Since the Work Bureau placed Philadelphia residents only, the census data for Philadelphia proper are 1 Population Bulletin, Second Series, Pennsylvania, p. 66, Bureau of the Census, U. S. Department of Commerce. Some reclassification of the census data was necessary in order to make the comparison possible. T h e census classifies building construction under "manufacturing" and the construction of roads, bridges, etc., under "transportation." For our purposes all construction has been grouped by itself. T h e census data were adjusted accordingly. In certain other respects minor reclassifications of the same kind were made.

THE RESPONSIBILITY

OF

INDUSTRY

31

32

TEN

THOUSAND

OUT

OF

WORK

used in this case. The results of the comparison are shown in Chart I I I . The cross-lined bars show the proportions of the total male gainfully employed population of the city of Philadelphia, both white and colored, in each of the major industry groups. T h e black bars show the proportions in which the madework employees were divided among these groups. The essential fact is apparent in the first pair of bars. T h e construction industries, which normally employ, according to the census, 1 1 . 6 per cent of all male gainfully employed workers in the city, contributed no less than 28.8 per cent of the workers covered in this study. In other words, the construction industries contributed two and one-half times as many unemployed as the proportion of workers normally employed in those industries would justify. T h e manufacturing industries, which are obviously most important in actual numbers of workers employed, contributed to the unemployed group just slightly in excess of their due proportion. A l l other major industrial groups contributed distinctly less than their proportionate share. Thus trade, with 22.8 per cent of the total male working population, contributed only 8.6 per cent of the made-work employees. The professions made a still better showing, with 3.9 per cent and 0.5 per cent respectively. In the other groups the shrinkage is somewhat less but still significant in every case. T h e public utility employees, including a small number of government workers, were represented in made-work by only about half their proportionate numbers in the community. T h e excess of made-work employees in the "unclassified" group is due entirely to weaknesses of classification and tabulation, and is not significant. It seems clear that the construction industries suffer especially from unemployment, and in this particular case have contributed far in excess of their quota. Manufacturing just about breaks even, while all other industrial groups are comparatively stable, furnishing less unemployment than the number of their normally employed workers would justify. One of the criticisms of public works as a form of unem-

TUE RESPONSIBILITY

OF INDUSTRY

33

ployment relief is that it does not provide men with jobs for which they are fitted. An examination of the industries from which these made-work employees came shows that construction and manufacturing alone supplied about 68 per cent of the men covered in this study. Furthermore, the occupations of these men on their longest job (see page 34 following) shows that an overwhelming majority of them were manual workers of various degrees of skill. The indications are that a public works program would supply jobs fitted to the needs of a large majority of the unemployed. In view of the numerous "back-to-the-land" movements, and the constant agitation for a program of "returning the unemployed to the farm," it is of interest to note the insignificance of farming as an occupation among these men. Just 35 white men and 1 4 colored reported farm work as the longest job. Farming was also occasionally reported as the last job, but since the last and longest jobs were often identical, these two sets of figures cannot be added together. Even making the most liberal allowances, it is doubtful if as many as one per cent of these workers had recently been engaged in farming. No doubt many men had at some time or other lived on a farm and worked there. Perhaps a considerable number of the Negro immigrants to Philadelphia from the South had once lived on a cotton or tobacco farm, and probably some of the whites who migrated to Philadelphia from surrounding territory came from rural areas. But by no stretch of the imagination could any large proportion of these unemployed be considered capable and experienced farmers. Occupational Classification Another equally significant classification can be made of the occupations in which these workers were engaged. Not only were the industries to which the workers belong classified and subdivided in considerable detail, but a special effort was made to obtain a description of the specific work done by each man. These jobs were then grouped into certain major

34

TEN THOUSAND

OUT OF WORK

occupational classes, which are shown in Table 8. Since a man might have had several different occupations in the course of his different jobs, it was necessary to select the one which best expressed his qualifications. For this purpose the longest job a man had ever had was considered to be the best indicator, and the following tabulation is based on occupations on that job. TABLE

8

O C C U P A T I O N ON L O N G E S T JOB

Occupation

Number of Men Total

White

Total

8,177

5,818

2,359

Laborer Semi-skilled Laborer. . Skilled Laborer Foreman,Supervisor. . Clerical Worker Salesman Business Man Professional Man Not Certain No Report

3,398 2,6θΙ 1,158 171 I56

1,678 2,167 1,070 158 150 110 304 28

1,720 434 88 13 6 10 50 2 2 34

120

354 30 26 163

Μ

129

Colored

There are many weaknesses in this tabulation. The distinctions between common, semi-skilled, and skilled labor were very difficult to draw. Some jobs such as plumbing, carpentry, bricklaying, electrical work, etc., are easily classifiable as skilled occupations, but in many cases the worker's skill was not so clear. A man might call himself a mechanic and report full-time earnings of $22 a week, which in itself indicates that the job was not skilled. On the basis of available information contained in the schedule, all these workers were classified in one way or another. There are, unquestionably, mistakes of classification, but in its main outlines the table is probably substantially in accord with the facts. Naturally the laboring group predominates to an overwhelming extent in the total figures; 95 per cent of the col-

THE RESPONSIBILITY

OF INDUSTRY

35

ored workers and 85 per cent of the white belong in this class. There was a sprinkling of supervisory and clerical workers among the white, with but a negligible proportion among the colored. The ex-business men seemed proportionately somewhat numerous in both the white and the colored group, but these were not business men of very large order, many of them being peddlers, small storekeepers, and others operating on a very small scale and with meagre capital. The essential fact is that industrial wage-earners constituted the great bulk of these unemployed. In the absence of any data on the comparative number of workers in these occupations in the city of Philadelphia as a whole, there is no means of determining which of these types exceeds its quota. It is probable that the number of common and semi-skilled laborers among these unemployed is far out of proportion to their number in the community. The salaried occupations, on the other hand, are very much underrepresented. It is not clear whether this discrepancy is due to the methods of selection at the Emergency Work Bureau or to the fact that salaried workers are most numerous in those industries which are comparatively stable in employment, such as trade, public utilities, transportation, etc. Whatever the reason for it, there can be no doubt of the fact that, while there was some representation of the white-collar occupations in made-work, the number of such workers was far short of their due proportion to the number of industrial workers. L E N G T H OF T I M E O U T OF W O R K

How long had these men and women been unemployed at the time they had to come for help? The largest number of workers had been unemployed for a period of four or five months; that is, workers applying for made-work in January and February had been out of work since August 1930. They had lost their jobs in the late summer slackness and had not been taken on during the normal autumn revival, which in that year failed to materialize. T h e

36

TEN THOUSAND OUT OF WORK

C H A R T I V . L E N C T H OF T I M E S I N C E L A S T P E R M A N E N T J O B

THE RESPONSIBILITY

OF INDUSTRY

37

median for both white and colored falls at about six months. T h e median worker is the one who divides the entire group into two equal parts, half being unemployed a longer period than the median and half a shorter period. The arithmetic average for the group was 8.56 months for the whites and 8.62 for the Negroes. These latter are considerably higher than either of the two preceding because of the influence upon these averages of the workers who had been unemployed for many years. These figures check very closely with the results of the sample unemployment census of the Industrial Research Department of the University of Pennsylvania, in which the average time out of work was found to be 37 weeks.2 Chart I V shows the comparative length of time out of work for white and colored workers on a percentage basis/ Those out of work three months or less have been classed together, and the others grouped by six-months' periods, i.e. 4-9 months, 1 0 - 1 5 months, etc. This makes the averages for each group fall on the year and half-year points: 6 months, 1 2 months, 18 months, 2 years, etc. Men who had never had a steady job and boys who had not yet worked have been eliminated from this computation. There is strikingly little difference between the white and colored workers. Roughly 20 per cent of each group had been unemployed three months or less, while slightly over half had been out of work between four and nine months inclusive, thus making a total of 71 per cent of the whites and 72 per cent of the Negroes who had been out nine months or less. The first four time intervals shown in the chart may be assumed to measure approximately the period of the depression (this being the period between the summer of 1929 and the time of registration of these workers). On this basis, about 94 per cent of all workers, white and colored, had be* Duration of Unemfloyment in Philadelfhia. Special Report No. 3, Table 2, p. 9. Industrial Research Department, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1932. ' For detailed figures, see Appendix F , Table F - i 1 , p. 176.

38

TEN THOUSAND

OUT OF

WORK

come unemployed during the depression. T h e remaining six per cent had lost their jobs during the previous prosperity period. The volume of this long-time unemployment, while comparatively small in amount, is still of considerable importance. There were many at four years, and a few at six and seven years. A comparison of time out of work with age brings to light the fact that these long-time unemployed were preponderantly in the older age groups, that is, men over forty. Younger men were represented, but to a much smaller extent. It seems likely that these older workers were those who were being dropped from industry as part of the normal process of change, but even in times of prosperity their age, and probably their occupation, operated against their finding another job. Theirs is an entirely different type of unemploy ment problem from that of the common run of made-workers, a problem which must be met in a different way. In another effort to discover possible factors affecting unemployment, the time out of work was correlated with education. The workers were grouped, on the basis of school training, into four classes: no schooling, grade school, high school, and college. When unemployment by months was tabulated for these four classes it was found that there was absolutely no relationship whatever. The white men with no schooling at all showed a slightly shorter period of unemployment than the rest, but the difference was not great enough to be significant. Education had no bearing upon the length of the unemployment period. Another point of interest concerns the question of temporary jobs. There is a feeling among people generally that the unemployed worker can pick up odd jobs here, there, and everywhere, and that in this way he can earn enough to stagger along. But this study shows that out of 5,818 white men considerably more than three in every five had had no temporary work of any kind during their period of unemployment. About one in five had had temporary jobs of some sort, none of which lasted for as much as one week at a time,

THE RESPONSIBILITY

OF INDUSTRY

39

while the remaining one-fifth had had at least one temporary job lasting more than a week. This last group was more numerous among those who had been out of work for a long time, as would be expected. Thus, out of 607 workers who had been unemployed less than three months, only 40 reported having had a job of one week or more during the interval. O n the other hand, out of 142 unemployed for about three years or over, no less than 79 reported having had some temporary jobs of at least a week. O f course, none of these jobs lasted as much as three months or else it would have been recorded as a regular job and the period of unemployment measured from it. T h e essential fact about temporary jobs is that they played no important part in maintaining these workers' incomes during the period of unemployment. For the Negroes the conclusions are the same, although the figures are somewhat different. Slightly more than half had had no temporary jobs of any kind. About one-third had had very short temporary jobs of less than a week, while only one-sixth had had temporary jobs of over one week in length. Among the Negroes, too, it was the long-time unemployed who were most likely to have had temporary jobs of this sort, comparatively few workers unemployed for less than six months having found jobs of this kind. SUMMARY

More than 3,000 different firms in the Philadelphia area were represented in this study by one or more ex-employees. T h e men were assigned to those firms which, on the workers' job records, seemed to have been accountable for their unemployment since the depression began. Some large firms were very heavily represented, six of them being charged with over 11 per cent of all the men surveyed in this study, or with 14 per cent of those men who could be assigned. A total of 29 firms, each laying off 25 or more workers, contributed over 30 per cent of the assignable workers. A t the other extreme there were 2,368 firms with one man each. So far as the data contained in this study are concerned,

40

TEN

THOUSAND

OUT

OF

WORK

the construction industry had the heaviest responsibility for unemployment. It was represented by two and one-half times as many men as its proportion of the normal gainfully employed population of the city. Manufacturing furnished slightly more unemployed than its normal share of the gainfully employed would have justified. Other industries, such as trade, transportation, public utilities, and the professions were very much under-represented—an indication that they were much more stable in employment than manufacturing or construction. The vast majority of workers were laborers—common, semi-skilled, or skilled. Only a small proportion (about 1 5 per cent of the white and 5 per cent of the colored) could qualify as supervisory, clerical, professional, etc. This fact is, of course, a reflection of the previous fact, namely, that the unemployed in this study came mostly from construction and manufacturing. Four to six months represented the time that the typical employee had been out of work. This means that most of them had lost their jobs in the late summer of 1930. T h e arithmetic average for the whole group was about nine months, but this figure was markedly influenced by workers who had been out of work for a long time—two, three, and four years. However, about 94 per cent of the workers had become unemployed since the depression began in the summer of 1929. During their unemployment these men had very little opportunity to earn money by temporary jobs. Only a minority had had any such jobs at all, and those who got them neither had many nor held them very long. Temporary jobs played no important part in maintaining the incomes of the workers during unemployment. What, then, must be the conclusion as to the responsibility of industry for unemployment? First of all, there is a direct responsibility on the part of the individual employer himself. Not every firm in Philadelphia was represented by exemployees in the Emergency Work Bureau. Yet some of

THE

RESPONSIBILITY

OF INDUSTRY

41

these missing firms suffered a decline in business far worse than the average. And many large firms in the city had very few made-workers assigned to them. Some employers either by developing a greater degree of stability in their businesses or by using various ameliorative devices, such as unemployment insurance, shorter hours, spreading the work, manufacturing to stock, etc., had protected their employees to some extent against the burden of unemployment. Within the limits that this can be done, every employer owes a responsibility to his employees and to the public at large to exhaust such possibilities before laying men off. In the second place, the facts developed here point to the industry rather than to the individual firm or employer as the chief bearer of responsibility. The work records of the men show that some industries contribute to unemployment to a far greater extent than others. Even the most vigorous stabilization efforts of the individual employer are often fruitless in the face of the instability of the whole industry or industry group. T o the extent that this is true it is the industry to which attention must be directed. If this responsibility is accepted by the industry, some degree of coordination and cooperation among the firms in that industry is clearly implied. At least one further step in this line of reasoning is required. Could any one industry successfully stabilize its operations? There are no data available in this study which bear on the problem, but the importance of the subject justifies a few general observations. Even though there is a great deal that could be done on an industry basis, it is generally recognized that there are definite limits to the possibilities in this direction. When responsibility has been assigned to the individual employer up to the limits of his capacity to meet it, and additional responsibility has been assessed against the group of employers who constitute an industry, there still remains the largest share of all—that which must be assigned to industrial and business enterprise as a whole. A discussion of the conditions under which this final respon-

42

TEN THOUSAND

OUT OF WORK

sibility might be accepted—whether by voluntary, cooperative action of employers, or by governmental regulation—is beyond the scope of this study. One last point demands attention. Does the nation as a whole, functioning through the various governmental units, exercise such control over business enterprise as to absolve industry from most of the responsibility for unemployment? Students of economics are almost a unit in pointing out that the powers of government are wide and varied, and in particular that the present depression is partly the product of governmental action—uneconomic settlement of war debts, restriction of international trade by tariffs, unwise monetary policies, etc. It may be that the course of business is in the last analysis dominated by the activity of governments, and that therefore it is at the door of the government itself that the unemployment problem must be placed. A discussion of this point would carry us too far afield, but it is pertinent to remark that the very least the governmental bodies— national, state, and local—might contribute toward a solution of the problem would be the stabilization of their own affairs. It is a significant fact that the industry shown by this study to be proportionately the heaviest contributor to unemployment is one in which the various governmental units are among the most important consumers.

CHAPTER

III

P R E V E N T I O N O F D E S T I T U T I O N — A RESPONSIBILITY THRUST UPON T H E FAMILY Thus far attention has been centered upon unemployment and the responsibility for it. But this is only half the problem. T h e men and women given made-work by the Emergency Work Bureau were not only unemployed, they were also destitute. Unemployment and destitution are very closely connected in a cause-and-effect relationship; the one often leads to the other, but by no means inevitably. People frequently suffer unemployment without becoming completely destitute, as is evidenced by the fact that, while the unemployment census of Philadelphia taken by the U. S. Census Bureau in January 1931 showed 246,700 persons out of work in this city, there were never so many as half that number represented in all the families receiving either direct relief or made-work during that winter. Obviously, many wage-earners were unemployed without having to go to charity organizations for help. The problem therefore becomes, in the case of the made-work families, how did they differ from other people and especially from other unemployed who were not on relief? W A G E - E A R N E R S PER F A M I L Y

Nearly 90 per cent of the white men studied in this survey were married and living with their wives and families. About 8 per cent were single, but all of these were attached to a family as the chief wage-earning support. The remaining few were widowed, separated, or divorced. Among the colored men nearly 94 per cent were married, about 3 per cent single, and the rest widowed, separated, or divorced. The marital status of these workers is quite different from that of the working population as a whole. If the unemployment census [43]

TEN

44

THOUSAND

OUT

OF

WORK

of the Industrial Research Department of the University of Pennsylvania may be taken as a good sample of the city, the conclusion would be that somewhat less than three-quarters of the employable male wage-earners belonging to the "natural" family (husband, wife, and children only) would be married. 1 The unduly large proportion of married men in made-work was due entirely to the method of selection. Single men, unless directly responsible for some dependents, were not given work. T A B L E

9

A V E R A G E S I Z E OF F A M I L Y AND N U M B E R

Survey

U. S. Census Bureau Industrial Research Department Census Emergency Work B u r e a u . . . . (a) Families of white men. . (b) Families of colored men

Average Number of Persons

OF

WAGE-EARNERS

Average Number of WageEarners

45.6

4-3 4-3 4-7

4.8

4-45

RatioEmployables to Persons (Per Cent)

1.8

42.6

1-3 ΐ·3 ΐ·4

28.3

27-3

31.0

The families in this study were somewhat larger than those in the city as a whole. A strict comparison is not possible because the U . S. Census Bureau and the Industrial Research Department both use a broader definition of the term " f a m i l y " than is used here.2 Table 9 shows the comparative results of the three surveys. The Work Bureau families, both white and colored, are larger than the averages for the city as a whole, despite the narrow definition employed in computation. One reason for this rather unusual size is the fact that single, isolated individuals (except for a few women) were excluded from the made-work. Furthermore, the greater the number of 1

Social Characteristics of Unemployment in Philadelphia, April, 1931. Special Report No. 2, p. 27. Industrial Research Department, Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. * See Appendix D for details.

