Page:EB1922 - Volume 32.djvu/973

Rh AGES. In the following article, which should be read in connexion with those on COST OF LIVING and PRICES, the changes in wages during 1900-20 are considered.

United Kingdom. In the movement of wages in recent years it is specially important to distinguish between rates ' of wages and earnings. Rates of wages are time-rates, sums 1 payable for work in a definite time (hour, week consisting of a j recognized number of hours and, rarely, a longer period) or piece- rates (sums payable for the performance of a definite task, or ' as additions to or in combination with time-rates, when the rate depends both on the quantity produced and the time taken in I producing it). Earnings are the sums actually received by an employee, generally computed for a week or a year; the term is I used specifically when the amount received on piece-rates is in I question, and is also used to include payments for overtime in
 * the case of time-workers. Time-rates are generally stated for

ing trades, both for the hour and for the normal week; to get a comparable statement for piece-rates it is necessary to compute ', the average earnings of a number of men who worked normal [ hours. In modern times a statement of time-rates generally re- [ lates to rates agreed to by associations of employers and em- j ployees or umpired by the Government; these are frequently j minimum rates and the relation between minimum rates and the average of those actually paid to a group of work-people can I only be ascertained by special inquiries, such as those undertaken by the Board of Trade in 1886 and 1906.- The assumption has to be made that between such inquiries average rates have kept the I short period and in the absence of disturbing causes. For piece I payments the assumption that earnings move by the same per- ( centage as the rates can never yield more than an approximation to the facts, and during the war such an assumption would be I completely invalid even if reference was only made to earnings in I a normal week, since there were very important changes in facil- nature of the work. In the absence of any general information j statements of time and piece-rates, which do not give a true pic- I ture of the economic position of the working class in that time; ! in 1920, however, industry was more nearly normal and overtime j was relatively uncommon, so that a comparison of rates in 1920 I and 1914 is not altogether misleading. In making such a com- parison the general reduction of hours in 1918 and 1919 must be borne in mind; generally at the dates of reduction piece-rates and hourly rates were raised so as to give approximately the same earnings for the reduced as for the longer week, and weekly rates were the same before and after the reduction, but in some in- dustries an increase for the week was arranged at the same time. Table i shows the general movement from 1890 to 1914. The first column, computed from the XVII. Abstract of Labour Statistics, gives the average of a number of changes of time and of piece-rates. The second and third columns depend on additional data (see Bowley, Elementary Manual of Statistics, 1920, and Wood, Statistical Journal, 1909, p. 103, and 1912-3, p. 220), and give the computed averages based on the numbers in various occupations at the different dates, thus allowing for the relative increase of numbers in the better-paid industries. These figures should be taken in conjunction with the change in retail prices I (see COST OF LIVING); the rise in wages from 1902 to 1913 was neutralized by the falling value of money.
 * the normal week or if the rate is an hourly one, as in the build-
 * same proportion to minimum rates, which is only true over a
 * ities for production, in the effort put into the work and in the
 * about earnings, statistics in the war period must be confined to

Average annual earnings, allowing for unemployment and overtime, for all wage-earners in the United Kingdom (excluding shop assistants), men, women, boys and girls, are estimated at 51 in 1913 (Change in Distribution of National Income, Bowley, 1920, p. 13); average family earnings were probably between 95 and 100 annually. For full week's work the average earnings of a were about 313., for a woman 143., for a boy us. 6d., and for a

girl 8 shillings. There were very few changes between 1913 and the outbreak of the war.

Table I. Estimates of money earnings of all wages earners in the United Kingdom (expressed as percentages of their level in 1913).

Not allowing for changes in relative numbers

Labour Abstract

Allowing for changes in rela- tive numbers

Bowley

Wood

1890

86

83

83

I

87

84

83

2

86

84

83

3

86

84

83

4

85

84

83

5

84

84

83

6

85

84

83

7

86

85

85

8

89

88

85

9

91

90

88

1900

95

95

91

i

94

94

91

2

93

92

90

3

92

91

90

4

92

90

90

5

92

90

89

.6

94

92

93

7

97

97

97

8

96

95

95

9

95

94

94

1910

95

95

95

i

95

96

2

98

99

3

TOO

IOO

The dates and amounts of increase of rates of wages in the period 1914-20 may be illustrated by the records in a number of selected industries. The summary in Table 2 is taken from Bowley's Prices and Wages in the United Kingdom, 1914-1920 (1921), pp. 105-6.

Table 2. Estimate of movements of time-rates (for normal week)

and of piece-rates in the United Kingdom, 191420. (Average rates expressed as percentages of those in 1914).

1914

1915

1916

1917

1918

1919

I92O

July

July

July

July

July

July

July

Bricklayers

IOO

103

1 08

123

1 60

1 88

228

Bricklayers' labourers

IOO

103

"3

133

1 80

225

284

Printers (compositors)

IOO

IOO

105

I2O

'57

196

246

Railwaymen

IOO

no

I2O

155

195

225

280

Dock labourers

IOO

IOI

130

15

193

209

266

Cotton operatives

IOO

105

no

no

157

202

205

Woollen and worsted

operatives

IOO

"5

126

144

164

196

239

Engineering artisans

IOO

no

in

134

173

199

231

Engineering lab&urers

IOO

..

..

154

213

255

39

Shipbuilding:

Platers' time-rates

IOO

..

130

169

193

223

Coal-mining

IOO

113

129

136

187

224

260

Aug.

May

Agriculture:

?54 Aug.

England and Wales

IOO

112

189

226

277

General rough aver-

age of percentages

IOO

105

"5

135

i/5

2IO

255

to

to

to '

110

I2O

260

The increases in the first two years of the war often took the form of a weekly war-bonus of the same amount for artisans and labourers (in some cases greater for the latter) to meet the rise of food prices (see COST OF LIVING and PRICKS). In 1917 the usual method of changing miners' wages by percentage was replaced also by flat increases of 2s. or 33. a shift to all underground workers, and no percentage increase was given till March 1920. In engineering and other trades in which munition work formed an important part an addition of i2i% to time-workers and 7!% to piece-workers reckoned on weekly earnings was awarded in