Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 86.djvu/507

Rh  Table XI Compensation Rates foe Females in Certain Groups of Occupations

The wage rates of four fifths of the males fall below $750; a third below $500. Among female wage-earners the scale is much lower. Three quarters or four fifths are paid less than $500 per year. These statements make no allowance for unemployment, which is a constant irreducible factor. Unemployment due to lack of work alone is generally met with. Add to this the unemployment produced by sickness, accidents and other personal causes, and the proportion is still higher.

These facts make one thing impossible. Hereafter no one need discourse at length on the theme of the spendthrift laborer and the ensuing hardship of his family. The wage scale of the country is so adjusted at the present time that the vast majority of the recipients of wages and salaries are paid a wage which, when compared with the cost of a decent or fair standard of living, appears in many instances insufficient, and in many others, barely adequate, to procure the decencies of life. The time may come when the laborer's condition is due to his extravagance and lack of foresight. For the present, the scale of service income offers an explanation so telling that it would require hardihood of unusual type to saddle even a major portion of the blame for the situation on the individual worker.