PREVENTION

OF DESTITUTION

45

dependents, the more likely the man was to be given work. Consequently the method of selection insured that these families would be comparatively large. Over and beyond this fact, however, it seems probable that the larger families were least able to pull themselves through the unemployment period. Reserves would not last long when there were so many mouths to feed. It is curious to note that the white families were larger than the colored. This fact may seem strange in view of the current notion that colored people usually have many children. The probable interpretation of the figures is, first, that the whites represented here contain a large proportion of foreign-born workers who have much larger families than the native Americans; and second, that the colored children leave home at an early age, while the whites, especially those with foreign-born parents, tend to remain in the family circle long after they become adults. Substantiation of this fact can be found from another source (see pages 48-49). The most important point in connection with these madework families is not their size, but the number of wageearners. Despite their large size, they averaged only 1.3 wage-earners per family 3 as compared to 1.8 for the Industrial Research Department census and 1.9 for the U. S. Census Bureau. This shortage of wage-earners is best expressed by the percentages in the last column, which show the ratio of wage-earners to the total number of persons in the family. According to the U . S. Census Bureau figures, nearly half the members of the average family in Philadelphia are qualified wage-earners (this high proportion is influenced both by the boarding-house families, where nearly every one is a wage-earner, and by the single, isolated individuals, who would likewise nearly all be wage-earners). But among the Work Bureau families the ratio falls nearly as low as onefourth for the whites and is considerably below one-third for the colored. It looks as if the marked shortage of wage-earners in these families might have something to do with their plight. ' For discussion of the accuracy of this figure, see Appendix C, pp. 158 f .

46

TEN THOUSAND

OUT OF WORK

It is obvious that the larger the number of wage-earners in the family, the greater are the chances that at any one time at least one of them will have a job. W h e n the head of the family is the sole wage-earner, the family finds itself without means of support when he loses his job. Should there be two wage-earners there would be a fifty-fifty chance that at least one of them would have work. T h e way in which additional wage-earners fortify the family against the destiT A B L E

IO

F A M I L I E S WITH T O T A L U N E M P L O Y M E N T C L A S S I F I E D BY N U M B E R OF W A G E - E A R N E R S *

Total Unemployment Wage-Earners per Family

Total

Number of Families

36,410

0

818

I

17.565

2

3

4 5 6 and over

Number of Families 4.259 —

Ratio (Per Cent) 11.7 —

2,928

16.7

9,710

872

9.0

4,935 2,192

303 no

800

31

З90

15

6.1 5.0

4-9 3-9

* Adapted from Table 11, page 12 of Special Report No. ι—Unemployment in Philadelphia Families, April 1931, Industrial Research Department, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.

tution consequent to unemployment can be seen in Table 10 computed from the Industrial Research Department's data, with the permission of M r . Emmett Welch. T h e data show that families with one wage-earner suffer total unemployment in 16.7 per cent of all cases. W h e n this one person lost his or her job, the family had no wage income whatever. O n the other hand, when there were two wageearners in the family, both were unemployed in only 9 per cent of all cases. T h e percentage of families with three, wageearners suffering total unemployment was only about 6 per cent, and so on up the scale. Of course, the earnings of a single

PREVENTION

OF DESTITUTION

47

employed wage-earner would scarcely be sufficient to support a family of six or eight normally employed adults, but at least they would provide some current income and thus stave off actual destitution. W e should expect, therefore, to find that families coming for relief would be those with a smaller number of wageearners, since these would be the ones most likely to be suffering total unemployment of all wage-earning members. T A B L E N U M B E R , OF E M P L O Y A B L E INDUSTRIAL

II

WAGE-EARNERS

RESEARCH

DEPARTMENT

AND M A D E - W O R K

Number of Normally Employed WageEarners Total 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 and over N o Report

PER F A M I L Y CENSUS

EMPLOYEES

Number of Families

Percentage of Total Families

Ind. Res. Dep't.

Made-Work

Ind. Res. Dep't.

Made-Work

36,410

8. «77

100.0

100.0

818 17.S6S 9,710

2 6,210 1,428

4,935 2,192 800 39°

377 113 31 13

2.2 48.2 26.7 136 6.0 2.2 1.1

• 75-9 17-5 4-6 1.4 0.4 0 * .2

3

* Less than o.i per cent

And that is exactly what happened, as is shown by the figures on the average number of wage-earners in these made-work families. A further comparison with Mr. Welch's data4 as shown in Table 11 substantiates this point in another way. Note that among the families surveyed by the Industrial Research Department slightly more than half have no wage4 Unemployment in Philadelphia Families, Special Report No. i , T a b l e 4, p. 8 j Industrial Research Department, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

TEN THOUSAND

48

OUT OF

WORK

earner or only one, about one-fourth have two wage-earners and one-fourth have three or more. Among the made-work employees, however, over three-quarters of the families have but a single wage-earner, while less than 7 per cent of the total have more than two wage-earners. It is apparent that lack of substitute or alternative wage-earners in the family circle was a most vital factor in destitution. The Shortage of

Wage-Earners

Why had these families fewer wage-earners than the average? Who are these additional wage-earners who play such an important part in the family economy? Table 12 gives the facts. T A B L E

12

F A M I L I E S C L A S S I F I E D A C C O R D I N G TO W A G E - E A R N I N G

MEMBERS

Number of Families Who Normally Works White Total Husband only Children only Husband and wife Wife and children Husband and children Husband, wife, and children Unknown

Colored

5,8I8

2,359

4.504

i,556 36

266 121 21 881 II 14

594

10 127 35

I

The distinctive fact about the white families is that nearly four-fifths of them had only the husband as a wage-earner. This is the traditional American family, with the husband providing support for the wife and children. In only 1 3 2 families out of 5,818 did the husband and wife both work. On the other hand, in almost one-fifth of the families the children were reported as wage-earners, mostly in conjunction with the husband, or less frequently by themselves. This figure represents an abnormally low volume of married women workers. In the working population of the city as a whole, the proportion of married women gainfully employed is far above

PREVENTION

OF DESTITUTION

49

that shown here. Mr. Welch's figures show that 7.9 per cent of the wage-earning members of the natural family were married women, 1 while for the made-work employees, the figure was only 2.3 per cent, or less than one-third as many. In other words, the fact that the married woman was not a wage-earner may have been partly responsible for the plight in which these families found themselves. Note the striking difference with respect to the colored. In almost exactly two-thirds of the families, the husband was the sole wage-earner, a measurably smaller proportion than that of the white families. But when additional wage-earners were found, it was the wife rather than the children who fulfilled this function. In less than one-tenth of the families were there any children working at all, either by themselves or in conjunction with their parents. But the wife appeared as a wage-earner in over one-fourth of all the families. In other words, among the whites the children furnish the supplementary supportj among the colored, it is the wife who does so. The explanation of this contrast seems to be that the colored children do not remain at hotne after they become self-supporting wage-earners. They either get married at an early age, or go out to shift for themselves. Thus the children reported in the colored families are predominantly those below working age. On the other hand, among the whites, they continue to live with the family far into adult life. Those who do not marry are unlikely ever to leave the family fold, but contribute their earnings to the general support of the household on a non-commercial basis throughout their lives. Even marriage does not necessarily result in their leaving home, for the newly acquired in-law often moves in, thus establishing the combined or clan-family. In these circumstances the part played by the children in the two races is quite different, and accounts for the figures shown in the table. * Social Characteristics of Unemployment in Philadelphia. Special Report No. 2, Table ty, p. 27. T h e number of "mothers" was compared to total wageearners, excluding lodgers, other, and not specified.

50

TEN THOUSAND OUT OF WORK

Income Produced by Additional Wage-Earners Generally speaking, the earnings of the head of the family constitute the bulk of the family income. For nearly 80 per cent of the white families represented in this study it was the only wage income. There were, in addition, a few families in which one child was the only wage-earner. For all the rest, the family income was supplied by two or more wage-earners. In many cases these supplementary earnings were substantial, as is evidenced by the fact that family incomes of more than $50 a week were not unusual in this group. Almost oneT A B L E

13

A V E R A G E N O R M A L W A G E I N C O M E O F F A M I L I E S C L A S S I F I E D A C C O R D I N G TO WORKING

Who Normally Works

Husband only Children only Husband and wife Wife and children Husband and children Husband, wife, and children

MEMBERS

Average Normal Wage Income of Family White

Colored

$32-82 38-32 41.96 43-65 50.98 58.00

$25-33 26.40 32.21 33-22 41 -37 44.00

third of all families in which the husband and one or more children were working reported incomes of $50 a week or more, while in those families in which the husband alone was the wage-earner barely 5 per cent were able to report incomes of this amount. Table 1 3 summarizes these differences. Families with only the husband working stand at the bottom of the list in earning capacity, thus emphasizing the disadvantage to a family of having only one wage-earner. Compare the "husband only" group with the "husband and wife," where there is a clear comparison between one wage-earner and two. For the whites the additional incomes amounted to about $9 per week, and for the colored about $7, or a 27 per cent increase for each. These comparatively small amounts

PREVENTION

OF DESTITUTION

51

of increased income were due partly to the low wages of the women workers and partly to the large number of women working less than full time. From the lower wages of the colored workers and the larger number of colored women working it would appear that the wife became a wage-earner in order to supplement the inadequate earnings of the husband, in other words, to raise the family standard of living. The full advantage of having additional wage-earners is shown in the last two groups. The "husband and children" produced incomes well over half again as large as the "husband only," while the "husband-wife-children" combination boosted the family income about 75 per cent. The net effect of these additional wage-earners upon the income of this whole group can best be summarized by comparing ( ι ) the average wage earned by the chief wage-earner in each family with (2) the average normal wage income of the family from all wage-earners. For the whites the former was $32.23 per week, while the latter was $35.85, a net gain of $3.62 per week. This represents an increase of 11 per cent. For the Negroes the figures are: (1) $25.43, (2) $28.07, n e t gain $2.64 per week; increase 10 per cent. This must not be taken as an argument for large families. While income rises as the number of wage-earners increases, so does the family cost of living. Which of these (income or cost of living) outstripped the other could only be determined by a study of individual cases. Possibly the high cost of living for the family with children results in forcing these children into industry in order to supply needed income to maintain the family standards. We do not know what opportunities for education, training, and cultural achievement may have been wasted in putting these children to work. The figures shown here do not prove that the rearing of additional children provides the family with an economic asset; the most that can be said is that, once the children are there, the standard of living is lowered, the chances of destitution are increased, the pressure of necessity forces the family to put the children to work, and then the additional wage-earners ( 1 )

52

TEN

THOUSAND

OUT

OF

WORK

supply the needed supplementary income as well as ( 2 ) provide a steadier and more continuous minimum income. FAMILY

RESOURCES

One question in this study required the workers themselves to select from a list of methods of getting along the ones which they felt had been of some importance to their families in the present emergency. Obviously, there are great weaknesses in a tabulation of this sort. In the first place, no allowance is made for differences in quantitative significance; a family might mention the use of savings, borrowing, credit at stores, and charity relief, all of which had been used to some extent, yet if the details were known it might develop that savings alone were twice as important as all the others put together. A second weakness is that some workers probably failed to mention all the methods they had used. M a n y families reported the use of six or more methods out of a possible T A B L E METHODS

OF

GETTING

(FAMILIES

ALONG

FOR

14 WHITE

OF M A D E - W O R K

AND

WOMEN

COLORED

FAMILIES

INCLUDED)

Number

Per Cent

Methods Reported

Total number of families Number of families using each method Unpaid rent Savings Welfare assistance Borrowing Help from friends and relatives Credit at stores Renting rooms and living with relatives Liquidation Others going to work Pensions, bonuses, etc Odd jobs None reported

White

Colored

White

Colored

6,196

2,526

100 0

100 0

3,286 2,689 2,457 2,340 2,329 1,846

ι ,762 842 ι ,462 525 839 590

53 43 39 37 37 29

0 4 8 8 6 8

69 33 57 20 33 23

736 568 469 187 124 96

244 З41 277 27 10 34

11 9 7 3 2

9 2 6 0 0 5

9 7 13 5 II 0

I

I

8 3 6 8 2 4

I

0 4 1 3

PREVENTION

OF

DESTITUTION

53

twelve in the classification, but some contented themselves with mentioning three or four. Hence there is a margin of error in computing the number of families using any particular method. Despite the weaknesses in these data, they are sufficiently near the mark to justify the following tabulation, which shows, for each method listed, the number of families reported as using it. For the purposes of this tabulation the families of the made-work women, who have generally been eliminated from consideration in this study, were included. This fact accounts for the unusually large total of families. Note that the totals add up to a much larger figure than the number of families represented. This inflation occurs because each family appears as many times as there were methods used; a family reporting six different methods would be counted six times, once under each method. One point of interest is the fact that certain methods commonly thought to be of great importance to a family in times of unemployment are really of very little help. Odd jobs, or temporary jobs, found by the head of the family play an insignificant part in the family's program. Only 2 per cent of the whites and a mere fraction of the Negroes reported this as an important method of producing income. These figures are somewhat at variance with those reported in another connection (see page 38) for temporary jobs held during the unemployment period. One-fifth of the whites and one-sixth of the Negroes had held temporary jobs of one week or more in length. Yet only a small number of these considered temporary work as being of sufficient importance to mention as a method of getting along. There are probably two reasons for this discrepancy: first, most of these jobs probably did not last more than a week, and in an aggregate of six months or a year of unemployment, they would not have amounted to much; and second, in comparison with many months of back rent unpaid, hundred-dollar debts at the stores, etc., these small earnings would not have seemed important to the man at the time he was reporting.

54

TEN THOUSAND OUT OF WORK

Compensations of various kinds—pensions, bonuses, benefits, etc.—were equally unimportant. Very few of these families had any regular income apart from their wages. This is rather to be expected, because if the family had had a very substantial income it would not have been given made-work. T h e figures may not be indicative of working people generally. B y way of contrast, the largest item of all is unpaid rent. Over half the white families and almost 70 per cent of the colored reported this as an important factor in their getting along. Even then these figures probably failed to measure the total volume of rent lapses, since a family might not stress this method if they were in arrears only a month or two. T h e landlords as a class have evidently made substantial involuntary contributions to unemployment relief in the form of unpaid rent. The much larger resources of the white families, in comparison with the colored, are brought out by the figures on assets and credits of various kinds. Many more of them had savings (43.4 per cent compared with 3 3 . 3 ) , they could borrow twice as easily, and they had a distinct advantage in obtaining credit at stores. They even found it slightly easier to tap the resources of friends and relatives. It naturally follows, then, that the colored families had to use whatever means were left. Others in the family (the wife for the most part) tried to get work; tangible assets of various kinds, probably furniture and occasionally perhaps a car, were sold for what they would bring ("liquidation"); the landlord was induced to forego his rent; and finally, the welfare organizations were called upon to help. Nearly 60 per cent of the colored as compared with 40 per cent of the whites found it necessary to appeal for charity.

Home Ownership One resource possessed by a considerable number of these families was the ownership of a home, if the term "ownership" can rightly be applied to such a state of affairs. It really

PREVENTION

OF DESTITUTION

55

amounted to little more, in many cases, than an instalment purchase with a very small down payment. Not one family specifically mentioned the ownership of the home as a means of bridging the gap during unemployment. This omission in itself is evidence that none of them was able to raise any considerable amount of money through sale or refinancing of the home. In other words, the home as a resource was valueless in the emergency. Ownership of the home is almost unknown among the colored; out of 2,359 families only 48 cases were reported, that is, about 2 per cent. In sharp contrast, 23 per cent of the whites reported ownership of a home; nearly one in every four white families had been buying its home. T h e r e were 67 families which had recently lost their homes through forced sale or foreclosure, but these were included among the homeowners in this tabulation. T h e above proportion is somewhat below that existing among the general population. F o r this city the U . S. Census data show that about 5 1 per cent of all families (white and colored) are home-owners.® A f t e r an adjustment is made for ownership among the Negroes of probably not more than 5 per cent, a revised figure for the white families of about 57 per cent is obtained. T h e difference then is between 57 per cent ownership for the total white population and 23 per cent for white made-work employees. When these home-owners are classified by nationality another fact of importance comes to light. Less than 1 3 per cent of the native American families owned their home; in other words, only one in every eight was a home-owner. But among the foreign-born the proportion was nearly 36 per cent, or about three times as great as among the Americans. It was further found that the Italians took the prize in home ownership with a ratio of over 40 per cent. T h e Slavic-Jewish group (Russians, Poles, Lithuanians, Jews, etc.) ranked second with an average of 36 per cent. T h e other foreign-born ranged lower, but not a single group among them was as f a r down in the scale as the native-born. " Census Tract data for Philadelphia, Table 8, Bureau of Census, U. S. Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C.

