Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/540

 $26 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

The sum of the values of products at the census of 1880 was $5,369,579,194, and the sum of the values of material consumed $3,396,823,540, leaving $i, 972,755, 644 as the total value pro- duced in manufacturing industry in i88o. x Dividing this amount by the average number of employes we have $72 1.90 as the value produced by an entire year's work. The average amount paid for an entire year's work was $346.91.

It will be noticed that Colonel Wright claims to obtain the amount $347 as the average earnings per operative by dividing the aggregate wages paid in 1880 by the total number of employes. The aggregate wages paid, as shown by the Census Report of 1880, was $947,823,649, and "the average number of hands employed" 2,731,595. Dividing the former by the latter we have $346.90, Colonel Wright's quotient. This, however, is the result of dividing by the average number and not by the whole number of hands employed. As will be seen by refer- ence to the table from the reports of the eleventh census, which follows, the amount stated as the average wages in 1890 was also obtained by dividing the total wages by the average num- ber of employes. Colonel Wright should understand that the total wages paid is the earnings of the whole number of employes, and that their average earnings cannot be ascertained by divid- ing by the average number of employes. In factories, where employment is constant, the difference may not be great, but in the building trades, where but a small proportion of the employes have work for the whole year, the difference is very material. By dividing by the average number the effect is to obtain as the average earnings what would be earned if every employe had constant employment.

In the building trades, in the busy season of the year, all have employment at the highest wages, but in the slack time but few have employment, and usually at a reduced rate of wages. In some of these trades employes have on the average

1 The census furnishes no data from which may be ascertained the value of manu- factured products, which, besides the value added in manufacturing, would include the value of products of the mine, field, forest, and fisheries, consumed in manufacturing industry.