Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 86.djvu/496

492 stores, wage rates of more than $500 per year ($10 per week) are out of the question. The great bulk of them are paid from $250 to $500.

Whatever their failure to provide adequate statistics covering wages in other gainful occupations, state and federal authorities have vied with one another in their efforts to prepare wage statistics for the manufacturing industries. The figures are as yet far from complete; there are still many loopholes through which unjustifiable conclusions may slip unaware; yet, all things considered, the wage figures for the manufacturing industries are far superior to those for other occupations. They point the way, showing what may be done in the compilation of wage data.

Convenience leads to a grouping of the figures for manufacturing industries into three classes. Those for special industries, such as steel, textiles, etc.; and those for certain states which publish the best wage statistics; and those published by the Census.

The past three years have added materially to the statistics for special industries. The public demand for facts which arose out of labor disturbances, and the activity of certain public commissions vested with inquisitorial power, have led to the collection of considerable wage data of the greatest value. These data are peculiarly important because in many cases the investigation has been made from the pay rolls of the company or industry in question. In certain cases these pay-roll data have been extensively compared with pay envelopes. The purpose of this section will be served by a review of only the most important of the recent wage investigations.

The most complete, and in all ways the most satisfactory, of the recent studies is that of the iron and steel industry, appearing in four volumes. Each occupation in the steel industry was carefully studied. The investigation included plants in every part of the country, and was minute and painstaking in the last degree. In so far as the wage figures are important at this point, they may be briefybriefly [sic] summarized as follows: The investigation covered 172,706 employees; their wage rates per year (computed from the per hour rates given for May, 1910) were, under $500, 8 per cent.; under $750, 60 per cent.; under $1,000, 85 per cent.; and under $1,500, 97 per cent. These rates are somewhat higher than the rates previously derived for Bethlehem, where the wage rates for