TEN THOUSAND

56

OUT OF WORK

PERCENT

PERCENT to

NATIVEB06N WHITE

F0RE.1SNBORN WHITE

COLORtP

KIATIVEBOKN WHITE.

FOREIGNBORN WHITt

О COLORED

N 0 T L > B L A C K P O R T I O N Of B A R S

N l 0 T t > B L A C K PORTION 0Г

SHOWS

S H O W S P E R C E N T A & t OF F A M I L I E S

P E . R C . E N T A Q E OF F A M I L I E S OWNING H O M E S

CHART V.

BARS

OWNING AUTOMOBILES

H O M E O W N E R S H I P VS. C A R

OWNERSHIP

PREVENTION

OF DESTITUTION

57

Home Ownership vs. Car Ownership The questionnaire also contained a question about automobile ownership, past or present. Actually most of the ownership was past, since hard times had forced many families to dispose of their cars. In car ownership the colored families made a much better showing than they had with the homes—exactly 1 0 per cent of them either had owned or were now in possession of a car, as compared with 15 per cent of the whites. Among the latter, car ownership was less prevalent than home ownership. The peculiarity of this last result indicated the necessity of a further analysis of these data. Therefore, as in the case of home ownership, the foreign-born whites were segregated from the native-born. The results are shown in the accompanying chart, which compares for native-born, foreignborn, and colored, the ownership of homes and cars. The contrast between native Americans, whether white or colored, and the foreign-born is most illuminating. Among the colored, car ownership is five times as prevalent as home ownership. For the native-born whites the car ownership ratio was 2 1 per cent, or more than half again as great as for homes. But among the foreign-born car ownership was only about one-fifth as common as the ownership of a home. The actual figures are even more striking than the percentages. There were 475 Italians owning homes as compared to 62 with cars (and to a considerable extent these two overlapped, the same man owning both); 162 of the Eastern European group owned their homes as against 3 1 with cars; and so with other nationalities also. These facts are of vital importance in interpreting the motives and habits of these two groups. It seems clear, for example, that the foreign-born have a different psychology of accumulation which is the fruit of their past experience. The tradition handed down to them from their forebears was that based upon the assumption of poverty. Whatever few pennies might be saved from their meagre wage pittances were stored

58

TEN

THOUSAND

OUT

OF

WORK

away to await the time when it might be possible to purchase a house and a small plot of ground. Home ownership represented to these people the highest form of social achievement. Transplanted to this country, with a wage sufficiently higher to permit of greatly increased savings so long as the family lived on the old standards, they took advantage of their opportunity and were soon able to attain their great goal—the ownership of their home. In other words, the urge which had been borne in upon them as a result of their European experiences was stronger than the new ideas to which they were exposed in this new country. America furnished them an opportunity for gratifying this urge for home ownership and they took it. On the other hand, the great and outstanding change in the habits of Americans in the past fifty years has been the rapid rise in the standards of living of nearly all classes. T o the American, home ownership is an old, old story. A l l the pioneers and frontiersmen owned their little plots of ground, nor has it been unusual for the wage-earning population to do likewise. But the thing which has been very much in the consciousness of the newer generation of the native-born is the problem of raising the living standards to ever higher levels. This involves a competition of spending and not of saving. Despite the high financial standing which home ownership gives to a family in this country, social position is more likely to be won in other ways. For the latter the ownership of a car may be more important than the ownership of a home. The American family is likely to be well supplied with good furniture, radio, phonograph, piano, and other tangible evidences of a higher standard of living. T h e y will buy the home if buying it does not interfere with these other things, or will keep it if they happen to inherit it, but they will not reduce the standard of living for the sake of owning the house in which they live. There is another fact which may have some bearing on this point. I n a new country, conditions are more unstable and

PREVENTION

59

OF DESTITUTION

life is more nomadic. H o m e ownership anchors a family and tends to lessen mobility. Since both job changes and social advancement may necessitate change of residence, renting on a short-term basis is, for many families, the most satisfactory form of tenure. Home Ownership in Relation to Income

It takes money to buy a home; therefore it is to be expected that the poorer classes of families would seldom or never T A B L E

15

H O M E O W N E R S H I P B Y W E E K L Y INCOME OF FAMILY ( W H I T E F A M I L I E S O N L Y )

Weekly Income (in dollars)

Totals

Number of Families

5,8I8

1,318

48

20

98 and over

19 47 97 224

88-97

78-87 68-77 S8-67

18-22

13-17 Under 13 Unknown income Unknown home ownership . . .

9 12

34 75

23.0

41-7 47-4 25-5 35-1 33-5

507

160

31.6

384 575

118

30.7 23-9

914

230

25.2

,146

222

19.4

I ,121

I97

17.6

462

72

15.6

48-57

43-47 38-42 33-37 28-32 23-27

Number of HomeOwners

Ratio— HomeOwners to Total Families (Per Cent)

ι

132

66

5

21

I

4.8

51

32.3

158 29

—

7.6

—

have the necessary surplus funds to do so, and would not become home-owners. In actual fact the data collected in this study show that home ownership is very closely correlated

60

TEN

THOUSAND

OUT OF WORK

with the size of the family income, increasing as the income increases. This relationship is made clear in Table 1 5 , which covers white families only, home ownership being so scarce among the colored that it is not worth tabulating. The families were classified by income groups, the classes being arranged so as to bring the mid-points at the round numbers. Thus the class $ 1 8 - 2 2 means the $20 group of families, $ 2 3 - 2 7 the $ 2 5 group, etc. Note that the proportion of families owning their homes ranges from a high of 47.4 per cent in the $90 class to a low of 4.8 per cent in those below $ 1 3 . Home ownership is almost exactly ten times as frequent in one group as in the other. Furthermore, each decline in income shown in the table is accompanied by a corresponding decline in home ownership; in only two income classes is the parallel decline broken. In the highest income group home ownership exceeds 40 per cent; in the intermediate groups it averages about onethird; for incomes of $ 3 5 and $40 the ratio falls to about one-quarter, and at $ 3 0 and below it drops rapidly to onefifth, one-sixth, etc., down to a minimum of less than onetwentieth. These figures show clearly that a certain rock-bottom income is very necessary for home ownership. Only a small number of families was able to do anything towards buying a home until their incomes had passed the minimum standardof-living level. Nevertheless, it is equally clear that a large income is not absolutely indispensable for home ownership. It is curious that 72 families in the $20 class could find it possible to own their homes while 28 families at about $ 1 0 0 a week failed to do so. Incidental matters of choice and circumstance would partially explain it; it is also possible that some of the poorer families may have inherited the home, not acquired it on $20 a week. Generally speaking, the figures in the table show that many families with sufficient income to warrant the purchase of a home have not chosen to do so, while others perhaps have tried to do it on a wholly inadequate income.

PREVENTION

OF DESTITUTION

61

Home-Owners vs. Renters In view of the ргеёгшпет part played by home ownership in certain groups of these families, the home-owners were compared with those who did not own their homes in their use of certain methods of getting along. The two groups were checked with reference to ( i ) welfare relief, (2) savings, and (3) unpaid rent (or building and loan payments). The figures are shown in Table 16. TABLE HOME-OWNERS

AND R E N T E R S

16

COMPARED IN T H E I R

M E T H O D S OF G E T T I N G

USE

OF

CERTAIN

ALONG

( F A M I L I E S OF W O M E N W O R K E R S I N C L U D E D )

Number of Families Methods of Getting Along

Total Welfare Savings Unpaid rent (or building and loan)..

White

Percentage of Total

Colored

White

Colored

Own- Rent- Own- Rent- Own- Rent- Own- Renters ers ers ers ers ers ers ers 1,423

4,737

Si

2,451

100.0

100.0

100.0

4^4

2,033

29.8

1,850

25 31

1,422

727

804

458

2,816

25

1,723

100.0

42-9 39-1

49.0

58.0

Si.ι

60.8

32.8

32-2

59-4

49.0

7°-3

The home-owners seem to be distinctly better off in all respects. Among the whites, only 30 per cent had had to come to the welfare organizations for charity as compared with 43 per cent of the others, while only about half as many of them were behind on their building and loan payments as there were renters behind on their rent. Undoubtedly the pressure of maintaining their property ownership served to keep them up to the mark on this point. Likewise, a larger proportion of the home-owners than of the others had savings, indicating that savings and home ownership are directly correlated. These are not alternate methods of preparing for

62

TEN

THOUSAND

OUT OF

WORK

the future; they go together. T h e home-owner is more likely to be the man with the savings account. Despite this favorable showing, the home-owners have still another question to face, W h y did they find it necessary to come for help at all? They were, after all, men of property who might have been expected to look out for themselves, or at least to hold out much longer than the others. T h e answer is that the home for the time being was a liability rather than an asset. Money which might have been used for other living expenses was used to make the mortgage payments in order that the property might be preserved. While the renter was getting concessions from his landlord, the owner was still struggling to make payments on his building and loan. The ownership of a home, however desirable it may be for other purposes, is of little value in tiding a family over an emergency. MIGRATION

The continued emphasis placed on the contrast between the whites and the Negroes, may have tended to overemphasize racial and national differences. There is no question but that these differences existed; the data collected in this study speak for themselves. T h e question rather is whether or not some factor other than nationality or race is the cause of the differences. One thing which the foreign-born whites and a large proportion of the Negroes have in common is migration. At some time or other these migrants had left the place of their birth and moved to Philadelphia. How did this migration affect them? There is a firmly established American tradition, dating from the old days of the western frontier, that the migrant is a man highly endowed with all the virtues of rugged individualism—initiative, energy, courage. The pioneer has been held up to posterity as a model of self-reliance, but these newer migrants have not done so well. The economic, legal, and cultural difficulties of their new situation proved too much for the energy and initiative which they undoubtedly had.

PREVENTION

OF DESTITUTION

63

The men in made-work may be divided, from the point of view of birthplace, into two major groups: ( I ) native Philadelphia^, white and colored, and ( I I ) those born elsewhere who migrated to this city at some time or other. This last group may be further subdivided into four classes: ( i ) native-born whites, ( 2 ) foreign-born whites, ( 3 ) native-born Negroes, and ( 4 ) foreign-born Negroes. Not all these four classes are of equal significance. T h e last-mentioned (foreignborn Negroes) numbered only 47 persons, too few for any detailed analysis. Class 1 ( m i g r a n t native-born whites) constituted nearly one-fourth of all native-born whites, the other three-fourths being Philadelphia-born. This class of migrants, however, had not come far. Pennsylvania outside Philadelphia supplied almost 40 per cent of them, and the border states of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland furnished another 3 0 per cent, leaving only 3 0 per cent who had come from any great distance. Many of these men had probably been born within a short distance of Philadelphia} to only a small proportion of them would the move to this city have meant a serious break in their lives. There remain the foreign-born whites and the native-born Negroes. For these men and their families this migration was an important event, involving great economic and social changes. Both these classes were large, nearly 92 per cent of all Negroes having been born outside Philadelphia, and over 41 per cent of all whites outside this country. It is these two classes, therefore, which require further analysis. In view of the scant number of foreign-born Negroes, these have been included with the native-born and all Negroes treated separately. Before going into detail, it is necessary to point out that these foreign-born whites and migrant Negroes were bona fide legal residents of the city. Despite the rather widespread opinion among the Philadelphia public that the Emergency Work Bureau was being swamped by non-residents and foreigners, the fact is that only five persons out of 8,722 covered in this study were found to have been here less than one year.

64

TEN

THOUSAND

OUT

OF

WORK

PREVENTION

OF DESTITUTION

65

Since the rule was to deny jobs to all applicants who were not legal residents, the Work Bureau, on this point, established a record of over 99.94 per cent efficiency in administration. The long-time residence of the Work Bureau employees in Philadelphia is also worthy of mention. Including the 43 per cent of the whites who were Philadelphia-born, over 96 per cent of all whites on the bureau payroll had been in the city five years or more. Although only 6 per cent of the Negroes were native Philadelphians, a total of 88 per cent had been here at least five years. The fact is that these unemployed constituted as settled and stable a group of workers as could be found anywhere in an industrial community. Thus, while it is clear that this city has in the past been the Mecca of migrating labor groups, it is equally clear that these movements took place a long time ago. Furthermore, it seems that there were two distinct migrations, one following immediately after the other, as shown in Chart V I . Both whites and Negroes were classified, according to the year of arrival in Philadelphia, in five-year groups: those arriving in the period 1 9 2 5 - 2 9 , 1 9 2 0 - 4 , etc. The chart shows in paired bars the actual numbers arriving in each period. The foreign-born immigrants mostly came to this city many years ago. Their migration was primarily a pre-war movement, which reached its peak in the period 1 9 1 0 - 1 4 , immediately preceding the war. After the war there was a sharp increase in the few years prior to the passage of the restricted immigration laws. Lately the influx of foreign-born has been insignificant. On the other hand, although there was a mild upward swing of colored migration in the period 1 9 1 0 - 1 4 , it was the war itself which offered the Negroes from the South their great opportunity. From its very beginning colored immigration to Philadelphia mounted rapidly to new high levels. The peak was reached in the recovery period following the depression of 1 9 2 1 , and there has been a falling off in more recent years, though the movement remained strong up until the beginning of this present depression. Despite the current impression in Philadelphia to the con-

66

TEN THOUSAND

S A M P L E , OF P H I L A D E L P H I A WAGE.

EARNERS

(INDUSTRIAL R E S E A R C H DE.PARTME.NT CENSUS}

COLORED

OUT OF WORK

E.MEUÜENCY WORK. B U R E A U E.MPLOYEE.S

(A5 REPRESENTED IN

I FOREIÜN-BORN WHITE

T H I S SURVEY) 1

I NATIVE WHITE

CHART V I I . RELATIVE PROPORTIONS OF NATIVE-BORN W H I T E , FOREIGN-BORN W H I T E , AND COLORED M A L E S

PREVENTION

OF DESTITUTION

67

trary, nearly seven out of every eight of the foreign-born were either full-fledged American citizens or had acquired first papers. Furthermore, a tabulation of the non-citizens by length of residence in the city shows that these men were predominantly in the older age groups. About 60 per cent of them had arrived in this country before the war and less than i o per cent had come here within five years. Thus while these heads of families may have been non-citizens themselves, their children were practically all born in this country. It may be asked why these people with such long residence had failed to take advantage of their opportunities for citizenship. So far as can be determined, lack of education must have been a very powerful factor. Over 40 per cent of them reported no formal schooling whatever, while another 25 per cent had not gone beyond the fourth grade. Migrants on Relief

That the foreign-born whites and the Negroes were considerably overrepresented in made-work is shown by comparative data for the city as a whole. T h e accompanying chart shows the varying proportions of native-born, foreign-born, and colored in ( 1 ) the entire male population of the city of Philadelphia, as reported in the United States Census of 1930,7 (2) a representative sample of male wage-earners in Philadelphia as reported in the 1931 unemployment census of the Industrial Research Department8 of the University of Pennsylvania, and (3) the Emergency Work Bureau's employees as represented in this survey. Although the colored males constituted only 11.2 per cent of the total male population of Philadelphia, they formed a somewhat larger proportion of the employable wage-earners (13.2 percent), and fully 28.8 per cent of the made-work em7 Population Bulletin, Second Series, Pennsylvania, p. 18, Bureau of the Census, U. S. Department of Commerce, Washington, D . C . 'Social Characteristics of Unemployment, Special Report No. 2, p. 19, Industrial Research Department, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

68

TEN

THOUSAND

OUT OF

WORK

ployees. The greater poverty of the Negroes forces a larger proportion of them to work for wages; there would not be among them, as there would among the whites, any considerable number of adult males not gainfully employed, such as high school and college students, persons retired on their income, etc. But it is the Work Bureau percentage which is of the greatest interest. The Negroes were represented in made-work to about two and one-half times the extent of their Philadelphia population, and considerably more than twice their proportion of employable wage-earners. The foreign-born show the same traits. Though constituting only 19.3 per cent of the total male population of the city, they formed 23.0 per cent of M r . Welch's gainfully employed wage-earners and 29.3 per cent of the made-work employees. The difference between the first two figures indicates that a higher proportion of the foreign-born, as of the Negroes, were gainfully employed (fewer in school, fewer retired, etc.) than of the native-born. The last figure shows that they too were in excess at the Work Bureau as compared to native whites. On the other hand, the native-born, who compose 69.3 per cent of the total male population, suffer a shrinkage to 63.8 per cent of employable wage-earners, and were represented in made-work by only 4 1 . 9 per cent of the total. These are the men who have advantages all along the line. The figures indicate that this group of native-born includes a small proportion of adult males who do not have to work for a living, and they further show that these men are able to maintain steadier employment, or, if unemployed, that they have larger resources and are better able to manage for themselves. This overrepresentation of colored and foreign-born whites might be due to any one of three things: ( 1 ) more unemployment among them than among the native-born whites, ( 2 ) greater need as a consequence of unemployment, ( 3 ) greater readiness to apply for help. What was the relative importance of each of these factors? That unemployment falls heavily on the Negro is evi-

PREVENTION

OF

DESTITUTION

69

denced by the Industrial Research Department census. T h e following table is reproduced from M r . Welch's data.9 T h e amount of total unemployment among the Negroes was very much higher than among the other two groups \ it was more than half again as great as among the native whites. On part time the foreign-born were far out of line with the other two. Perhaps the best summary of the whole situation is to be found along the top line showing full-time employment. T h e native whites were far ahead of the Negroes, with the foreign-born about half-way between. T A B L E

17

E M P L O Y M E N T S T A T U S OF M A L E N A T I V E - B O R N W H I T E ,

FOREIGN-BORN

W H I T E , AND COLORED W O R K E R S

Employment Status

Native-Born

Foreign-Born

Colored

Employed full time. . . Employed part time... Unemployed

63.1

56.9

12.6

16.8

24-3

26.3

51 -3 11.9 36.8

I n order to make allowance for the effect of unemployment on made-work applications the following computation was made. T h e relative numbers of gainfully employed wageearners in the three groups (as shown by Welch) were adjusted so as to allow for the differences in amount of unemployment found to exist among them. Part-time employment has been counted at one-half, so the percentages on part time have been cut in two, the half being then added to the total unemployment. T h e resulting figures show the theoretical amounts of complete unemployment in the three groups. T h e adjustment works out as shown in Table 18. It is clear that unemployment was partly responsible for. the proportions given under ( c ) ; but it is equally clear that this is not the whole story. T h e Negroes, for example, numbered only 1 3 . 2 per cent of the total male working population of the city. If allowance is made for the greater amount of unemployment existing among them, it is found that they " Of. cit., Special Report No. 2, p. 20.

