Page:Stabilizing the dollar, Fisher, 1920.djvu/110

56 inertia and are only sluggishly adjusted to a change in the purchasing power of money. This is true of the salaries of clerks, teachers, and public officials, and of many professional fees. It is also true, to a considerable degree, of wages.

In recent years salaried men and wage earners have been losing; for, while salaries and wages have risen, they have not kept pace with the rise in prices. Some wages have remained unchanged for months or years after the cost of living has risen, and then they have only been forced up by strikes. According to the figures of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, real wages, i.e. their buying power, in 1917 when we entered the war were only a little over two thirds of what they were ten years before.

Furthermore, contrary to a common impression, the average workman (though not every type of workman) has lost ground during the war. The real wages in 1918 were only 80% of those of 1913.

"Minimum wage" laws lose their meaning under these circumstances; for a minimum wage which is at one time sufficient to maintain the standard of life is later, although sanctioned by the law, quite insufficient.

Then, too, there are the numerous prices and rates fixed by law or custom, payable to public utilities and to the government. These include, for instance, licenses and fines, and transportation fares on railroads and trolleys.

Before the war, railroads, under their legally restricted rates, found difficulty in doing business, because, while