'Annals of the American Academy\r'

'When tabu of work the middling member of the working(a) segment loses his chief means of support. It is, therefore, a matter of flavor and death to him. The most immediate and vital do of un usage on the role player is a real earnest reduction of the pursue scale. Enough has been utter to channelize how great(p)ly unemployment reduces the pay received. In debasement of whatever general information for Philadelphia industries, an investigation made in New Jersey will best allot to indicate, in a general way, the extent to which the net income scale is depressed by unemployment.Figures collected by the New Jersey State Department of drive from firms employing over 21 ,OHO proles in the machine constancy and from firms employing nearly 16,000 persons in the silk intentness show that apiece of these industries worked during the radiation pattern industrial year of 1912 at almost 70 per cent of total capacity. The actual amount wage received during the year for the machine labor was $684; for the silk industry, $509. If full prison term had been made, it follows that an increase of over 40 per cent would have exited. This would have meant an average annual wage for the machine industry of $977; for the silk industry of $726.If this 27 per cent of sum had non been lost, the average annual wage would have been $566. The average annual qualifying of wage per employee through and through unemployment was at least $1 53, and was probably much more, if time lost time lag in the factory, and time lost by hose laid off, were included. Stated for individual departments, the actual average annual wage and the lost wage per employee would be as follows: Actual average annual wage Winders -? Threads Setters………………… Weavers -? Pickers………..Average annual wage lost through lost time spent outside of mill $334 237 452 $124 173 168 164 These gists argon shown graphically in fig. 19. In short, the proletarian loses the opportunity of earning 100 per cent of what his energies and abilities warrant. Per earthent or chronic unemployment means a per gentlemanent button of wage. In essence it means that the family of a man with a $1,000 or $1,200 earning ability cannot profit by or live according to the standard of such means, because the man is actually earning only from $500 to $1,000 a year.Not merely does unemployment seriously reduce the income of the worker; it makes his income unquestionably irregular. Regular income is interrupted by periods of total or partial stoppage of income. In times characterized by such un general industrial economic crisis as of the past winter, the loss of income is complete on the part of thousands. To a large degree, the worker is entirely ignorant when such misfortune will befall him. such(prenominal) a bit almost forces the worker to provide a hand-to-mouth existence.He hesitates to plan ahead, because he neer knows wheth er he will be able to pay through his plans or not, for fear of an interruption of income. A premium is, therefore, placed on the lack of thrift. When the normal income returns after a famine period, it not unnaturally leads a family to spend extravagantly after the parentage of specking through a hard time, Just as human nature always has, from the days we were savages, guide us to indulge in an orgy of eat after a long fasting. Unemployment and irregular employment are the arch enemies of thrift.The Annals of the American academy Perhaps the most serious industrial result of unemployment is its effect on the quality of the working people. It makes good workers bad. It turns workers who were capable and willing into men who are incomplete capable nor willing to hold a pissed Job if they could get one. As one man with whom I talked when he was out in breast of a hosiery mill at the noontide hour, said, ” For six months before this month, we have been working from 8 to 3. When we came to go back to the old hours (7 to 5. 0) it seemed at low as if we Just couldnt make ourselves get up an hour earlier and work 2 hours later. ” The give away inability of the workers to understand or to change the situation breeds a fatalistic lack of hope that in short manifests itself in a lack of ambition and effort. The repository of the National Lace Weavers Union says, â€Å"The lace industry has made more bums than any industry I know of. I have seen men go into the mills only to work an hour this morning time or an hour this afternoon, so long, that they are unequal to(p) of sustained effort.They lose their personal ‘punch and often in the end lose their ability to discuss anything except how things are this week in this or that plant. One of the usual ways by which such a depression leads to a debasing of the worker is by cause the skilled man to drift into an unskilled trade. When a man is out of work, he is in truth disposed(p) to â €Å"take anything” that offers, whether it is a job in which he can utilize his skill or not. The very common result is that he is never able to â€Å"come back” to his own trade.His ability in his particular trade is sacrificed and he drifts into the already tremendously overcrowded class of unskilled men. Not only the worker but the entire Philadelphia community as well, is the nonstarter by this lowering of the skill of abort. The injury to the worker by unemployment extends beyond his mere industrial efficiency, and dangerously affects the social standing, the family relations, the health, the intelligence and the public orderliness of the working classes of the community.A series of interviews with Kensington textile workers (chiefly Anglicans) is one steady stage of used up savings, of increased debts, and of â€Å"half time” for four, six or nine months during the past winter. veritable(a) the few whose greater savings or â€Å"steadier time” would normally have led them to avoid the â€Å"pinch” f the past winter, have felt have to lend to the less fortunate to an extent 41 Steadying Employment which, in many cases, has meant a severe drain on their own resources. The move income during such a winter as the past. 1914-1 5) very frequently means the curtailment of the necessities of food, fuel and clothing, to the point where the health is seriously impaired. It is almost impossible to measure this injury. Mr.. R. R. P. Bradford, who is in charge of the â€Å"Lighthouse” and was quoted previously (page 6), said during the spring of 1915, â€Å"l should not be at all surprised if, as a result of the erring of physical spiritedness among the Kensington workers, because of insufficient provender and protection, there should come about an epidemic of indisposition that will cost us dear.Whether it does or does not happen, we have a permanent injury as a result of this years unemployment in the lessened vi tality of the people. ” Every severe depression is a great destroyer of family life. Almost every family with whom I conversed knew of two or three families that were forced to â€Å"break up” because of the unemployment during the past winter. One of the usual results of unemployment s a considerable increase in the number of thefts, burglaries and suicides.\r\n'