TEN THOUSAND

70

OUT

OF

WORK

would have been awarded 17.1 per cent of the made-work jobs. But actually they got 28.8 per cent of them. Hence some other factor must have been operating. The foreign-born, while suffering from unemployment more than the native whites, were much less affected than the Negroes, so the adjustment for unemployment does not change their percentage so much. Unemployment having been adjusted for, the next step is to examine the question of need. Here too the Negroes qualiT A B L E COMPARISON

OF

MADE-WORK

18

EMPLOYEES

WITH

TOTAL

MALE

WAGE-

E A R N E R S IN PHILADELPHIA

Percentage of E m p l o y m e n t Status of Workers

NativeBorn White

ForeignBorn White

Colored

63.8

23.0

13.2

58.8

24.1

17.1

41.9

29-3

28.8

(a) Gainfully employed male wageearners in city (Welch) (b) Estimated proportions in madework when (a) is adjusted for unemployment (c) Actual proportions in made-work.

fy readily. In the first place, the Work Bureau awarded madework jobs on the basis of need, as determined by social agency recommendation or bureau investigation. To some extent the mere fact of placement is evidence of need as between applicants, although of course the bureau did not go out to select its workers from needy families who failed to apply for help. Other evidences of the greater need of the Negroes are to be found in the various family data already presented.10 They reported much smaller savings than the whites, practically no home ownership, considerably lower wages, etc. Without reviewing these data in detail, we can say that the Negroes were distinctly below the level of the whites both in current income " See also Mr. Powell's data in Part II.

PREVENTION

OF DESTITUTION

71

from wage-earners and in family resources. Their standard of living was lower and they were much closer to the subsistence level. Although these evidences of need scarcely lend themselves to statistical treatment, a rough computation has been made on the basis of ( i ) wage differentials and (2) savings. Without pretending that these two cover all the ground, we can accept them as typical bases of need. The average income (see page 51) of the white families was found to be $35.85 per week and of the colored $28.07, a difference of $7.78. Savings were reported by 43.4 per cent of the white and 33.3 per cent of the colored. Mr. Powell found (see page 99 following) that the average amount of savings for whites was $339 as against $150 for Negroes. When these differences are cumulated in a very rough-and-ready fashion it is not difficult to see that in income and resources the Negroes are at a marked disadvantage as compared with the two white groups. This further correction to the data in line (b), Table 18, would bring the theoretical estimate for colored made-work applicants fairly close to the actual number given work. As between the native whites and the foreign-born there does not seem to be any such marked difference in need. In wages, home ownership, savings, credit, etc., the foreign-born rank well up with the natives. Perhaps one of their chief difficulties was the fact that their resources were not in very liquid form, and therefore not readily available. Should real estate ever come back in Philadelphia many of the foreignborn in this study (provided they have not lost their homes in the meantime) would be solvent again. These resources, however, were of no use in 1931, so at that time they were as badly off as though they had none. The need of the foreignborn was undoubtedly greater than that of the native whites, but there is no way of estimating its extent. The question then becomes, was the overrepresentation in any degree due to the readiness to ask for help? In the case of the foreign-born whites it is difficult to draw any conclusions, because the differences between them and the native

72

TEN

THOUSAND

OUT

OF

WORK

whites might be due either to nationality or to migration. But with the Negroes a direct test is possible through a comparison of the long-time residents of Philadelphia with the later migrants, most of whom were Southerners. There are no data on the number of long-time Philadelphia residents living in the city in 1930, but estimates can be obtained in an indirect w a y . " B y certain computations the 1 9 3 0 population can be split up into three parts: ( ι ) Representatives of families which were residents of the city in 191О; ( 2 ) representatives of families which moved here in the period 1 9 1 0 - 1 9 1 9 5 and ( 3 ) representatives of families arriving 1920-30. T A B L E R A T I O OF M A D E - W O R K

19

E M P L O Y E E S TO M A L E PERIODS

Period of Migration

Total Living in Philadelphia in 1910, including those born there.. Arrived 1 9 1 0 - 1 9 1 9 Arrived 1920-1930

OF

COLORED POPULATION

BY

MIGRATION

Estimated Numbers in 1930 Population

Made-Work Employees

Ratio— Made-Work Employees per 1000 Population

108,483

2,321

21.4

39.431 27,701 41.351

375 599 Ь347

9•5 21.3 32.6

With these three groups were compared the number of colored men in made-work who belonged to each of them. T h e first contained all men born in Philadelphia or migrating here before 1 9 1 0 ; the second, men who came during the period 1 9 1 0 - 1 9 1 9 ; and the third, men arriving in the decade of the 1920's. The results of the comparison are shown in T a ble 19. T h e figures in the last column furnish the key to the problem. The 1920-30 migrants were represented on made-work at a rate of 32.6 per thousand population, as compared with 11

See Appendix E , pp. 168 f. f o r details of method.

PREVENTION

OF

DESTITUTION

73

only 9.5 for the 1 9 1 0 group. If those born in Philadelphia could be segregated from the pre-i 9 1 0 migrants, it is probable that the natives would be found to have a still lower rate than 9.5. Only 1 4 7 out of the 3 7 5 made-work employees in this class were natives of the city. Note also that the war migrants fared much better than the later ones, the former having a made-work rate of 2 1 . 3 . Because of vastly differing circumstances, no fair comparison can be made between the Negroes and the two white groups. Y e t it is of interest to note that the corresponding made-work rate for native-born was 5.1 per thousand population and for foreign-born 1 2 . 8 . T h e p r e - 1 9 1 0 Negroes in made-work were proportionately somewhat more numerous than native whites but distinctly less numerous than foreignborn whites. T o return to the three colored groups j the interpretation of the figures is not so easy. Some exaggeration of the contrast between the first and third groups probably arises from the fact that the ratios are computed on the basis of population instead of wage-earners. T o the extent that the 1 9 2 0 - 3 0 group of migrants contained a large proportion of wage-earners (and most migrant groups do), their made-work ratio may be somewhat inflated, but not enough to alter the general picture. Accepting the figures for what they are worth, the question then arises as to whether the differences were due to the quality of the people or the risks of migration. V e r y probably there is a difference in quality between the older, long-established Philadelphia colored group and the newcomers, particularly those from the South. But the chances are that when every possible allowance has been made for these differences, there will still remain the basic indisputable fact—the migrant to a new community has a very difficult time of it. H e probably had few opportunities where he formerly lived (note the education data for the southern states); he had few resources when he arrived here; he had to take the poorer jobs, and, when disaster came, he had no friends or relatives to help him. At every turn he

74

TEN THOUSAND OUT OF WORK

was at a disadvantage as compared to the old inhabitant, and it was primarily these disadvantages which finally brought him and his family on relief. T h e same argument applies to the foreign-born white as contrasted with the native white. Like the southern colored man, the former has to face all the handicaps of adjusting to a new economic and social situation. Unfortunately, it is impossible to get data about the foreign-born similar to those about the Negroes, so no definite conclusion can be drawn. W e can only conjecture that the presence of the same obstacles would produce the same results, and that therefore the overrepresentation of foreign-born is not so much an indication of weaker morale and lack of self-reliance as it is an evidence of the handicaps faced by a newcomer in a strange place. SUMMARY

Unemployment of the chief wage-earner is soon followed by destitution, unless certain protections are available to the family. One protective measure of fundamental importance is the existence within the family circle of one or more additional wage-earners. Although the Work Bureau families were larger than the average size of the family in the city of Philadelphia as a whole, they had fewer wage-earners. A very large proportion of the made-work families had only one wageearner and were therefore wholly without income when he was unemployed. T h e figures indicate that the larger families with fewer wage-earners are in greater need of relief than others. T h e additional wage-earners do not add proportionately to the family income, but they do increase its steadiness and continuity. The greater the number of wage-earners, the less the chance that they will all be simultaneously unemployed. If the family is unable to command any supplementary wage income, then it is compelled to subsist upon its resources. These resources may be of a positive character, such as resources in the form of savings, home ownership, etc., or, more often, of a negative character—credit, unpaid rent, moving in with relatives, etc. As a last resort the family may ap-

PREVENTION

OF DESTITUTION

75

ply for charitable relief, as many of these families had to do. Somewhat less than half of these families had money in savings accounts and about one-quarter owned their homes. There was a considerable overlapping between these two groups. On the other hand, 53 per cent of the whites and nearly 70 per cent of the Negroes had been able to rely partly upon unpaid rent. Commercial borrowing, help from friends and relatives, and credit at stores were used freely by both the white and the colored group. The renting of rooms or doubling up with relatives occurred in about 1 0 per cent of the families. On the other hand, the wages earned by members of the family who were not regular wage-earners or the amounts received through pensions, bonuses, and occasional jobs by the chief wage-earner were not important. Finally, about 40 per cent of the whites and 60 per cent of the Negroes had had to resort to charity before they obtained madework. Home ownership proved to be of little protection against destitution. Although the proportion of home-owners among the white families was less than half that existing in the population as a whole, there was a sufficiently large proportion of home-owners among the made-work employees to indicate that they often got into difficulty. It was found that home ownership was negligible among the Negroes, and was nearly three times as prevalent among the foreign-born as among the native white Americans. On the other hand, the nativeborn white and the colored workers showed a much greater proportion of owners of automobiles. Among the colored this was five times as prevalent as home ownership; among the native whites 50 per cent greater, while among the foreignborn it was only about one-fifth as common as home ownership. A comparison of home ownership and income brings out very clearly the fact that smaller incomes are a decided bar to ownership; the larger the family income, the higher the proportion of home-owning families. One of the most important factors in bringing about desti-

76

TEN

THOUSAND

OUT OF

WORK

tution is migration. Although Negroes constituted only 1 1 per cent of the population of the city of Philadelphia, they formed 13.2 per cent of the gainfully employed wage-earners; even when an adjustment is made for the higher volume of unemployment among them, the figures still fall far short of the 28.8 per cent in made-work. An analysis of the colored population of the city indicates that the need for relief was closely associated with the time of migration to this city. Colored people whose families lived in Philadelphia prior to 1 9 1 0 were represented in made-work to the extent of only 9.5 persons per thousand population. Those who migrated to the city in the period 1 9 1 0 - 1 9 had a ratio in made-work of 2 1 . 3 per thousand population. Finally, those arriving within the past decade had a representation of 32.6. The figures indicate that recency of migration was one factor in causing families to be in need of relief. The newcomers, being less adequately supplied with friends and resources, were the first to need help after unemployment had struck them.

C H A P T E R

IV

CONCLUSIONS1 When Brother Juniper had completed his case study of the disaster of The Bridgey he found himself forced to the conclusion that there had been no design or intention about it at all. No useful purpose had been served, so far as he could discover, by the taking off of the unfortunate victims, nor was there anything in the lives of these people which would account for their misfortune. The discouraging fact (to him) was that the event appeared to have been dominated by pure chance. What of these unemployed? What might have been done that was not done—by the workers themselves, by their families, by industry? Or, looking toward the future, what steps might be taken to avert another such disaster, either by preventing unemployment or by preparing to meet it when it comes? T H E INDIVIDUAL

WORKER

This study clearly demonstrates that the educated man has a distinct advantage. The proportion of whites without school training in made-work was over 7 per cent, nearly twice the illiteracy reported for white males over 21 years of age in the state of Pennsylvania. Among the Negroes those without school training averaged nearly 11 per cent. Higher education, according to all indications, pays dividends not only in higher wages but also in greatly increased steadiness of work. Subsidiary to education is training for the job, especially the development of skill. Certain types of skill—as exemplified by supervisory positions, clerical work, or professional work—bring greater stability of employment. 1 T h e contents of this chapter have been drawn from both Part I and Part II, and thus represent the conclusions of both authors.

[77]

78

TEN THOUSAND OUT OF WORK

Choice of industry and occupation markedly affect the risks of unemployment. I n the construction industries the risk is about two and one-half times greater than in manufacturing and from five to ten times greater than in commerce, public utilities, or the professions. So far as stability is concerned, this study indicates that it is better to be an unskilled worker in a stable industry than a more highly skilled worker in an unstable one. Stability on the part of the worker is in itself no guaranty against cyclical unemployment. Workers with service records of many years with the same firm found themselves laid off along with those having a few months' service. T h e madework group as a whole stood high in stability, yet they experienced unemployment just the same. T h e r e is another bit of evidence to show that the worker cannot avoid unemployment by clinging tenaciously to his job. Only a small minority of made-workers lost their jobs on their own initiative—through voluntary quits, strikes, illness or accident, etc. Even the addition of discharges would not bring the proportion up very high. Most workers were unemployed because they were laid off on the employer's initiative due to poor business. Efficient performance on the j o b by the worker does not insure him against unemployment. Some of the made-workers had apparently been definite failures in their jobs, but the proportion was so small as to be negligible. Furthermore, the stability records of the others make it appear reasonably certain that the majority of these men performed with at least average efficiency. Finally, the worker himself should be brought to understand the limitations of individual action. Any attempt to solve the problem of unemployment through individual initiative must inevitably fail. Perfect performance by the individual in all respects would not prevent unemployment, and improving the qualifications of one set of workers would merely result in pushing others down. T h e record shows that even college graduates can become unemployed. I f the young peo-

CONCLUSIONS

79

pie flock to those occupations which promise stability (as they are now doing to school teaching, clerical work, and the professions), the job opportunities in these fields will become decidedly limited. T h e conclusion is that no great improvement in the conditions affecting unemployment can be brought about by action of the individual worker. It is time that this fact be impressed on the man himself, so that he will not allow his morale to be destroyed by circumstances over which he has no control. THE

FAMILY

T h e study brings out very clearly the value of additional wage-earners as a means of supplementing family income. T h e Emergency W o r k Bureau families were especially deficient in this respect, averaging only 1 . 3 wage-earners per family as compared to 1.9 for the general population of the city. It is this deficiency which partly accounts for their condition. A n additional wage-earner lends more security and stability to family life than a savings account. A wife earning only $ 1 0 per week would bring in an annual income of $ 5 0 0 per year j only a small fraction of the families had succeeded in saving that much. Y e t there are certain disadvantages in depending upon additional wage-earners. Married women, from necessity rather than choice, seek places in the business and industrial world in order to protect the family standard of living. But what of the effect upon the home, and especially upon the children, of their absence? H o w measure the social costs of this in terms of the next generation? I n the low-wage colored groups the wife is usually a wageearner. A m o n g the whites the additional wage-earners are usually the children; not infrequently their education and training are interrupted for the sake of their contribution to the support of the family. Another method is to bring into the family more or less distant relatives who will agree to pool some or all of their earnings. T h i s last arrangement results in the establishment of the clan-family which was found to exist in about one-eighth of the white homes and in an even

