92 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES 
of the wage index used in the diagram, in another connec- 
tion points out that the gain in real wages during the three 
years preceding the year 1927, as shown by the spread 
between the wage and the cost-of-living index, was 20 to 
25 per cent., and probably greater than at any time during 
the past half century! The evidence from the practise 
of industry itself, aside from public opinion or any formal 
or judicial determination of wage rates, has been that the 
cost-of-living index has been definitely cast aside as a 
fundamental factor in arriving at changes in rates of pay 
of industrial workers. 
WAGE ADJUSTMENTS IN LEADING INDUSTRIES HAVE 
Di1srREGARDED Cost-oF-LIVING FACTOR 
The returns from individual industries confirm the 
showing of the general indexes as to the relation between 
increases in wages and living costs. This is graphically 
set forth in the following table and chart. The table shows 
comparatively, in a descending scale, the increase in aver- 
age weekly earnings of workers in the leading basic indus- 
tries in 1926 as compared with the pre-war period. The 
horizontal bars and red vertical line show at a glance 
how earnings and rates of pay in all the principal branches 
of industry have advanced far beyond the increase in cost 
of living since 1913. 
1 Journal of the American Statistical Association, December, 1926, p. 469.