32

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES

B. Minimum Health and Comfort
Level Date
Minimum Budgetary Estimate for
Pacific Coast Workers, Doctor
Jessica B. Peixotto, University of
California ....ceeeeeeeeeeess..1917 $1,476.40
Budget Awarded in Seattle and
Tacoma Street Railway Arbitration
 .... .1917 1,505.60

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The contrast in the costs as well as in the fundamental
conceptions of the two standards is apparent. The significance
 obviously consists in the accompanying demand,
in connection with the higher standard, that the alleged
law of supply and demand should not be permitted to
force wage-rates to a mere physical level of existence, or,
in other words, to a point where they would not yield
sufficient earnings to enable a wage-earner to support his
family in health and with reasonable comfort.

Tae THEORY OF INCREASED PRODUCTIVE EFFICIENCY
During the period immediately preceding the Great War,
or during the years 1913-1915, another wage theory was
also developed, which, altho then unaccepted, had a fundamental
 and far-reaching effect upon future thinking and
action. It was known at the time, and later, as the “theory
of increased productive efficiency.” When first put forward
 it was attacked as “academic” and “visionary,” but
later it was accepted by organized labor as the fundamental
 feature of its constructive wage policy, and finally
became the basis of the revolutionary program of industry
itself after the World War. For these reasons its origin
and development are of great interest.
The minimum subsistence and health-and-comfort standards
 of living and compensation, as advocated in the pre-