80

TEN

THOUSAND

OUT OF

WORK

larger proportion of the colored. This often leads to overcrowding and reduced standards of housing. Nevertheless, with all its disadvantages, it is clear that under present conditions the development of additional wage-earners is one of the family's best means of security. The analysis of the work records of these employees demonstrates the limitations of any "back-to-the-land" movement as a solution for unemployment. Only a handful of the workers (less than one per cent) reported having had recent farming experience. Even allowing for those who may have grown up on the farm before they went into industry, the number would not be large. Nor would many of these men have the resources necessary to purchase land or equipment for farming, even if they wished to do so. Migration in search of better job opportunities may improve the job prospects and wage income of the family, but it also involves a considerable risk of destitution. About 94 per cent of the Negroes and over 60 per cent of the whites had come to Philadelphia from other places. (This does not mean that these people were non-residents—99.94 per cent of them had been in the city more than one year and 94 per cent more than five years.) An analysis of the Negroes showed that families arriving in the city within ten years were represented in made-work in a proportion between three and four times as great as those who had lived here since 1 9 1 0 or earlier. Home ownership proved to be a poor investment for many families. A home owned outright may be a source of credit to the familyj such ownership is invaluable to old people at the age of retirement. Only a small fraction of these families owned their homes outright. Over shortrun business cycles a home in the process of purchase is a liability rather than an asset. T h e shrinkage in value destroys the owner's small equity and puts him in danger of losing his entire investment. There is the further disadvantage that it is extremely difficult to borrow any money on the home in a depression period. Less than 2 per cent of one group of home-owning families had

CONCLUSIONS

81

succeeded in raising any money on their homes, while many families who had made payments totaling thousands of dollars found themselves so completely destitute that they had to apply for made-work. Home ownership, whatever its ultimate advantages, is of little or no value in tiding a worker and his family over a period of business depression. Insurance in most of these families proved worthless as an asset, because it was of the wrong type. The industrial insurance which is usually carried by these poorer families has under ordinary circumstances very little loan or cash-surrender value, and therefore offers only a slight possibility of furnishing ready money in an emergency. Here, as in the case of home ownership, about all the family can do is to stop making payments and lose the investment. On the other hand, those families who bought "ordinary" insurance had an asset on which they were able to borrow. Insurance in this form has some value as savings, and if more families had had it they would have been better off. Only one-third to one-half of these families had any savings at all. Those who had none were, of course, wholly unprotected against unemployment. The savers had some protection, but for most of them it was far from adequate. On the basis of the length of time out of work reported by these men, the typical family would need a savings account large enough to carry them at their current standard of living for a period of about six months. In round numbers, at least $500 would be necessary. Only a small fraction of these families had that much. The median savings account of one group of white families was slightly over $200, and of the colored about $86. The great advantage of a savings account in comparison with other forms of resources is that it is liquid and therefore readily available. But it is idle to expect the problem of unemployment to be solved in this way. In some families the savings of years had been dissipated by illness; in others, they had been sapped from time to time by previous unemployment, when the worker had changed jobs in the normal turnover of indus-

82

TEN THOUSAND

OUT

OF

WORK

try during a prosperous period. Furthermore, for a really long depression such as the present one, involving two or three years of unemployment, an account of not less than several thousands of dollars per family would be necessary, and rare indeed would be the household which could save any such amount. That is why additional wage-earners are of even greater value than savings, since they may guarantee some income for the family even in depression periods. A steady and regular income is a basic necessity in the family economy. A savings account is a necessary adjunct for the family in the struggle against the twin problems of unemployment and destitution, but these savings will always be of secondary importance in comparison with stability of employment as a method of solution. INDUSTRY

The results of the survey indicate clearly the limits within which the worker and his family can aid in solving these problems. The worker can do very little to prevent his being unemployed and the family is not in a position to prevent destitution after prolonged unemployment. How much can industry accomplish? In one sense industry holds the key to these problems. If industry had had jobs available, all but a small fraction of the made-work employees would have taken care of themselves. Stability of employment, if it could ever be achieved, is a program which would provide the final solution. But industries differ widely in stability. The construction industries most of all, and the manufacturing industries to a smaller extent, are the ones which have the greatest proportion of unemployment. Public utilities, trade, transportation, etc., are more stable. In only a few instances, however, was this stability consciously planned and prepared. The data for practically all these industrial groups probably represented the natural level of stability in that type of work. In every industry there are firms which have achieved more stable employment than their

CONCLUSIONS

83

competitors in the same work. What Philadelphia industry might have accomplished by individual employer effort cannot even approximately be estimated. The most that can be said is that undoubtedly a certain amount of unemployment could have been prevented by the adoption of stabilization programs on the part of individual firms—in construction, in manufacturing, and even in other more stable industries. There has been growing up in recent years a practice of paying a dismissal wage to an employee when permanently dropped from the rolls. It is especially applicable in cases of technological unemployment, plant shutdowns, bankruptcies, mergers, or other changes which make it unlikely that the worker will ever find another job with that firm or even in that industry. Generally speaking, the dismissal wage is regarded as an indemnity for the permanent loss of a job; 2 therefore, it is usually a lump-sum payment which is due the worker regardless of his later fortunes in job-hunting. Many made-work employees would clearly have been entitled to a dismissal wage. On a very conservative basis, the dismissal wage might be presumed to apply (a) to workers 45 years of age and over with at least ten years' service, and (b) to workers under 45 years of age with twenty or more years' service. By this interpretation 644 men (87 of them colored) would have qualified for the payment. One man had a service record of forty-five years; 45 others ranged between thirty and forty-four years. A typical policy in dismissal wage payments is one week's pay for each year of service. T o avoid the detailed work of looking up each man's wage record it has been assumed that these workers' average earnings were about the same as those 'Little, E. H., The United States Rubber Company's Use of a Dismissal Wage (American Management Association, Personnel Series No. 6, 1 9 3 0 ) . Clague, Ε wan and Couper, W. J., "The Readjustment of Workers Displaced by the Plant Shutdowns," Quarterly Journal of Economics, February, '931·

Industrial Relations Section, Princeton University, memorandum on the dismissal wage, February, 1 9 3 1 . National Industrial Conference Board, The Dismissal Wage in Labor Displacement, 1932.

84

TEN THOUSAND

OUT OF

WORK

of the whole group of white and colored; that is, each year of service would mean $32 in dismissal wages for the whites and $25 for the colored. On this basis the 644 workers with long service records would have been entitled to dismissal wage payments totaling $366,000. Some of these workers had been laid off several years ago and the money might have been entirely used up by the winter of 1 9 3 0 - 3 1 , but for most of them these payments would have been of direct benefit in the depression. And they would have been large enough to enable the workers to go through the winter without coming for relief of any kind. The cost to the firms, for these and other similar workers, might have been quite substantial. For those workers whose loss of job is presumed to be cyclical and temporary, what is needed is temporary coverage, not permanent indemnity. This is the field for unemployment insurance. On the basis of the Wisconsin law, more than 85 per cent of the men in made-work would have been entitled to unemployment insurance benefits. (These figures include those men classified above as eligible for a dismissal wage.) T h e Wisconsin law is very conservative in its benefits, which amount to 50 per cent of weekly earnings, with a minimum of $5 and a maximum of $ 1 0 per week. The maximum period for which the worker can draw benefits is ten weeks, or a total payment of $100, although payments are made only so long as the worker is unemployed. This entire cost of this protection is borne by the individual employer. The total benefits payable to the workers in this study under the scale established by the Wisconsin law have been estimated. An adjustment was made for those workers presumed to have been entitled to a dismissal wage, so that these would not be counted twice. All casuals who had never had a steady job of at least three months were eliminated, but seasonal workers were included on an equal basis with the rest. The figures show that for the white men included in this study the total benefits payable would have been $480,000 and for the colored $186,000, a total of $666,000.

CONCLUSIONS

85

Not all the made-work employees of the Emergency Work Bureau were included in this survey—only 8 , 1 7 7 men out of 14,443. Assuming that those included here were typical of the others, the total payments for the entire working force can be estimated. T h e figures previously quoted for dismissal wage and unemployment insurance would be increased to about $650,000 and $ 1 , 1 7 5 , 0 0 0 respectively, a total of $ 1 , 825,000. This is considerably more than the $ 1 , 4 3 8 , 0 0 0 actually spent on made-work. H a d dismissal wage and unemployment insurance been in f u l l operation in the city's industries the Committee for Unemployment Relief would have been saved this expenditure. T h e women have been entirely eliminated from consideration, not because unemployment insurance would be wholly inapplicable to them, but because so many of the domestics and day-workers would not have been eligible. T h e net effect of the women upon the benefit payments would have been very small. Three observations are necessary to complete the picture. One is that, of course, the total cost to industry of an unemployment insurance system, whether coupled with dismissal wages or not, would be far greater than the amounts specified above because many more workers who, under present conditions, succeed in managing for themselves would be entitled to payments. These are the thousands of workers who did not find it necessary to apply for help in the winter of 1 9 3 0 - 3 1 , but who would have drawn benefits nevertheless. Secondly, unemployment insurance, while carrying the family for a limited period of time, would not be adequate f o r long-continued unemployment. Those workers who would have been able to manage for themselves during the winter of 1 9 3 0 - 3 1 on these payments would have had to apply f o r help the next winter. T h e records of the Social Service E x change show that over 50 per cent of the men who were provided with made-work did actually come for help after the made-work program was over. Unemployment insurance would have been of temporary benefit, but it would not have

86

TEN

THOUSAND

OUT OF

WORK

solved the problem of these workers over a long depression. A family with one unemployed wage-earner would, according to the Wisconsin plan, draw a maximum of $ 1 0 0 in unemployment insurance; this is less than half the median savings account for whites of $204. Even with two wage-earners, a family could receive only $200 in a maximum period of 20 weeks in any one year. The Wisconsin law is more adapted to the protection of the worker in job changes during normal times than it is to carrying him through a major depression. The English system of 26 weeks' benefits would not be any too long under present conditions, and even at the end of that period straight relief might be necessary. Finally, not all relief cases could have been covered by unemployment insurance. Although the total volume of payments for dismissal wage and unemployment insurance benefits would have more than equaled made-work expenditures, the individual coverage would not have been exactly the same. Some workers in made-work would not have drawn any insurance whatever and they could not have been covered in any other way than by relief. Furthermore, nothing has been said of the thousands of families receiving relief which were not given made-work for various reasons. With unemployment insurance the relief burden of the Committee for Unemployment Relief would have been substantially reduced, but it would not have been entirely eliminated. There remains a residue of relief which is absolutely essential, and it must not be expected that stabilization programs, dismissal wage payments, or unemployment insurance systems will ever entirely supersede the straight relief program of the social agencies. The above analysis has been based upon the assumption that individual industrial firms could and would establish the program of stabilization, dismissal wage, unemployment insurance, etc. But many firms would disclaim all responsibility for unemployment on the ground that they themselves were the victims of industrial changes and fluctuations. The degree of stability which can be attained by an individual firm is very much limited by business necessity. The adoption of an unem-

CONCLUSIONS

87

ployment insurance system might put a company at a disadvantage in comparison with its competitors. In other words, just as in the case of the worker and the family, individual action cannot solve the problem. T h e ultimate solution w i l l require, on the part of industry, some joint or cooperative system which will hold the less advanced firms in line. T H E R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y OF T H E C O M M U N I T Y IN A FUTURE

PROGRAM

If there are definite limitations to the possibility of individual action, whether on the part of the worker, of his family, or of the firm which employed him, then it becomes clear that concerted, cooperative community action will be necessary for the solution of the twin problems of unemployment and destitution. It is no longer a question of whether or not the community should take any action, but rather a question of what is to be done and how to do it. A brief summary of possible community action is necessary at this point. A certain minimum amount of direct relief w i l l always be necessary. A l l the computations which were made above have not succeeded in eliminating a residue of families for which relief is the only solution. It will be necessary for the community to plan and prepare for this basic relief need. Philadelphia functioned as a community in the winter of I 9 3 0 _ 3 1 У Е Г У largely through voluntary private groups of citizens and organizations. T h e municipal government, up to the middle of the year 1 9 3 1 , took only a minor part in the relief program. T h i s was strictly in line with tradition—outdoor relief in Philadelphia has for years been almost w h o l l y under the control of the private social agencies. W h i l e in the country as a whole in the spring of 1931 the Russell Sage Foundation figures3 showed 72 per cent of unemployment relief coming from public sources and 28 per cent from private, in Philadelphia the proportions at that time were 45 per cent public and 55 per cent private. Later the municipality took over a larger share of the burden. T h e problem for the future * Relief Bulletin, March, 1931, p. 4.

88

TEN THOUSAND OUT OF WORK

is whether or not the community shall continue to function chiefly on a voluntary private basis or emphasize a public basis. A secondary point in this connection involves the definition of the term community. In this instance the people living in Philadelphia met the problem locally, no direct help being received from the state or from the federal government/ It is proper, however, to raise the question as to which community organization furnishes the best basis for action. One question of immediate interest concerns the place of made-work in a relief program. Although used in Philadelphia on a large scale in the winter of 1930-31, made-work was not repeated during the next winter. The chief reason was the expensiveness of made-work as compared to direct relief. The average cost of made-work was $ 1 1 . 5 7 per week as compared with $5.01 for relief. The latter is given to the family on the basis of absolute minimum needs and is therefore adjusted to the lowest possible level, while made-work is paid on a wage basis which, although indirectly related to need, is not regularly and meticulously adjusted to it. On behalf of made-work it can be urged that, although it is more expensive, it is much more satisfactory in that it preserves the self-respect of families in a way that direct relief does not. If well managed, it can be administered in such a way that the worker will regard it as a real job rather than as charitable relief. Furthermore, there is the additional advantage that if careful planning were done,5 some economic and cultural return to the community could be secured from the labor of those being helped. If an efficiency of no more than about 60 per cent of normal be assumed for made-work employees it would still be true that the extra cost of $7.00 per week noted above would be fully covered by the products of made-work. The essential point is the development of a 4 Beginning in 1 9 3 2 , state and federal funds became available and since that time the burden has been carried largely by those two sources. * Evans, Roger, Report to Committee for Unemployment Relief on MadeWork Program; unpublished document.

CONCLUSIONS

89

long-time community program of made-work, perhaps to be used in conjunction with a public works program. Such a program might well provide for the employment of many thousands of workers in periods of hard times. However, it would be well to bear in mind the cost involved in a program of this sort. In the winter of 1 9 3 1 - 3 2 there were under the care of relief agencies more than 60,000 families. If it be assumed that one-half of these families contained wage-earners eligible for and capable of made-work employment, then at least 30,000 wage-earners would be available. On a three-day-per-week, $4.oo-per-day basis, the employment of this number would mean an expenditure in wages of $360,000 per week, or nearly $1,600,000 per month. Thus, a six months' winter program would cost approximately $10,000,000, and in addition, there would still be the straight relief program for the other 30,000 families. For a community the size of Philadelphia and its suburbs this would not necessarily be a prohibitive figure, but it certainly would involve expenditures much beyond the rate in the past. Certain problems of relief administration must eventually be faced. The made-work program provided the family with ready cash which it could use on its own responsibility. T h e distribution of direct relief to families was nearly always done by an order system which limited the expenditures to specified articles and which further left the family without cash income. Many of these workers did not distinguish between made-work and a regular job. Some of them would have refused straight relief. The advantage of preserving the selfrespect of the worker may in the long run more than counterbalance the extra expense involved in made-work. The problem of old age calls for a drastic solution on some other than a general relief basis. About 27 per cent of the whites and 18 per cent of the Negroes in made-work were 45 years of age or over. The nature of the problem of unemployment relief is fundamentally changed when the worker is no longer employable, or at least no longer considered so by the employer. At present, state and local governments provide

90

TEN THOUSAND OUT OF WORK

homes for the aged on a small scale, and private charity has supplemented them, but depression periods like the present have brought the problem of old age into sharper focus. T h e relief agencies now have on their rolls older individuals and families for whom there is little prospect of work when prosperity returns. While the community is now handling this problem on an emergency relief basis, it must in the long run deal with it on a permanent basis. Probably some system of old age pensions or retirement allowances will be necessary. Shall the community through its organized government take steps to hasten industry's acceptance of responsibility for unemployment by compulsory measures—undertaking to set up minimum standards of unemployment insurance, for example, and providing that all firms meet these standards? This study indicates that some mild compulsion may be necessary, especially for the smaller firms. N o less than 3 4 per cent of these workers were the lone representative in made-work of their respective firms. A substantial volume of unemployment comes from very small concerns. It is doubtful if employers' voluntary systems of insurance would ever bring into the field any great number of these companies. One important contribution which might be made by the community would be a stabilization of its own business. T h e expansion and contraction of public works might be to some extent dovetailed with the changes in private business, so that during depression times a large volume of labor could be employed on public works. This study shows that a considerable proportion of the unemployed have exactly the right kind of training and experience to qualify them for jobs on construction work. A l l the other findings of this study are of minor importance in comparison with the one outstanding fact, namely, that cooperative group action, planned in advance, is the only effective method of dealing with the problems of unemployment and destitution. Something can be accomplished by the individual action of the various parties involved (the worker, the family, industry). But there are clear and definite limits

CONCLUSIONS

91

to what each or all of these can accomplish. In fact, it is only through community coordination that the full fruit of individual initiative can be obtained. The lesson for the community in this unemployment crisis is therefore, primarily, that intelligent planning is necessary, and secondly, that the community must be prepared to take any or all steps that the plans may call for.

