EXHIBIT A DISTRIBUTION OF WAGE AND SALARY WORKERS ACCORDING TO STATUS UNDER THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT Of the total of 44 million wage and salary workers (excluding Government employees and executive, administrative, and professional employees) in the United States in September 1953, about 24 million or 55 percent are protected by the minimum-wage provisions of the act. To evaluate the present scope of the act, it is helpful to examine estimates by industry of the number of employees to whom the act does or does not apply. Even a superficial review of table 1 indicates that almost all of the wage and salary workers in the manufacturing and mining group are protected by the act. It is similarly evident that little or no protection has been extended to workers in retail trade; the agriculture, forestry, and fishery group; and domestic service. The remaining major groups fall somewhere between these two extremes. The reasons for such partial protection are (1) the theory on which coverage is based, and (2) the specific exemptions contained in the act (table 1). TABLE 1.-Distribution of wage and salary workers protected by Fair Labor Standards Act, by industry division, September 1953 Proprietors, self-employed persons, and unpaid family labor totaling approximately 12 million persons, 6 million Government employees, and 4 million executive, administrative, and professional employees are excluded. Personnel of the Armed Forces are also excluded. 'Services and related industries, n. e. c., comprise both personal and business services, e. g., agricultural and related services; business services; laundries, cleaning and related services; auto repair services and garages; miscellaneous repair services, n. e. c.; motion pictures; professional and related services; and such miscellaneous nonmanufacturing industries as hotels, barber, and beauty shops, medical and health services, amusement and recreation, and nonprofit organizations. SCOPE OF THE ACT The present act is restricted to those particular employees who are "engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce," provided they do not come within one of the exemptions of the act. The terms "engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce" are broadly defined in section 3 of the act. Yet the broad scope given the basic coverage phrases in the act has not resulted in applying the act in many areas which Congress could have regulated. For example, the present act restricts coverage by taking as its basis each particular employee's work rather than the nature of the business in which he is employed. The application of the act is further restricted by exemption provisions, which exclude 13 different groups of employees. WORKERS WHO ARE NOT PROTECTED Because of the present approach to coverage there are 20 million wage and salary workers who are not protected by the act. These workers fall into two categories. Approximately 13% million workers are not directly engaged in interstate commerce or in the production of goods for commerce although some of them are employed in occupations affecting interstate commerce. The remaining 6% million of them are engaged in interstate commerce or in the production of goods for interstate commerce but are exempted because of specific provisions of the act, as follows: 3,032,000 are farm workers; 1,360,000 are employed by exempt retail trade or retail service establishments; 1,203,000 are outside salesmen; 233,000 are engaged in handling or processing agricultural commodities in the area of production; 132,000 are employed in laundries or cleaning and dyeing plants; 117,000 are seamen; 110,000 are employed in small logging operations having 12 or fewer logging employees; 61,000 are engaged in fishing or in canning, processing, or distributing fishery products; 43,000 are switchboard operators of small telephone exchanges; 32,000 are employed by small newspaper concerns; 32,000 are employed by local transit companies; 10,000 are employed in a local retailing capacity by manufacturers or wholesalers: 4,000 are taxicab operators. Table 2 distributes the 20 million workers who are not protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act by industry group and indicates the basis for the lack of protection. It is evident from this table that one-third of the wage and salary workers who are not subject to the statutory minimum wage are employed in retail trade. Another one-third is almost equally divided between the service industries and the agriculture, forestry, and fishery group. The basis for lack of protection varies considerably among these industries. In retail trade and most of the service industries, for example, the lack of protection results primarily from the fact that the workers are not considered to be "engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce." In agriculture however, the lack of protection derives from exemptions written into the act (table 2). A further glance at the preceding discussions of the present coverage of the act reveals that as the act now stands it falls short of accomplishing its objectives. Coverage is spotty, contains wide gaps, and many important areas are unregulated. TABLE 2.-Distribution of employees not protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act, by industry division, September 1953 Personnel of the Armed Forces NOTE.-Proprietors, self-employed persons, unpaid family labor as well as executive, administrative, and professional employees are excluded from all employment figures. are also excluded. Factory Workers' Distributions by straight-time hourly earnings, April 1954 United States Regions Durable Goods Nondurable Goods Men Women BLS Bulletin No. 1179 Issued March 1955 ITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS |