Page:Wages in US 1908-1910.djvu/22

Rh forced wages into the foreground of theoretical discussion. At least two-thirds of those gainfully employed in the United States are employed for wages; so that the population of the United States may well be described as a "wage-earning" group. A small percentage of the population is dependent upon income from securities and investments (mortgages, bonds, land, and the like); another small percentage, though a decreasing one, is dependent upon profits from private business; there is a small class of persons employed for stated annual salaries; somewhat less than one-third of those gainfully employed are deriving an income direct from agriculture, leaving approximately two-thirds of the gainfully employed population earning incomes in the form of daily, weekly or monthly wages. Hence, wages are the means chiefly relied upon, as a return for industrial effort (work), to provide the necessaries of life to the population of the United States.

From the standpoint of the economic theorist, wages are one share, and a troublous share, in the distribution of the values produced through industry. Together with rent, profits and interest, they constitute the elements in distribution. The economic literature which deals with wage theory