PART II A S T U D Y OF F I N A N C I A L R E S O U R C E S IN T H E F A M I L I E S O F APPLICANTS

FOR M A D E - W O R K

TO

PHILADELPHIA C O M M I T T E E FOR UNEMPLOYMENT BY WEBSTER POWELL

1,439

THE RELIEF

F A M I L Y E C O N O M I C S IN P R O S P E R I T Y AND DEPRESSION INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this study, which was undertaken independently and later merged with the Clague study, is to measure as accurately as possible the financial resources which typical workers' families had at their disposal when unemployment began j and also to determine how these resources were used in tiding the family over the unemployment period—i. е., down to the time of application for made-work, when presumably all resources had been exhausted and the family was on the verge of destitution. This is a record of families whose resources proved to be inadequate to the burden imposed upon them. An analysis of their experiences may indicate some of the reasons why these families failed and some of the ways in which the failure could have been prevented. In developing the first point, specific answers are needed to the following questions: ( i ) What kinds and amounts of reserves did the families have available when unemployment began? (2) What credits were they able to obtain during the unemployment period? (3) H o w long would all these resources have carried them at their former standard of living? On a minimum health and decency budget? A t subsistence levels? (4) What assistance were these families able to obtain from friends, relatives, neighbors, and, as a last resort, charity organizations? This group of 1,439 applicants for made-work supplied the needed information. They were interviewed, at the time of making application, at several of the zone offices and at the main office of the Emergency Work Bureau during the entire period of its existence. T h e quantitative information on family finances, as well as other subsidiary data, was obtained as a natural part of the routine questioning of each applicant. This [95]

96

TEN THOUSAND

OUT

OF

WORK

sample was selected at random from the entire group of applicants for made-work rather than from those workers w h o were actually placed on the payroll of the Emergency W o r k Bureau. Some of these men were placed when their turn came, but others were found to have resources which made them ineligible for a job. These were workers whose families were not yet destitute. T h e r e was, however, comparatively little difference among the above three groups of families, those placed, applicants not placed (for lack of j o b s ) , and those ineligible for placement (Class B ) . 1 RESERVES

W h a t kinds and amounts of reserves did these families have available when unemployment began? Several cases have been selected to show the different types of reserve stored up by workers. Families which had apparently made every effort to provide security for themselves and had succeeded in accumulating large assets came to the E m e r gency W o r k Bureau. Some of these were as completely destitute as families which had always lived on the edge of want. Sandy Macintosh, 2 a Scotsman who migrated to Philadelphia eleven years ago, had held for six years a j o b as machinist at an average wage of $53 a week. T h i s family, consisting of M r . Macintosh, his wife, and three children, was exceptionally well protected for any emergency. T h e savings amounted to $1,500; an additional $41.20 a month was being put into the purchase of a six-room house; Sandy was carrying an insurance policy of $2,000. In December 1930 he lost his job, and almost on the very same day the bank in which his savings were kept was closed, thus depriving him of all available cash. O n the strength of his resources he was able to raise a loan of $300 with which to meet the family expenses while he was out of work. B y the time he came to the W o r k Bureau those funds had been exhausted. H e r e was a case of a family which had been very w e l l prepared for un1 7

See Appendix B, pp. 137 ff. A l l names are fictitious.

FAMILY

ECONOMICS

97

employment, yet wholly unforeseen circumstances had rendered its resources unavailable. John Watkins, a native-born American, had at one time been a successful grocer. He owned three stores valued at $12,000, had two life insurance policies and money in the bank, but toward the end of 1930 both his business and his bank failed at about the same time. By the following spring he had lost all his property to a building and loan society j he had borrowed on one insurance policy and had been forced to let the other lapse. Two diamonds had been pawned for $150, less than half their value. He had also been able to borrow $385 from a small loan company. After the loss of his property he rented a six-room house for $35 a month and at the time of his application to the Work Bureau he was beginning to fall behind in his rent payments. This man's financial losses had amounted to nearly $20,000; within a few months he had fallen from comparative prosperity and comfort to complete destitution, with no resources of any kind to care for his wife and six small children. George Fratzo, who was born in Czechoslovakia 36 years ago, is now an American citizen and has been a resident of Philadelphia for 1 1 years. For the past seven years he held a job as track foreman with a railroad company. His average earnings were $25 a week, a lower rate than full-time wages because of part-time work in recent months. Favored by a steady job, this man had done very well for his family: they were buying their home through a building and loan payment of $24.15 a month and at the same time had been able to save $1,700 in cash. These resources would seem to be sufficient to care for the family (wife and three small children) for a considerable period of time under normal conditions. But his wife had long been ill and died just before he lost his job. The funeral expenses alone were $818, in addition to which there had been heavy medical expenses previously. The children were boarded with a family in New Jersey until after Christmas, when he married again. He came to the Work Bureau in late February almost at the end of his resources.

98

TEN

THOUSAND

OUT

OF

WORK

Not only were his savings entirely gone, but he had borrowed $ 3 5 in cash, was back two months in his building and loan payments, and owed bills of $ 18 to his grocer and $6o to his doctor. This was a case in which savings were spent in medical care and were not available for unemployment. In contrast, John Arizzi furnishes an example of the other extreme. As a boy of 16, a recent immigrant from Italy, he had obtained the job which he held for 23 years with a local manufacturing plant. His wages were good; even toward the end when his hours were cut down he was earning about $ 3 0 a week. The burden of supporting a wife and five small children had apparently prevented him from saving anything for emergency. When he was laid off at the end of J u l y 1930, there were absolutely no resources available to the family. H e was able to find a temporary job in the month of November, but aside from that his only way of meeting the situation was to run into debt. Having no collateral of any kind, he could not borrow from commercial loan companies, but his brother helped out by making a loan of $500. H e ran up a large grocery bill and was three months behind in rent. B y the first of March this man, who had never been able to save anything in prosperity, had contracted debts totaling $643. Whether intended to be so or not, the brother's loan will probably turn out to be a gift. Savings Among the families mentioned, the importance of savings as a resource is clearly established. T h e three which had been making provision for the future had all counted heavily on a savings account, while the other family was conspicuous because of the absence of savings. It is particularly noteworthy that savings seem to be associated with other resources—the family which is saving is likely to be making provision all along the line. It might be said that the savings account is a good index of the family's efforts toward self-reliance and independence. Somewhat less than half the white workers (45.8 per cent)

FAMILY

ECONOMICS

99

reported having savings; this is close to the figure (43.4 per cent) previously reported in the Clague study. The 506 white familes which had savings had accumulated nearly $165,000, an average of about $339 each. Since the averaging is influenced very markedly by the large savings accounts of a few families, the median (the middle family when the whole group is arrayed in order of size from large to small) gives perhaps a better indication of the usual amount—the median was $204.56. Many of these savings accounts were so small as to be unimportant. Anything less than a week's wages, say $30, would scarcely amount to much more than merely the normal cash balance that a family might be expected to carry over from week to week. However, the fact that this amount had definitely been set aside should mean something and these families have been listed as savers in spite of their small accounts. Between $ 3 0 and $ 1 0 0 were another large group of families whose savings were far from substantial. Altogether about 20 per cent of these white families had less than $ 1 0 0 ; and, as indicated above, the median shows that nearly half of them were below $200. At the other extreme were the families whose accounts amounted to $ 1,000 and above. There were 34 of these families ranging from $1,000 up to a maximum of $6,700. It may be wondered why these more prosperous families ever had to come for relief. If a savings account of several thousand dollars is inadequate, then there would be scarcely any workers' families in the whole country which would have adequate reserves against unemployment. In comparison with these larger amounts, the meagre savings of the great majority would be practically worthless. However, the history of these families with large savings brings out very clearly the risks to which savings are exposed and the uses to which they must be put quite frequently. The loss of savings in bank failures, so vividly illustrated in the cases mentioned, represents one serious risk which the family must run. W e do not know exactly how many of these

100

TEN THOUSAND

OUT OF

WORK

made-work applicants had lost money in failed banks, but there is no doubt that a considerable minority had done so. Severe illness in the family sapped the strength of many a stalwart savings account. Periods of unemployment in good times dissipated the savings of many families, to say nothing of preventing further accumulation. Certainly, one outstanding fact in connection with the resources of these families is that in many instances they failed in the emergency, but not through causes which the family could either have foreseen or prevented. Savings—Negroes Although about half of the 325 colored families reported having had savings, many of the accounts were very small. No less than 28 per cent of all the colored families which had accumulated savings had accounts of less than $50·, the median savings account was only $86, as compared with $204 for the whites, and only 45 per cent of the colored savers had more than $100. The whole group of 156 families had total savings of just under $25,000, an average of $ 1 5 0 each. The reason for the large number of very small savings accounts among the Negroes is only partly accounted for by the lower wages of this group. A much better explanation can be based upon the fact that such a large proportion of them was attached to the construction industry and other industries of an unstable character. The irregularity of employment in such industries necessitates small reserves to tide the family over between jobs. These savings were really for seasonal unemployment and were wholly inadequate for the longer period which these families were now undergoing. Still another explanation may be found in the fact that the colored families have much less opportunity to obtain reserves and credits. They find it more difficult to get insurance, to make arrangements to buy a home, and to obtain credit from stores, banks, or loan companies. That the Negroes save in exactly the same way that the whites do is shown by examples of individual families. A

FAMILY

ECONOMICS

101

young colored man with a wife and baby had been steadily employed for six years with a contractor as a carpenter's helper. At the time he lost his job in September 1930, he had $400 in the bank and was paying a small weekly insurance premium. H e would undoubtedly have been able to go through the winter easily had it not been for the bank failure which destroyed his savings. As it was, he was able to fall back upon relatives for help. The wife's mother took them into her home and gave them food and shelter. They had debts amounting to $100, $50 of which was a money loan probably made to them on the strength of their savings in the closed bank. The remaining $50 was owed on furniture instalments. A case of another type was reported by Joe Jackson, who for 13 years worked as a driver of an electric truck and as a stevedore for a sugar refining company. His full wages were $6 a day and he claimed to have averaged at least $27 a week over long periods of time. The family had two daughters of working age, although neither of these had worked as yet. This family had a comparatively high standard of living, but had set aside almost no reserves. Total cash savings amounted to $25, and the man was paying a $1 weekly premium on some insurance. In September 1930 he was injured in an accident on the job. For 9 weeks he drew accident compensation of $ 1 9 a week, but he was not taken back at the plant afterward. The only income the family then had was $4.50 a week from a part-time job held by the wife. At the time of application to the Work Bureau the family had no debts except for $30 due on back rent. Joe stated that he had not borrowed any money because he could not find any one to lend it to him. It is evident, then, that the colored families had comparatively small reserves even at best. The whites were much better off as a group, although a considerable proportion of them had accumulated nothing at all; among those who had taken action looking toward the future, many, like the Negroes, had done so on such a small scale as to make it little more than

102

TEN

THOUSAND

OUT

OF

WORK

a gesture. Even those who had saved large amounts found themselves face to face with the unexpected. Bank or building and loan failures, bankruptcy, sheriff's sales, severe illness and death were a few of the more serious drains on the family reserves. Frequently, it took a combination of these adverse factors to force the more prosperous workers into the line of applicants for made-work. Insurance Insurance is primarily a protection against the risks of disability and death, and is therefore not especially designed to serve as a resource in times of unemployment. It is, however, often cited as an alternate method of saving, and certain policies are adapted to meet this need. The answers to the questions about insurance are subject to a somewhat wider than average margin of error because of the fact that the wife usually handled this matter and the husband who was interviewed did not know the details. Thus there were a considerable number of families for which no data could be obtained. Of the families reporting, slightly more than half of both the white and colored were carrying insurance on one or more members of the family. The average premium payment for the whites was $ 1 . 4 0 per week and for the Negroes $ 1 . 2 6 . The medians were $ 1 . 1 5 and 97Φ respectively. Although this insurance often involved the payment of heavy premiums, sometimes amounting to $ 3 , $4, and $5 per week, its asset value for emergency purposes was on the whole very small. According to their own reports, only 35 families, or slightly more than 6 per cent of the insured families, had realized any ready cash on their policies. T h e amounts obtained ranged from a minimum of $ 1 0 to a maximum of $800, with an average of about $ 1 0 5 per family. The total amounted to only $ 3 , 7 0 1 . About half of the sums realized represented the cash value of the policy, which means that the family had definitely dropped the insurance. The others had borrowed on the policy, but the amounts were often so large as to indicate that they had borrowed almost up to the limit. It is

FAMILY

ECONOMICS

103

important to note that many times the cash value did not amount to more than $зо-$462.94

88.1

35-6

74.88

41.67

27.9 70.1

58.6

—

—

63.2* 42.5»

60.69

50.91

66.3»

51.67

35.00

75.0»

20.8

20.48

16.80

16.5

10.3

61.08

28.00

II.7

* Percentages based on respective numbers of home-owners and renters.

be very good after all reserves had been exhausted. T h e two together determine the power of a family to hold out in the absence of current income. Individual examples furnish illustrations of the ways in which these debts were contracted. One man who had been making about $40 a week as a pipe-fitter for a contracting concern had accumulated considerable resources. H e was paying $3-5° a week in insurance premiums and owned his home, which was heavily mortgaged. Probably because of his previous standing, he was able to float a loan of $500 under the Morris plan. In addition he was $70 behind in his building and loan payments. Because of the fact that his wife and one daughter were working part time, the family had sufficient income on which to live, although there was no possibility of paying off the debts at all until he could find work.

FAMILY

ECONOMICS

113

An Italian unskilled laborer whose full-time earnings amounted to only $24 a week had contracted debts totaling $590 distributed as follows: money loans $300, doctor $150 (three of his children had died recently), undertaker $50, rent $60, groceries $30. H e still had a large family of children under 14 years of age. There is obviously little chance that these debts will ever be paid. Another man whose home had just been sold by the sheriff had borrowed $300 under the Morris plan, $50 from relatives, owed money on groceries and instalment purchases, and was already two months behind on his rent payments. H e was an ex-soldier who had been production manager in a foundry at a salary of $50 a week; he had savings of only $75 but did carry government insurance. In the emergency he was able to borrow $129 on this insurance, $200 in straight loans, and was $90 (two months) behind in his rent payments. A small income from a son who was working provided the family with bare subsistence living expenses. These examples seem to show that capacity to borrow is not necessarily dependent on the resources previously at the family's disposal. Heavy borrowing was found in families which had had almost no reserves. On the other hand, families previously well provided for had often contracted very few debts, possibly because of their reluctance to go into debt and not of any lack of borrowing capacity} but there seem to have been occasional families of this type which were utterly unable to obtain credit when others which were obviously much greater risks were getting it freely. Family connections, the type and extent of friendships maintained by various members of the family, the personality of the worker himself—these must account in part for a family's ability or inability to obtain credit in the community. T H E D E C L I N E IN T H E STANDARD OF L I V I N G

H o w long would their resources and credits have carried them at their former standard of living? On a minimum health and decency budget? A t subsistence levels?

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TEN THOUSAND OUT OF WORK

These workers had been out of a job for periods varying from a few weeks to several years. The average was about nine months; the median, seven and one-half months. For all practical purposes, when the chief wage-earner's job was gone the family income ceased. In some families there were other wage-earners still at work bringing in supplementary income, but, generally speaking, these families had few additional wage-earners (see page 48). It was this very shortage which was partly responsible for their difficulties. As soon as unemployment occurred the family income ceased and the use of such reserves as existed began immediately. If the home in which the family lived was being purchased, the building and loan payments had to be made; every six months the interest on the first mortgage would become due. Furniture, car, radio, or other goods purchased on instalment had to be paid for every month; and, no matter what other expenses might be cut, food still had to be bought, so either the grocery bills had to be paid or credit arranged. Perhaps the family also carried a little insurance and every week payments had to be made on this. The only source from which all these payments can be made is the savings account and it is likely to be raided immediately. On the other hand, sensing final disaster, some families would not touch their savings, but began by obtaining the maximum possible credit expansion. They let the building and loan payments run for a while; they allowed the insurance to lapse, or surrendered it for its cash value; they ran up grocery bills, gas bills, etc., and they evaded the instalment payments. Then, as sparingly as possible, they used savings only to preserve assets that were being threatened with loss. Taking all these needs into consideration, how long in general could the average family hold out? First, how far would their reserves have carried them, and secondly, for what additional period could they carry on through credit? For the purpose of providing an answer to these questions, the unemployment period, the reserves, and the final indebtedness of these families have been analyzed. The theoret-

FAMILY

ECONOMICS

115

ical time that the family could have held out without outside help has then been compared with the time they had actually done so. One method of making these computations is to assume that the families' standard of living remained at the old level. This would mean that the expenditures for all items, even including clothing, health, amusements, etc., would be made just as normal; that children would remain in school, and that the wife would remain in the home. For purposes of this estimate it is assumed that the normal weekly family income just before the unemployment period began measured the family standard of living. The family might actually have been setting aside something out of this income, and therefore the standard might have been somewhat below this j but most wage-earners had already suffered somewhat of a reduction in working time or in wages and the income had therefore probably shrunk to such a degree as to forbid saving a part of it. Hence it would not be far wrong to count the income reported as the measure of the family's standard. The average income of white families on this basis was about $35 per week. The median savings account for those white families which had savings was $204, enough to last about six weeks. The insurance had little or no value, except possibly on a cash-surrender basis and the purchase of the home was not usually sufficiently far advanced to yield any ready cash. Some furniture or other personal assets might be sold, but the amounts yielded would be small and the sacrifice in value might be very serious. It is difficult to see how the average family with savings and other reserves could possibly have held out much over two months. This estimate takes no account of that 25 per cent minority who had no reserves at all, nor of the 25 per cent (those with reserves other than savings) who drew very little in the way of actual cash benefit from their reserves, though they may have received credit etc., through the possession of insurance or a home.

