private industry, but we have from time to time made certain studies which bear on this question. I have here a table before me which shows the various weekly salaries in selected office occupations in 11 cities. This is a study we have made solely for the purpose of finding the pay of these different classes of office workers in private industry, and therefore they are not comparable exactly with Government qualifications. So while, as I say, they are not exactly comparable, you might be interested in some of the points that have come out. Here, for example, we have general stenographers, women. we find the "low salaries" in 11 cities are $37.31 a week. There The highest was $48.13 a week. And the average-the median-for the 11 cities. was $40.72. Senator LONG. That is the average for general stenographers? If you take 52 times that you get the figure of $2,080, which would be the average yearly salary. That is for a general stenographer, which indicates a person of general stenographic ability. Senator LONG. Did you say $2,080 a year? Mr. CLAGUE. Yes, Senator. Senator FLANDERS. Would you care to say about where in the present classification that would come, in the Government service? Mr. CLAGUE. That is where I hesitate. We did not make this up for a careful comparison between the two, and therefore I have to say that I do not know. I think I will try to ask my staff after I make one more point. It says here "Stenographers, technical," and I suppose in the Federal service those would be the legal or special types that would have unusual qualifications, unusual difficulties in their job, and we find in their case the "low" is about $41, $40.95 to be precise, the "high" is $50.92, and the "average" is $44.14. Senator LONG. You mean the highest average was about $51? And so the first point that comes out, Mr. Chairman, is that you have the private industries with considerable differences in city-bycity salary scale. In other words, your Federal pay scale will differ according to what city you are operating in.. Senator LONG. What is the average for the technical stenographers? Mr. CLAGUE. The average in 11 cities was $44.14 a week, ranging from a top of $50.92-that would be about twenty-six-hundred-odd dollars. That would be usually in a larger city, like Seattle. Then Chicago, $50.54. Those were the highest wages there were. I might ask Mr. Ober, our expert on wages, if he could tell you how these might compare with the wage scales in the Federal service, which ones might be most comparable with these. Mr. OBER. Yes. I would say the general stenographer would be comparable, roughly, with a CAF-3 in the Federal service. Senator LONG. It goes from $2,498 up, in that classification, according to my understanding. If what you say is correct that would indicate that the Government pay might be better than the average stenographer, or the average technical stenographer, in those cases. Mr. OBER. In some cities; yes. But in others, probably not. On the Pacific coast wages are generally higher than, let us say, in other cities. On the Pacific coast, the Federal salaries may just about meet, or be a little below, the private salaries. I have also indicated that this is an average, and there is a good deal more variation in what individual firms may pay within a citythat is, what individual stenographers may get-than there is in the Government. So while I do not have the figures here on the total range of the distribution of these, they may run up considerably higher. Senator LONG. How does the Pacific coast compare with the east coast in paying salaries? Mr. OBER. They are higher. Senator LONG. But the Government pays the same rate all over? Mr. OBER. That is right. Mr. CLAGUE. I think you cannot overdraw that comparison, because our effort here has been to make some comparison with the different cities in the private industries. While it is true that you can make a comparison based on the comparable qualifications of the Government stenographer, compared with one with comparable qualifications in private industry, unless you do that pretty carefully you are not sure whether you are getting the proper figure. Our wage experts, when they go out to make this kind of study, are certainly very careful just what they do, so that they will be sure to get comparable qualifications. We do not just pay attention to what they are called, without examination. Somebody might be called a stenographer when they actually were a typist. We would not put her in this group. So without careful comparison I would not want to draw too definite a conclusion here that stenographers in private industry are paid these rates, or that the Government rates are higher than those paid in private industry. One ought to make that comparison occupation by occupation. Of course, when we made this study here, we also show it for the different grades. There are clerk-typists, general stenographers, technical stenographers, and so on. (The table referred to is as follows:) 1 TABLE 3.—Average weekly salaries 1 for selected office occupations in private industry, in 11 cities, December 1947 to February 1948 1 Excluding premiums for overtime and part-time pay. 2 Median, that is, half the cities were above the half below this average. Senator LONG. You would not have any specific recommendations, I take it, then, as to the general amount that Government employees should be paid. So you recommend that they be put on the basis of their classification, but whether it starts at the right point, and pays enough to begin with, you would not be in a position to know? Mr. CLAGUE. I do not think that I have either the special knowledge, or the Bureau has made any special study upon that. Senator LONG. On our request, could you make such a study and get some information on that sort of thing? Mr. CLAGUE. It is hard for me to say right off the cuff as to what it costs to make one of these studies. Senator FLANDERS. More money that is required, Senator Long. Senator LONG. Well, they made the