and from 75 to 84.9 cents), in the middle sector (from 85 cents to $1.249), and in the upper end ($1.25 or more). By March 1950 practically all workers previously earning below 75 cents were averaging an hourly wage at or above that rate, most of them having moved into the earnings category of 75-84.9 cents. (Between October 1949 and March 1950 in Hickory-Statesville, for example, 38 of every 100 plant workers left the hourly earnings category of under 75 cents, while 29 of every 100 entered the earnings class of 75-84.9 cents.) Thus the short-run impact of the higher minimum substantially affected the lower end of the wage structure of each area.

Middle sectors of area wage distributions also showed short-run influences. In March 1950 as against October 1949, average hourly wage rates from 85 cents to $1.249 were earned by 10 more of every 100 plant workers in Hickory-Statesville, 7 more of every 100 plant workers in Reading, and 5 more of every 100 in Winston SalemHigh Point. One major reason for this indirect effect may have been the prevalence in the industry of the piece-rate pay system. Where piece rates were increased to enable slower workers to earn at least the 75-cent hourly wage, faster workers already making 75 cents or more an hour at the old rates were able to raise their average earnings. A similar indirect wage effect occurred in the men's dress shirt and nightwear industry, where piece

rate payments are also common. 1/

But there was virtually no short-run change in any region in the fraction of workers earning $1.25 or more an hour. To the extent that lower-level wages were raised by larger percent amounts than upper-level rates, narrowing of wage spreads occurred within each region.

Data on occupational wage movements show this short-run

1/

Much the same experience resulted in the seamless hosiery industry after September 1939, when the applicable minimum hourly rate was increased by wage order from 25 to 32.5 cents. Though the most substantial increase in workers ooourred among those earning from 32.5 to 35.0 cents an hour, signifioant proportions of employees moved into the higher earnings olasses also. Between 1938 and 1940, 22.5 of every 100 sampled workers moved into the 2.5-to-35.0 oents hourly earnings olass while about the same mumber-22.6 of every 100 workers-advanced their hourly earnings to 35 cents or more. Source: U. S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour and Public Contracts Divisions, Minimum Wages in the Seamless Hosiery Industry, March 1941, pp. 52-56.

On the other hand, some of the lowest-paying plants in the industry at that time-those with 1938 plant average hourly earnings below 25 oents-had percent wagebill increases between 1938 and 1940 not much higher than those directly needed to raise hourly rates to required minime levels. (Same, Table 13, p. 63.) This would seem to indioate little or no indirect wage effoot; perhaps in these plants piece rates were not raised but instead make-up pay was given to those averaging hourly earnings below the statutory minimum,

narrowing effect in more detail. The immediate upward impact of the higher minimum was greater on low-wage than on high-wage jobs in every region, most substantially in Hickory-Statesville where the short-run influence was strongest. In that area, percent earnings increases between October 1949 and March 1950, reading from the initially lowest to highest-wage occupation, were 18, 14, 11, 5, 10, 2, 2, and 0.

Average hourly earnings continued their increase in each region between March and OctoberNovember 1950, with the larger gains accruing to the higher-wage areas (Table 31). These secondperiod advances, probably reflecting rising general wage levels current at the time more than minimum-wage effects, were accomplished in a different manner from those of the first period. To a large extent the latter were due to rises in rates below the legal minimum while second-period advances appeared to be strongly influenced by changes in upper-level rates, especially in the higherwage areas. Thus between March and October 1950 in Winston SalemHigh Point, 8 more of every 100 plant workers moved into the $1.25-or-more hourly earnings class while between March and November 1950 in Reading 6 more

1/ Occupational wage data are sum

marized in Table 32 for HiokoryStatesville, Table 33 for Reading, and Table 34 for Winston SalemHigh Point. The sight occupations in these tables, ranged from lowest to highest average hourly earnings in October 1949, are a sample of key positions in the industry.

of every 100 did so (Table 30). Some of the second-period increases were in uniform percent amounts, an influence tending to maintain within-region wage differentials in the narrowed form they had developed as a short-run consequence of the higher minimum. The maintenance

of these spreads is borne out too by the fact that during this period percent increases in occupational wages generally did not vary much between low- and high-wage jobs (Tables 32, 33, 34).

Between October-November 1950 and November 1952, highwage occupations generally got larger percent earnings increases than did low-paid jobs. This may have reflected, among other things, the superior bargaining power of the more skilled workers and efforts to reestablish pay differentials narrowed by the short-run impact of the 75-cent rate. The relationship between 1949 occupational wage levels and percent increases in them by 1952 varied from region to region. In Hickory-Statesville, the lowest-wage area and the one experiencing the greatest minimum-wage impact, percent spreads between low- and highwage positions still were narrower in November 1952 than they had been in October 1949; the relative advantage gained by the lower-paid workers there through minimum-wage legislation had not been completely lost by the last survey date. Between 1949 and 1952, low- and high-wage workers in Reading advanced their earnings in roughly the same proportion while in high-wage Winston Salem-High Point, where the