18 UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED STATES
What happens to these displaced workers? Take the record for all
manufacturing industry in the United States. In the decade from
1899 to 1909, production increased 59 per cent. What happens to
them; where do they go? There is the question; where do they
go—skilled workers accustomed to a high standard of living, tem-
peramental men, artists, musicians—where do they go? Is not that
a problem?
Improved machinery played some part in this increase, but it was
largely made possible by taking on more wage earners, for the number
of wage earners employed by our factories increased 40 per cent from
1899 t01909—that is, 1,903,000 more wage earners were taken on to
bring about this 59 per cent increase in production. Similarly in the
decade from 1909 to 1919, production increased 35 per cent and
employment increased 38 per cent. Increased production was made
possible by employing 2,481,000 more wage earners. This meant jobs
for nearly two and a half million more men and women.
Now in the decade from 1919 to 1929 developments took an entirely
different turn. Production increased as before, so that our plants
were turning out 42 per cent more in 1929 than in 1919. But this
increase was made possible without any increase in the number of
wage earners employed. Employment actually decreased 7 per cent
from 1919 to 1929. Forty-two per cent more goods were produced
with 585,000 fewer workers. This general increase was made possible
by the introduction of new machinery and modern methods of manu-
facture. Increasing production, instead of creating more work,
actually took away 585,000 jobs. The producing power of the average
wage earner increased 11 per cent in the 20 years from 1899 to 1919;
but in the short space of 10 years from 1919 to 1929 (half as long) it
increased 52 per cent.
These great changes have so limited the number of wage earners
needed in our manufacturing industries that men and women are
forced to walk the streets, looking for work. To be sure some jobs
are created in the service industries, where employment has been
increasing in the last decade, but these are not nearly enough to make
up for the change in manufacturing.’
Although technological unemployment is no new story, the rate
at which technical progress has come in the past 25 years makes
displacement of workers a very different problem. The rapidity and
the scope of scientific progress has made technical procedure prac-
tically fluid. The period of recent economic prosperity made it
possible for industries to install the newest machinery and the
newest processes without hesitation. Abundance of capital facilitated
the development of new industries.
These new industries have helped to absorb workers released by
older industries. But some of the new industries, particularly auto-
mobiles, are most unstable, and have by far the hichest fluctuation in
pay rolls of all industries.
During June of 1929 industrial production in the United States
reached a new record peak. Even this stupendous output failed to
supply employment to all seeking work. The records of the American
Federation of Labor showed 9 per cent unemployment among trade
union workers during that period of record breaking production. In
the summer of 1927, the federation had been sensitive to recurring
reports of unemployment from all parts of the country and instituted
a system of monthly reports from the local unions in 24 industrial
