to be the lowest of all. 1/ D. Effects on product prices Prices for Southern pine, the chief product of the Southern sawmills, rose only slightly between January and April 1950, then increased sharply (Table 12). The January-April advance may have been influenced by the new minimum, though demand or other factors may have been involved too. Rising prices from May 1950 on were probably caused chiefly by an increased lumber demand occasioned by the building boom then in progress. 1/Data on average weekly hours in This paragraph from U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Monthly Labor Review, Table C-1. The BLS series on average weekly hours of production workers in Southern sawmills was not begun until January 1949. wage structure of the industry. Its influence was greater on lower-level wage rates than on middle-level rates, and on middle-level rates than on upper-level ones; this tended to narrow earnings differentials within industry, regional, and plant wage distributions. It benefited exempt logging employees in integrated sawmills almost as much as nonexempt workers. Its upward effects were more substantial in lowerwage than in higher-wage regions, occupations, and establishments; it thus exerted a contracting pressure on wage spreads between regions, between occupations, and between plants. The lowerpaid units were brought closer to the higher-paid ones, in both percent and cents-per-hour terms. The wage movements which took place in the industry between March 1950 and April 1953 reversed some of the leveling results of the higher minimum. The wage structure of the industry was widened as concentrations of low-level earnings were somewhat dispersed. Most of this dispersion occurred in the higher-pay regions and mills. Percent gains in average earnings were larger in the higher-wage occupations and regions than in the lower-wage ones, though this was not enough to completely dissipate the narrowing impact of the 75-cent rate; over the entire 1949-53 period studied, percent advances in pay levels were larger in the lower-wage jobs and regions. Though they cannot be so clearly shown, the wage relationships between higher-paying and lower-paying mills from 1950 to 1953, and from 1949 to 1953, were apparently affected in much the same way as were relationships among occupations and among regions. 1/ Because required wage adjustments were large, it might be expected that the nonwage changes caused by the new minimum would 1/ They cannot be so clearly shown because available plant earnings data are not directly comparable over the years, the 1949-50 plant classification being based on last-quarter 1949 plant earrings, the 1953 classification on April 1953 plant earnings. also be great. Yet the determinable influences of the 75-cent rate on factors other than earnings were not generally substantial at the time of the March 1950 survey. This may have been the longer-run result, too, even without the building boom which developed early in 1950, but the stimulus to lumber demand and prices created by that boom undoubtedly strengthened the industry's ability to pay the higher minimum. CHAPTER 3 EFFECTS IN THE FERTILIZER INDUSTRY Background Data In 1947 there were 704 establishments in the United States primarily engaged in manufacturing mixed fertilizers from one or more fertilizer materials produced in the same establishment, or in mixing fertilizer from purchased fertilizer materials. 1 In early 1950 the industry had an estimated 663 plants with eight or more employees, with 32,500 workers in them; of these plants and workers, over two-fifths were located in the Southeast. 2/ Another fifth of the establishments with eight or more employees, and of total employees in such establishments, were located in the Border and Southwest States. Thus the industry is primarily a Southern one. Minor concentrations of activity existed in 1950 in the Great Lakes and Middle Atlantic areas. To study the impact of the minimum-wage increase, field investigations both before and after January 25, 1950 were made by the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The earlier survey was taken during March-April 1949, the second U. S. Bureau of the Census, U. S. Census of Manufactures, Vol. II, P. 419. The industry is numbered 287 in the Standard Industrial Classification code of the Execu tive Office of the President, Bureau of the Budget, Nov. 1945, and is part of SIC Major Group 281 (Manufacture of) Chemicals and Allied Products. 2/ Data in this sentence and in remainder of paragraph from U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistios, Wage Structure Series 2, No. 77, Fertilizer 1949 and 1950, Table 1, p. 6. about a year later during AprilMay 1950. The sample for each survey included half the plants having eight or more employees, with two-thirds of all the workers in establishments of that employee size. 1/ Wage Effects of Minimum-Rate Increase Like the Southern sawmilling study, the fertilizer investigation made in April-May 1950 occurred so soon after the 75cent rate became effective that only the immediate, short-run consequences of the higher minimum are determinable. Though the early survey date has this limitation, it has at the same time the advantage of avoiding the economic pressures generated by the business upswing in this country after the North Korean invasion in June. The first of the two surveys was taken during the industry's 1949 peak operating period rather than during later months of slacker activity even though these would have more immediately preceded the effective date of the 75-cent rate. (The more active season in fertilizer manufacture occurs during the first five months of each year, with a peak in March and April.) Selecting a survey period as much as nine to ten months before January 1950 has at least one major disadvantage, that during Findings from the two surveys have already been published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in its Wage Structure Series 2, No. 77, Fertilizer 1949 and 1950. this interval pay and other changes may have occurred independently of the 75-cent wage and these of course would have influenced the payroll records transcribed in the 1950 field study. For example, average hourly earnings of fertilizer production workers increased by 2 cents between March-April 1949 and the last quarter of that year. This may have resulted from anticipation of the minimum-rate increase, or it may have been a seasonal advance. 2/ It may also have been partly due to longerrun labor-market forces. 3/ A. General and occupational wage effects Wage distributions in fertilizer plants at the time of the two surveys are shown in Table 13 and Chart 3. Between the two periods, the chief changes were (1) an increase of 5 cents (5 percent) in average hourly earnings, from 92 to 97 cents, (2) decrease in the proportion of Table 13. Percent distribution of plant workers in fertiliser establishments, by average hourly earnings, United States, two payroll periods 1949-50 rom an average of $1.06 for MarchApril to $1.08 for October through December (figures include premium pay for overtime and night work). Source: U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Monthly Labor Review, Table C-1. 2/ Hourly earnings for the spring peak tend to fall below earnings 3/ Average hourly earnings for forti- |