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OUT OF

WORK

Reserves having been exhausted, the use of credit began, and additional carrying power was thus obtained. Whether these credits came in the form of actual money loans or of unpaid rent and grocery bills is quite immaterial. Everything helps at this stage. The median indebtedness of $ 1 2 5 would have served to carry the family an additional four weeks. This, added to the preceding, makes a total period of about three months during which the family with savings and credit could have continued operations on the old scale. The colored families were very much worse off; although their standard of living was perceptibly inferior (average income, $25 per week), their reserves were very much lower. The median savings of $86 would have lasted less than four weeks. Home ownership was negligible and insurance was nearly all of the industrial type which had no asset value. Their credits were very much more restricted, the median indebtedness amounting to only $65. Adding the two together (reserves and debts) gives a total period of only six weeks before all resources would have been exhausted. It is this fact which accounts for the larger proportion of colored families which had already been to welfare agencies for relief (87 families). The figures show, then, a theoretical period of three months for white families and six weeks for colored, yet the actual fact was that the median white family had been out of work for 6.3 months and the colored 5.7 months. How had the difference been made up? The answer is very simple —the family had not maintained the old standard. As soon as possible after unemployment started, the typical family began cutting expenses in every possible way. Certain kinds of purchases were no longer made; certain expenses, such as that of keeping the children in school, were eliminated. The family may have moved to cheaper quarters if they were renting. The facts show that nearly one-half the renters reporting on length of residence had moved within a year and in most instances these moves were accompanied by a reduced

FAMILY

ECONOMICS

117

rental. In other words, the family standard was reduced and the available resources would therefore go farther. In order to apply some standard measurement of the possibilities of reducing the standard of living, the minimum health and decency standard budget used by some of the welfare agencies of the city has been adopted as a measure. During that phase of the depression in which this unemployment occurred this budget for a family of five involved an expenditure of approximately $ 2 1 per week. If the family at the very beginning had found it possible to jump down to this lower standard, its carrying power would have been appreciably increased. On this basis the typical white family had resources (including credits) sufficient to carry them for a period of about four and a half months. This brings them somewhat closer to the actual period. T h e Negroes, if it be assumed that they require the same minimum health and decency budget, would not have gained so much; they would have raised the period during which they could have supported themselves to a total of two months. But even this budget does not represent the minimum. There is a bare subsistence level to which the family standard might fall. This can not be measured in exact terms since it is more or less variable. It may not even be a subsistence level which is eventually reached, but a level so low that if long continued it would endanger health and growth. How is this level attained? T h e answer is clear. Families move to ever cheaper quarters; they move in with relatives and pay no rent at all, or at least very little; they buy the bulkiest and cheapest foods; they spend nothing on clothing, depending upon old clothes from relatives and friends. In these and other ways the family adapts itself to changed conditions. It is difficult to say just how much in terms of dollars this subsistence standard costs. Using the figures for the white families—about $ 3 7 5 of reserves and credits and spreading it over an unemployment period of about six months, the figures show that the average weekly expenditure would have been $ 1 4 . 4 2 . For the colored the equivalent amount

118

TEN THOUSAND OUT OF WORK

would have been around $6. There is little doubt that these are the standards upon which most of these families were carrying on at the time of their applications for emergency work. Some families, of course, were much better off and had not reached such complete destitution, but against these must be listed those families which had long since reached this point and had been for some time receiving relief from the social agencies. On the whole, the average figures cited above probably portray fairly accurately the general status of these made-work families. One other point. It is obviously contrary to fact to assume that any family could make the drastic readjustment from a standard of living of $25 to $30 per week down to a subsistence standard of $ 1 4 a week on very short notice. The reduction in family expenditures is a bitter task and is very difficult of achievement. Some expenditures can not be cut at all for some time and others must be readjusted slowly. Furthermore the wage-earner still hopes to be reёmployed shortly or to find another job, and therefore things go on normally for some little period of time. The readjustment downward to a subsistence standard is not accomplished all at once but takes place by various stages, each involving a severe wrench, and each is taken only as the presumably last resort. But if expenditures remained higher than computed above, the family could not have held out for the full six months without help of some sort. Occasional Income One factor which in some families attained considerable importance was the ability to earn occasional income. Children in school get work on Saturdays or at night. Older children drop out of school to take low-paid regular jobs. The wife may go out to do washing for one or two days a week and some families take in paying guests. The small sums which are earned help the family to eke out an existence from week to week. Nevertheless the importance of this kind of income in the

FAMILY

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119

whole unemployment picture is often grossly exaggerated in people's minds. A total of only 166 families (white and colored), or I I per cent, reported any fairly steady income of this kind; and for these families the average weekly income was about $6.oo. In many cases this represented two or three days' washing and cleaning by the wife. For the average-size family this might be considered the equivalent of a minimum subsistence level. At any rate, the standard of relief was such that this group, except where the family was unusually large, was not given jobs by the Emergency Work Bureau. Sometimes the man himself, searching vigorously for work, finds odd jobs which help the family income. But the possibility of such jobs is greatly overrated by people generally. Only 92 of these heads of families had found jobs of a few hours each. The house or apartment can sometimes be made to yield an income by the renting of rooms. Whole families move into already crowded quarters. Among the Work Bureau families there were 1 4 4 cases of doubling up. Yet these efforts often turned out to be fruitless—many boarders and lodgers lost their own jobs and could not pay, although still continuing to live in the house. In these cases the burden became greater than ever. In any one or all of these ways, families were able to supplement their existing resources and credits by means of miscellaneous income, which served to ease the downward pressure on the standard of living and enabled the family to stretch out its resources to the limit. It was this income which enabled the families to remain self-supporting as long as they did. OUTSIDE H E L P

What assistance were these families able to obtain from friends, relatives, neighbors, and, as a last resort, charity organizations? When the limits of self-help were reached the families had to rely on some one else for assistance. Here relatives

120

TEN THOUSAND

OUT OF WORK

constitute the first line of defense. Parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins—all kinds of relatives, even remote in-laws—are appealed to for help of some sort. Money may sometimes be obtained for rent, groceries, house bills, etc., but more often assistance arrives in the form of clothing, food, or shelter. Occasionally the family goes through the formality of negotiating a loan, although it is well understood that payment will not be forced. When the resources of relatives have been exhausted, the family is compelled to go outside its own circle for assistance. At first, recourse is had to close friends and neighbors. Often the initiative in such matters comes from the friends and neighbors themselves, who cannot help noticing the straits in which the family finds itself. In any case, food, clothing, and even shelter are provided from time to time, generally in rather spasmodic and irregular fashion. Finally, and at long last, the struggle ends in defeat— the family is compelled to make application to a charity organization. Only those who have had contact with families receiving relief can appreciate the hesitancy and reluctance with which families approach a charity society for the first time. Among these made-work applicants a total of 3 1 3 (226 whites and 87 negroes) had already obtained relief from various social agencies. They were being sent by the agency as candidates for made-work so that the burden of direct relief would be lessened. Some Methods of Getting Along Table 22 presents in summary form the data showing the extent to which these families made use of certain methods of getting along during the unemployment of the chief wageearner. The methods listed do not include the four reserves discussed in some detail earlier unless they actually resulted in a definite cash gain. No one of these methods could be continued indefinitely, but when combined with reserves, credits, and miscellaneous current income, they served to carry these families a certain

FAMILY

ECONOMICS T A B L E

121

22

M E T H O D S OF G E T T I N G A L O N G U S E D BY U N E M P L O Y E D F A M I L I E S

BEFORE

T H E Y B E C A M E A P P L I C A N T S FOR M A D E - W O R K

Number of Families Methods of Getting Along White Reserves Savings Insurance—borrowing or cashing in on policies. Personal possessions—pawning and selling. . . Bonus (World War) House—increasing or taking out mortgage Credits or Debts Landlord—back rent Money loans—from banks, loan companies, friends and relatives Groceries House—back on building and loan payments.. back on interest on mortgage back on taxes Instalments Insurance—back on premiums Doctor and hospital Debts, type unknown Fuel Gas and electricity Income (while chief wage-earner is unemployed) Part-time work by other members of the family. Odd jobs secured by unemployed Taking in boarders or lodgers Benefits, compensations, pensions, etc Miscellaneous Relief agencies Moving into fewer rooms Insurance—policies lapsed All other Friends and Relatives (aside from money loans) Help in form of meals, gifts, etc Living with friends or relatives

506

33 18 9 7

5°5 388 221 ИЗ II

31 114 98 79 76 33 25

98 85 46 16

226 120

85 28

139 118

Colored

122

TEN THOUSAND

OUT OF

WORK

number of additional weeks. Note that 327 families succeeded in making use of help (not including money borrowed) from friends and relatives, which was the most important of the group of items. A l l these methods are important as evidence of the determined effort these people made to avoid what to them was the stigma of charity. No fewer than 160 heads of families tried five different avenues of approach to the problem of feeding their wives and children. (Table 23.) T A B L E

23

F A M I L I E S C L A S S I F I E D BV N U M B E R OF M E T H O D S

Number of Methods Used

ι 1 3 4 5 6 7 8

9 None reported. Total

USED

Number of Families White

166 255 275

213 hi 43

16

Colored 35

83 106 49 39 8 4

15

I 0 0

1,114

325

8

1

These additional resources developed in the course of the unemployment period furnish the cushion which enables the family to break the fall in the standard of living, at least to some extent. It is this self-help and outside help which expands the carrying power of these families to somewhat higher standards of living than the figures would seem to make possible. The wages received for emergency work were $ 1 2 per week. This would correspond very closely to the subsistence standards for the whites and would provide some surplus for the Negroes. The question arises, What would happen when the Work Bureau ceased operations and these families

FAMILY

ECONOMICS

123

were again on their own? Unless they set aside a few dollars out of their Work Bureau wages, they would end up just where they were before—destitute. Their only salvation would be to find work. The Bureau closed by the first of May, a period of seasonal expansion in certain lines. Some of them undoubtedly found work; those who did not would have to apply eventually for relief. Some came to the social agencies immediately. Others turned up when the Bureau of Unemployment Relief began spending city funds on July 15th. By the following winter the vast majority were on the relief roll of the Bureau of Unemployment Relief. S T A T I S T I C A L S U M M A R Y OF 1 , 1 1 4 W H I T E AND 325

COLORED

FAMILIES

The time has come to summarize our answers to the questions originally propounded. These 1,439 families had reserves consisting of cash, insurance, houses and a miscellaneous group of possessions such as automobiles, jewelry, fur coats, etc., most of which could be classified under the head of personal property. A few had received their share of the soldiers' bonus. The value of the reserves which they converted into cash amounted to $ 2 0 4 , 5 9 8 . This was subdivided as follows: Savings (money in the bank or the sock) . . . . $ 1 8 7 , 8 3 0 Insurance sold or money borrowed on policies. 3,701 House sold or mortgaged or mortgage increased 6,700 Personal property sold or pawned 2,643 Bonus 3,7 2 4 Native and foreign-born white reserves totaled up about the same. The former were more apt to have theirs in the bank or in the insurance company. The latter still preferred a piece of land, next to a savings account. The Negroes could not compete with either of the other groups. They made their best showing (exclusive of the bonus) in savings. Computed on an equivalent numerical

124

TEN THOUSAND

OUT OF

WORK

basis, the amount saved by colored families was about 50 per cent of that saved by the white. The extent of the credit these families commanded was quite considerable, $194,405. Some was undoubtedly forced, from the landlord, for instance. A great deal was extended on the theory that people with jobs and possessions would be able to pay. These people had earned the right to credit. Their debts were spread over the following fields and to the following extent: A. Money borrowed $ 80,727 (Banks, loan companies, friends, and relatives) B. Bills owed 113,678 Food stores $12,161 Instalment buying 9>798 Building and loan society 10,590 Landlord 51,395 Miscellaneous (doctor, hospital, gas, 2 electricity, fuel, etc.) 9>374 In proportion to their numbers, the foreigners were more heavily in debt than the native whites. Large families might account for this excess in part, but it is also possible that the foreign-born had been out of work longer and so needed more credit. Another reason for the difference must be the fact that the foreign-born had assumed more obligations in the way of interest on mortgages and taxes on the homes they were buying. At any rate, they received more from the community. The Negroes again were a poor third. This group has to live on a very low level indeed during periods of depression. They cannot store up for the future. Nobody likes to lower his standard of living, especially families like these, operating on the average well above the subsistence level. But when the income of the major breadwinner was cut off, they could have lasted only two months (white) and six weeks (colored) at their old standard. Re-

FAMILY

ECONOMICS

125

duction to a minimum health and decency budget of $21 per week would have kept them going four and a half and two months respectively. Our records show that they actually lasted: White . Colored

6.3 months 5.7 months

They must have lived on approximately: White Colored

$ 1 4 a week $6 a week

These figures are low for 172 white and 87 colored families who received some income from others working in the family, lodgers, or from other sources. About 250 white and 75 colored families received intangible help of one type or another. Most of it came from parents and relatives, meals, doubling up, and uncounted loans. Two hundred twenty-six white and 87 colored families had already gone to charity for help, and were being provided for temporarily. They were anxious, however, to get off the charity roll and to earn the additional money which made-work provided. Practically all these families were down and out when they came for made-work. After an average 5-7 months of struggle, during which they had consumed $399,004 worth of resources, their one remaining hope was the refusal of the community to allow them to starve. CONCLUSIONS

The findings of this study, in so far as they are related to the broader aspects of the problem of unemployment, are contained in the conclusion to Part I. 1 A l l that is necessary here is a brief review of the points which have just been presented. 1 All material presented here should be read in conjunction with the section on "The Family" in Part I, Ch. III.

126

TEN THOUSAND

OUT OF WORK

Reserves Home Ownership Out of 278 families which either owned or were purchasing homes, exactly 7 realized any immediate cash on them to meet the emergency. The total amount obtained was $6,700. The other 2 7 1 families were carrying too heavy a load of mortgages to be able to borrow on a fast-shrinking equity. These families had also fallen far behind in respect to interest on their mortgages, taxes, and monthly payments to the building and loan companies. When these factors are considered in combination, it is quite apparent that the attempt to own a home constituted a serious drain on the resources of these families just at the time when they needed them most for basic necessities. They could not move to cheaper quarters and thus maintain a fairly adequate food budget. Many of these home-owners seemed to realize that sooner or later they were doomed to lose this bulwark against disaster into which they had poured all their surplus energies and resources. In this respect the Negroes were fortunate. They had not sunk their meagre wages in real property. The foreign-born were by far the hardest hit, since home ownership was so prevalent among them. Insurance The American-born whites and Negroes had divided their extra cash (not needed for day-to-day living) about equally between insurance premiums and savings accounts. They were pouring about $35,000 annually into insurance policies. Most of them had been paying for more than two years. Yet only 34 families were able to borrow or cash in on their policies out of a total of 560 which had gone in for this form of reserve. Insurance proved even less of a protection than home ownership when it is considered that these families realized only $3,701. About one-fourth of these policy-holders ( 1 3 4 ) lost their insurance during the period of unemployment without realizing one cent of benefit.

FAMILY

ECONOMICS

127

The conclusion is inevitable that the usual type of policy to which workers subscribe does not insure them even a temporary margin of protection against a depression. On the contrary, it diverts the family's resources from the main business of providing the basic necessities during such a period. Savings This type of reserve constitutes by far the greatest security against immediate disaster. Six hundred seventy families, a little less than half of the total, had rolled up $187,598 during relatively prosperous times. The reserves from all sources (cash realized) amounted to only $204,598. Thus 92 per cent of the total funds available to 1,439 families in the emergency were to be found in savings accounts. These ready funds alone prevented the relief agencies from being immediately flooded with applicants. Even this type of reserve, however, was insufficient to meet the needs for long. It enabled families having two or three hundred dollars to lower their standards gradually. Only 296 such funds lasted more than nine months. Nevertheless, savings seem an absolute necessity to give the family a breathing period in which to look for temporary work, make plans for the emergency, and adjust itself to the new situation. Miscellaneous It is a fair presumption that personal belongings played a more important part in prolonging the period during which the family took care of itself than did home ownership or insurance; $2,643 w a s secured by selling or pawning rings, fur coats, automobiles, etc. A large group undoubtedly realized on such items without mentioning the fact to the interviewer. Another group had already collected $3,724 on the bonus when interviewed early in the spring of the year the bill was passed.

