Page:Proletarian and Petit-Bourgeois (1912?).pdf/44

42 contrasted with the returns to the men who own the valuable property of the country.

More than nine-tenths of those who are at work in organized industry are clerks or wage-earners. Among male clerks and wage-earners an annual return of $1,000 is exceptional, while $1,500 is almost unique. Almost the entire male wage-earning population receives less than $1,500 per year; most of it receives less than $1,000, and full half of it falls under $600. The incomes of women fall far below those of men. At the same time the owners of property receive an annual income of many billions. The facts adduced in the present investigation tend to show at least six billions of property income—a sum sufficient to support the twelve million poorest families in the United States on their present level of existence, or to add $300 per year to the income of every family in the United States. The amount now paid in property income, distributed among the producers, would probably raise every family income in the United States to a level of decency or efficiency.

Property income is relatively stable. Numerous and effective safeguards have been thrown around it. Despite occasional breaks in the abatis protecting property income rights, as a general rule, the defenses erected by the propertied classes have proved well-nigh impregnable.

With those receiving service income the situation is far different. Excepting the small percentage of high-salaried workers, the great mass of those who receive service income are forced to struggle in a sea of economic uncertainties. There are five forces always confronting the workers, any one of which may reduce or entirely eliminate service income. They are (1) overwork, (2) sickness and accidents, (3) invention of new machinery, (4) shutting-down of individual plants and (5) industrial crises.

Under the strain incident to overwork, a man may break down at forty and be discharged because he is physically or nervously unable to continue with his