other study about the stenographers. What that is for, I do not know; and this, at least, would be related to what we are studying now. Mr. CLAGUE. I do think that I would rather not guess now what it would cost, but I would be glad to estimate it for the committee, if you like. It would depend on how many cities it was made in and how many samples you took and so forth. (The following was furnished later:) UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, The Honorable RUSSELL B. LONG, United States Senate, Washington 25, D. C. DEAR SENATOR LONG: In accordance with your request made at the hearing on S. 1762 on Monday, May 9, we are developing an estimate of the cost of comparing salaries in Federal Government and in private industry. However, since a study of this sort would be relatively time-consuming, we have prepared the attached table in the hope that it may be of some immediate help to you. The table summarizes information that is available from our current studies on salaries of stenographers in private industry, since workers in this occupation are very numerous in both industry and the Government. It is believed that the Federal CAF-3 classification (GS-3 in the classification system proposed by S. 1762) corresponds roughly to the jobs of general and technical stenographers in private industry presented in this table. Many stenographers in the Federal service take technical dictation and would presumably be comparable in a general way to technical stenographers in private industry. It is therefore probable that they are relatively more common in Government than in private industry. Data are presented in this table for 13 large cities for which relatively current information on salaries in private industry is available and in which substantial numbers of Federal workers are employed. All of the data, except that for Denver and San Francisco, refer to the early part of 1949. The information for Denver and San Francisco relates to early 1948; since that date there have been some increases in salaries in private industry. Information is presented both on average salaries for workers in private industry and on the proportion of workers at various levels below and above this average, since the relationship between Government salaries and average salaries in private industry is a fundamental matter of policy. As this table indicates, an average is actually a composite of widely varying salaries. Within communities there is a wide variation in salaries established by individual firms. Pay scales are affected by such factors as size of firm and industry. The average for private industry in any particular community includes the salaries paid in marginal firms and in relatively small establishments which certainly are not closely comparable with the Government. With respect to Federal salary policy, certain questions occur to me. For example, should the Government pay less than the average or conform to the average salary levels in private industry? Or should it pay salaries that are above average in an effort to attract better workers, particularly since government traditionally has tended to establish certain minimum standards for employment? Comparison of the salaries presented in this table with Federal salaries indicates that: (1) The present average ($51 a week) and the minimum pay scale ($48 a week) for CAF-3's in the Federal service are generally above the average for general stenographers in private industry. (2) So far as technical stenographers are concerned, pay scales in private industry are on the average higher than those in the government in some cities; for example, in west coast cities, in New York, in Chicago, and in New Orleans. (3) There is a narrower spread in salaries in the Federal Government than in private industry. As the following tabulation indicates, very substantial proportions of technical stenographers in private industry received more than the maximum of about $57.50 a week established for the GS-3 grade in the Federal service (and the maximum of $56.50 now in effect for CAF-3's). Percent of workers in private industry receiving above the maximum of the proposed Federal GS-3 scale It should be emphasized that Federal salaries for the lower paid clerical jobs have traditionally been higher than the average in private industry and that the relationship between private industry and government salaries is apparently reversed for the higher paid classifications. A survey made by the Personnel Classification Board of the Civil Service Commission in 1929 (70th Cong., 2d sess., H. Doc. No. 602) stated, "The outstanding fact disclosed by the comparison is that while the Government rates for positions in the clerical, administrative, and fiscal service are comparatively liberal in the lower grades, the difference is less in each successive grade and it entirely disappears in grade 4. From that point on the non-Government rates are increasingly liberal. * * * "In the higher types of employment the salary schedules are so regularly accelerated above Government pay that one might infer that in general industry greater recognition is given to administrative ability than in the Government. The report also states, "There is probably a higher proportion of the lower grade employees entering the Government who leave their home towns and residence with their parents than is the case with those entering commercial work. It is also probably true that in the commercial world full advantage is taken of the fact that a certain percentage of employees live at home. Considerable weight must be given to the necessity for providing a living wage, or a wage that will enable the employee working in the Government to provide independently for himself those reasonable necessaries of life which will enable him to maintain himself without aid from other sources.' * * * Should you have any questions regarding these materials, please do not hesitate to let us know. Very truly yours, EWAN CLAGUE, Commissioner of Labor Statistics |