128

TEN THOUSAND

OUT OF

WORK

Negroes The percentage of Negroes having savings, insurance, and miscellaneous reserves differs very little from that of whites. It is the cash value of the reserves which differentiates the two races. The $24,532 realized from reserves by the colored families was, on an equivalent numerical basis, about one-half that of the whites. On the other hand, there was little difference in the amounts realized by the native-born and foreignborn whites. Credits It is perhaps a mere coincidence that family reserves and credits of one type or another were practically equal. The landlord, whether willing or unwilling, held the bag for the largest amount. H e contributed almost one-half of the total involuntary credit (cash loans only were considered to be voluntary credit). Some 300-odd families had run up bills at food stores, department stores, hospitals, coal, electric light and gas companies, etc., totaling $51,693. T h e building and loan associations extended the rest of the involuntary credit (some of it was undoubtedly voluntary in all the above cases). Less than one-fourth of the credit extended or the debts incurred came directly in the form of cash to these colored and white families. A part of this amount came from friends and relatives, so that it is safe to say that only about one-fifth of all credits came from loan companies, banks and insurance companies, commonly regarded as the credit agencies of a community. Evidently, the lack of unencumbered assets in the shape of a business, securities, or real property made it relatively difficult for these families to borrow from such institutions. Negroes Again the percentage of the two races in regard to debts incurred or credit extended differs but slightly. On an equivalent numerical basis, however, the whites, with $168,605

FAMILY

ECONOMICS

129

worth of obligations, had twice as much indebtedness as the Negroes. T h e foreign-born did not seem to be handicapped by lack of borrowing capacity, their debts being about on a level with those of the native-born.

Resources The total resources of these families (white and colored) amounted to nearly $400,000, the major part of which was expended within a five to seven months' period. At this rate, the 60,000 unemployed families (on relief in M a y 1 9 3 2 ) in Philadelphia alone used up somewhere around $16,000,000 worth of resources during the first six months of unemployment. Some of this money was lost in bank failures, but most of it was used in the purchase of bare necessities. The data on the drop in standards of living show this.

Standard of Living T h e standard of living maintained by these families changed considerably during the period of unemployment prior to the application for made-work. T h e white came down from a $ 3 0 - 3 5 a week level to $ 1 0 - 1 5 $ the colored from $ 2 0 - 2 5 t 0 $ 3 - 6 . It was more than a 50 per cent drop for the white and a 7 5 per cent drop for the colored. About onefourth of the latter had already sought relief from social agencies. Since the substitution of direct relief for made-work or work relief, as it is now called, the white families have suffered a further reduction of 60 per cent or more in their standards. This is a total decline of $ 2 5 - 3 0 per week per family. From the point of view of purchasing power, it represents a weekly loss to the community of $36,000 for these families. On the basis again of the 60,000-odd families on relief in Philadelphia, this represents a loss of $1,500,000 every week, provided the sample studied is fairly representative of the families unemployed and in need of relief.

130

TEN THOUSAND OUT OF WORK Negroes

W h i l e it is true that the colored family's standard of living has always been lower than the white's, it seems that it was reduced far more in proportion to what it had been than that of the white. T h e reason is that the colored family had only half the resources to fall back on, coupled with the additional fact that they made these resources last almost as long as did the whites before asking for help from the Emergency W o r k Bureau. In other words, they lasted nearly as long on half as much. Relief Among the whites, 2 8 9 families were without resources of any kind. Presumably most of this group had run up debts of some kind. A few of them were probably in the group that had one or more members of the family still working. But by far the largest number, 2 2 6 , were already receiving relief in some form or other when they applied for made-work. T h e lack of resources among the Negroes resulted in their coming to the Work Bureau about two weeks sooner. It also accounts for the fact that over one-fourth of them came to relief agencies almost as soon as they lost their jobs.

Intangible Hel-p T h e intangible help extended these families must have amounted to many thousands of dollars when translated into cash value. This form of assistance undoubtedly plays a far larger part in the total picture today than it did when the present study was undertaken; but it is impossible to expect that already overloaded families can continue to lend money, furnish meals, give clothing, and offer room space to other families but little more destitute than themselves. Certainly colored families living near the minimum health and decency standard themselves cannot possibly give much assistance to the numerous relatives and neighbors who have lost their jobs.

FAMILY

ECONOMICS

131

Summary of Conclusions In closing, the outstanding points of what is called the "self-help" period of unemployment may be summarized: ι . Savings are the only type of reserve worth having in a time of economic depression and unemployment. 2. The average (median) savings were sufficient to tide those families which possessed them over a six weeks' period. 3. Almost 90 per cent of all families obtained credit in the form of borrowed money or unpaid bills during this period. This provided half the total amount of resources available for necessaries. 4. These credits or debts afforded the average family selfdependence for about three months. But this same debt may later delay the family's recovery of its former standard of living. 5. T h e Negroes have only half the resources of the whites to fall back on and, consequently, not only live at a much lower standard during the self-help period of unemployment, but also are apt to apply to relief agencies sooner. 6. A l l families were forced to reduce their standards of living drastically, the white to a minimum health level for the bare necessities, the colored to a minimum health level for food alone. 7. Both groups tried hard to get along by themselves, through the economic use of every resource, the constant search for temporary income, repeated reductions in the standards of living, and help from relatives and friends.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A T H E MADE-WORK P R O G R A M IN PHILADELPHIA The Philadelphia Committee for Unemployment Relief under the chairmanship of Mr. Horatio G. Lloyd was formed in the autumn of 1930 and continued into the summer of 1932. During its first fiscal year, November 14, 1930, to September 30, 1931, it received $3,919,677.87 in contributions, and expended $3,878,229.85. During this period it sponsored a program of varied activities, including family relief, care of the homeless, provision of breakfasts for school children, clothing collection, a loan fund, and work relief. Early in the first year of the Committee for Unemployment Relief it was decided to allocate certain funds for the employment of able-bodied wage-earners in families which otherwise would require relief. To this end a Sub-Committee on Work was organized which in turn, in the absence of any existing available machinery, set up an Emergency Work Bureau for administrative purposes. Business firms loaned executives, personnel, and clerical workers who thus formed a nucleus for the organization of a functioning bureau. The welfare agencies loaned a number of social workers. Within a very few weeks the bureau was at work, receiving applications (at first through social agencies only), arranging for "jobs" and actually putting men to work. The departments of the municipal governments were canvassed for possible made-work, and various non-profit-making organizations and institutions, such as churches, schools, social agencies, hospitals, etc., were given the opportunity of having certain kinds of work done for them. The test applied was that the work should be something for which no money was available and which would not have been done without the assistance of the Emergency Work Bureau in supplying the men. The [135]

136

TEN

THOUSAND

OUT OF

WORK

bureau paid the wages, which ordinarily amounted to $ 1 2 per week for three days' work, while the "employer" supplied tools and material. At a maximum 5,641 persons were employed in various municipal departments, in street-cleaning, in highway repairs, in traffic surveys, in painting street signs and traffic lanes, in clearing vacant lots and empty tenements, in cleaning public buildings. Similarly 1,506 persons were employed by the Fairmount Park Commission, clearing out underbrush, removing dead trees, repairing roads and paths, demolishing old buildings. The Board of Education employed 1 5 3 women in serving breakfasts to school children. In 3 70 charitable and non-profit-making institutions, hospitals, children's and old folks' homes and the like, 6,422 persons were employed in repairs and renovations of various kinds. Placement began just about Christmas time and expanded rapidly in the succeeding months. The number of men on the payroll increased rapidly up through the week of February 7. For the next two weeks there was a slackening in the growth, but during the week of February 28 placement was resumed on a still larger scale and was run rapidly to a peak of 1 3 , 7 2 2 workers on March 14. For two weeks more the only reduction was that which took place normally through quits, discharges, illness, etc., but about the first of April the lay-off began in earnest and during the month practically the entire working force was eliminated. The sharp decline was partly necessitated by lack of funds to carry on, but it was also engineered at this time with a view to the possibility that these men would be able to find jobs when spring work opened up in industry, contracting, and agriculture. By the end of the period $1,438,000 had been spent in this phase of unemployment relief. In early April when this research was undertaken, the layoffs had already begun. This accounts for the fact that not all these workers were included in this report. T h e others had been laid off before they could be interviewed.

APPENDIX В COMPARISON OF SAMPLES During the administration of the Emergency Work Bureau, approximately 35,000 applicants for jobs were registered. Very early in the bureau's operations, the excess of applicants over eligible jobs and available money for wages made it necessary to classify the applicants according to their needs. Three groups were made: Class A, Class B, and Others. "Others" were men with so little need of assistance that they would have been helped only under very favorable conditions—a large number of available jobs and few applicants to fill them. It was soon found to be useless to accept such registrations, since the numbers in the other groups increased very rapidly. Class В included single men, men with only one dependent, and men whose families still had some means of getting along. These men were to be placed after jobs had been found for Class A applicants, who were men having two or more dependents and no further means of caring for them. But the A group grew to such an enormous number that no placements were ever made from Class В with the exception of a few during the first week. There were 1 5 , 5 1 5 men and women who at some time or other between the end of December 1930 and the end of April 1931 were given jobs at made-work. These placements did not even dare for the Class A applicants, who alone totaled 26,139. The following table shows four sets of persons involved in this study, classified according to sex and color. Certain data are unfortunately missing, but there are enough available to serve as a guide for comparative purposes. Only Class A applicants are included in the applicant group, for no definite figures could be secured for the others. Work Bureau placements were made almost entirely from Class A applicants. The classification of the placements into [137]

138

TEN THOUSAND OUT OF WORK

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9. 73 Stability of industry: —and the individual firm, 83, 86 —as shown by representation in madework, 31, 32, 3J, 40, 41, 78 —in relation to education, 22, 25, 26, 77 Stability of worker—(See Jobs) Stabilization of industry, 86 Standard of living: —and additional wage-earners, ji, 79 —and reserves, 115, 1 1 6 , 127, 129 —and time out of job, 95, 1 1 3 —colored and white, 5 1 , 71, 1 1 6 , 119, 130 — f o r different wage groups, 19 —in relation to car-ownership, 58 —in relation to home-ownership, 58, 60, 105 —lowering of, 1 1 3 , 117, 118, 119, 122, 124, 127 —native-born and foreign-born, 58, 105 Supervisory workers: —colored and white, 34, 35, 40 —stability of employment, 77 Tariffs: —responsibility for unemployment, 42 Temporary jobs—(See Jobs) Time of job—(See Jobs, length of) Time out of work: —by age groups, 38 —colored and white, 36, 37 —in relation to reserves, 19, 81 —in relation to temporary jobs, 39, 53 —in relation to unemployment insurance, 8 j —of made-workers, 35, 40, 114, 176 —reliability of data, 142, i j o , iji, 152, 161, 162 Trade: —stability of employment, 3 1 , 32, 34, 35> 40, 7«> 8ii 178 Trade School:

INDEX —attendance of made-work employees, 5> 9 Trade union—(See Union) Transportation: —represented in made-work, 31, 178 —stability of employment, 31, 35, 40, 82

Unemployment, duration of—(See Time out of work) Unemployment insurance, 4.1, 84, 85, 86,

90

—Wisconsin, 84, 86 Unemployment, responsibility f o r : —of the economic system, 41 — o f government, 41 —of individual employers, 27, 29, 39.40 — o f industry, 26, 41, 77, 78, 82,

30, 86,

Virginia: —school attendance by birthplace, 6, 8 Wage-earners: —additional, 48, 49, 5 1 , 79, 80, 82 — b y size of family, 44, 45, 74, 170 —colored and white, 68, 69, 70, 76 —income by number of, j o —industrial, 35 — i n made-work, 89 —male made-workers compared to male workers in Philadelphia, 47, 68,

70

—native-born and foreign-born, 69,

106,

—in —in —of —of

68,

70

—reliability of data, IJ8, 159, 162 —unemployment by number of, 46, —unemployment insurance, 86 Wages: — a n d education, 20, 21, 22, 26, 77 —and length of job, 1 8 , 177 — a n d work record, 26 — a s a measure of success, 1 7 —combined family, 79, 166

98,

101,

113

made-work, 122, 136 various industries, 1 9 , 22 additional workers, 49 colored and white, 1 7 , 18, 83,

70,

100

—on longest job, 177 —reductions in, 1 1 $ —reliability of data, IJI, 161,

156,

1J7,

113,

161,

162

War veterans: —unemployment of, 107,

—of the worker, 3, 4, 22, 24, 2J, 26, 43» 77 Union, trade, 1 6 1 , 162, 1 7 1 U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 19, 24, 25 (See also Census) U. S. Census Bureau, 7, 30, 44, 45, 55, 66, 67, 142, 159, 168 (See also Census)

67,

—dismissal, 83 —home-ownership and, 5 8 —individual cases, 96, 97,

160,

90

66,

187

171

Welch, Emmett, 46,

47,

49,

68,

69,

Welfare agencies: —and the aged, 90 —and the unemployed, 43, 86, 89,

95,

70

118,

119,

120,

121,

123,

129

—colored and white aided by, 54, 120,

121,

129,

130,

116,

131

—co-operation with Emergency Work Bureau, 70, 123, 13 j —minimum adequacy budget! o f , 1 7 , "7 Western states: —school attendance by birthplace, 6, 8 White made-workers: —age and unemployment, 89, 172 in relation to longest job, 1 7 5 in relation to stability on job, 1 1 , 16

—car-ownership of, J 6, 57 —employment status of, 69, 70 — f a m i l y , natural and combined,

166,

167

—home-ownership of, 5J, 56, 57, 60,

61,

70,

104,

105,

116,

59,

126

in relation to income, 59 —income in relation to number of workers, j o , JI, 52 —in industry, 32, 33, 34, 35, 178 —in proportion to population, 66, 67, 68 —in relation to farming, 3 3 —in relation to time out of work, 36, 37>

38,

39,

176

—instalment purchases, 1 1 , 1 2 1 ,

124

188

TEN

THOÜSAND

—insurance as a reserve, 102, 1 0 3 , 108, 1 1 4 , 126, 1 1 8 —length of residence in Philadelphia, 64. 6j) 7*. 1 7 » —loss of job, 23, 24 —made-work applicants assisted by welfare agencies, 120, 129, 1 3 1 —marital status of, 43, 1 7 0 —methods of getting along, 52, 53, 54, 7 j , 107, 108, 109, 1 1 0 , h i , 1 1 2 , 1 1 6 , 119, 1 2 1 , 122, 123, 128 —migration of, 62, 63, 64, 65, 72, 73, 80 —occupations of, 34, 35, 40 —placement of, 139 —religion of, 1 7 1 —resources of, 19, 45, 52, 54, J J , 7 1 , 73. 99> 100, 102, 1 0 3 , 104, 107, 108, 109, 1 1 0 , 1 1 2 , 1 1 4 , 1 1 5 , 1 1 6 , 1 1 7 , 1 2 1 , 1 2 2 , 1 2 3 , 126, 128, 129, 130, 1 3 1 —savings of, 70, 8 1 , 86, 98, 99, 100, 1 0 1 , 109, 1 1 5 , 1 1 6 , 1 2 4 , 128 —school attendance of, 5, 7, 9, 2 1 , 22, 25. 38. 77, 178 by birthplace, 6, 8

OUT OF

WORK

—standard of living o f , 7 1 , 1 0 1 , 1 1 6 , 1 2 4 , 1 2 i , 129, 1 3 0 , 1 3 1 —trade unions, members o f , 1 7 1 —wage-earners, number per family, 44. 45. 48. 49. 1 7 ° women, 48, 49, 50, 5 1 , J 4 , 79, "9 —wages of, 1 7 , 1 8 , 19, 20, 22, 5 1 , 70, 7 ' . 177 — w a r service of, 1 7 1 —work records of, 1 0 , 1 1 , 1 2 , 1 3 , 14, 1 5 , 16, 26, 83, 84, 1 7 3 , 1 7 4 , i 7 j Women: —in industry, 174 —in made-work, j , 44, 52, 53, 6 1 , 85, 140, 170 —married women wage-earners, 48, 49. 50. $i> 54, 79 Work record: —and dismissal wage, 83, 84 —and success of job, 4 —colored and white, 1 1 , 1 2 , 14, i j , 16, 26 —education and, 20 —of made-workers, 1 4 , 1 5 , 16, 24, 26, 39. 4>. 78, 80, 83, 84 —reliability of data, 1 4 2 , I J I , 1 5 5 , 158, 1 6 1 , 162