Unemployment in the United States

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1828236179

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-226169

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Unemployment in the United States

Place of publication:: Washington

Publisher:: United States, Government Printing Office

Year of publication:: 1930

Scope:: II, 193 Seiten

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Statement of Mr. William Green, president of American Federation of Labor

Collection:: Economics Books

54 UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED STATES factories in three American cities in 1928.%# The study showed that it is by no means easy to find work. Of those who were able to find employment, only 11.5 per cent were able to find a job in less than a month’s time. Over 60 per cent, that is, nearly two-thirds, had been out of work for more than 3 months, and 32 per cent, nearly one-third, were out for six months or more. Thirty-five persons, or 5 per cent, had been out for a year. Most of these wage earners had to support themselves and their families by drawing out their savings accounts during this long period of unemployment. Less than one-third (only 31 per cent) were able to find temporary employment of any sort. This meant serious privation and often permanently lowered living standards for their families. Children at school have to go to work at times like these; boarders must be taken in, often overcrowding the family; debts are run up at the grocer’s and other stores; and savings accounts, often put by through years of sacrifice in order to give the children a chance, are drawn out and the children never have the start in life that would enable them to make something of their abilities. The study shows that of the men who were able to find work, nearly half (48 per cent) had to take a lower salary, meaning a further re- duction in the standard of living, a further sacrifice for father and mother. and more lost opportunities for the children. The problem of adjustment, of learning new skills in new jobs is also well brought by this study. Less than one-tenth of those wage earners who were laid off were able to get back again to their old jobs. Only one-third of those who found work were able even to secure employment in the same industry. For most of them (54 per cent) the layoff meant a complete change of work so that old skills, learned often through years of training and experience, and bringing high pay, were useless and they had to begin all over again at the bottom and learn a new trade, at lower pay. Trained cutters with years of experience in the cloth- ing industries found work as attendants at gasoline stations, watchmen in warehouses, clerks in meat markets; a machinist was selling hosiery for a mail order house; a skilled lathe operator was running a mixer in a cement brick plant; a licensed engineer took work as a caretaker in a public park; a skilled welding machine operator became a farm hand. And so the story goes. For the older workers the problem of finding new work was far more difficult than the younger. Few of the men over 45 were able to find work and some of them were out for long periods. The price of our industrial progress is too often paid by the man over 45, who has reached just the age when his children are in their teens and his income counts most for their future. Two very diverse policies accompany mechanization of industry. The time of the employed worker has become of much greater value and every effort is made to increase his productivity. The displaced worker is as ruthlessly scrapped as an out-of-date machine—even with less concern, for every well-managed institu- tion has an amortization fund to provide against obsolete machines. Men who have given years of their lives to producing the products upon which the reputation of the industry rests, are discharged without any consideration for what they have invested in the industry. Neither industries nor society has worked out a plan for meeting either separate or joint indebtedness to workers who lose that society may gain. .A dismissal wage to help absorb the ‘shock’ is paid by some few industries, but this is not adequate to meet the problem of readjustment. Organized labor is spokesman for these victims of the progress of industrial technology. We urge the following proposals for meeting the needs of these workless individuals: LABOR’S PROGRAM Shorter daily and weekly work periods in order that more workers shall be employed and all shall have leisure to enjoy the products of industry. Higher incomes for wage earners in order that this vast potential market may be able through its purchases to stimulate industries to their full capacity. A system of Federal employment agencies for the workless so that they may have most efficient services in finding all possible work opportunities. A vocational guidance service connected with employment offices to help workers whose crafts are displaced by new production methods, to equip them- selves for positions under new industrial conditions. 1 Study by Isador Lubin, Institute of Economics.

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