women, and many of them are men with families, and many of them with public and high-school education, and many of them engaged in the most skilled work in this country, and they are repressed by circumstances. They stay in the communities in which they now are because of family circumstances. They do not have the bargaining power. It is wrong to suggest that they are lacking in skills, lacking in education, or lacking in training, because that would be an untruth. It reflects the lack of familiarity with the people in these industries. The other fact we know is that the reason these industries, or many of the wages in these industries are low, despite the high profits in some of these industries, is that the competitive factor has restrained workers in them. That will of course be presented to you in many different ways. I would like to dwell now just a moment on the subject of profits, since that has been raised. We have made a rather thorough study of the problem of the profits of industry in the specific branches, and I refer to a special study included in the fact sheets which we have presented, fact sheet No. 20. We have calculated it for food, tobacco, textile products, furniture, chemical, and the whole list of them. We have presented that as a table. In fact sheet No. 20 our table No. 1 shows that it would only be, for example, in food, 9.4 percent of the estimated profits of 1954. And you must remember 1954 profits, gentlemen, were at a low in many of these industries. Tobacco 5.7 percent, and textile 56.2. In some industries like machinery, where practically nobody gets affected by the minimum wage, even $1.25 will affect profits only by one-tenth of 1 percent. Now I would like to present to you, gentlemen, a chart which we have prepared, and which is in part reflected by these charts which we have the chart as you have it is in slightly different form, but this is before the corrections, because at the time this was prepared, we had not as yet developed with the Bureau of Labor Statistics all of the figures that were necessary for making the adjustments which we have in table 1 of the submission. We have called this the additional annual income. If we assume, as a maximum, in our submission here, this 2,056,000 is actually reduced to 1,636,000 as a direct impact of $1,25-this is the way in which you see that in chart No. 3. You see what the impact is on various expenditures. $606 million of the increase of $2,056 million will go for higher food expenditures. The $222 million goes for the repayment of debt. That is a rather interesting fact, that all of these people who are in the lower income groups are well in debt as well as many of the higher ones. This is what would help relieve the pressure on our installment and credit institutions which some people are worried about as having to carry too much of a debt at the present time, and threaten our economic activity in the second half of the year. (The charts referred to follow :) CHART NO. I MAXIMUM NUMBER AND PERCENT OF COVERED EMPLOYEES APRIL 1954 CORRECTION FOR INCLUSION OF EXEMPT GROUPS LEARNERS, APPRENTICES, HANDICAPPED WORKERS CORRECTION NEEDED FOR OVERESTIMATION DUE TO (1) EXCLUSION OF SHIFT DIFFERENTIAL FROM HOURLY MINIMUM $ 1.00 MINIMUM SOURCE: CIO FAIR LABOR STANDARDS COMMITTEE FACT SHEET NO. 12 $ 1.10 MINIMUM $1.25 MINIMUM MAXIMUM CHART NO. 2 ANNUAL INCREASE IN PAYROLL COST RESULTING FROM HIGHER MINIMUM WAGE RATES PER DOLLAR OF PAYROLL APRIL 1954 CORRECTION FOR INCLUSION OF EXEMPT GROUPS LEARNERS, APPRENTICES, HANDICAPPED WORKERS LOW NOTE: THE ABOVE INCREASES IN PAYROLL COST ARE OVERSTATED SINCE NO CORRECTION HAS BEEN MADE FOR OVERESTIMATION DUE TO (1) EXCLUSION SOURCE. CIO FAIR LABOR STANDARDS COMMITTEE FACT SHEET NO 12 CHART NO. 3 DISPOSITION OF ADDITIONAL INCOME DERIVED FROM HIGHER MINIMUM WAGES BY FAMILIES OF AFFECTED WAGE EARNERS INCLUDES FUEL, LIGHT, REFRIGERATION, WATER, HOUSEHOLD OPERATION, HOUSEFURNISHINGS & EQUIPMENT SOURCE: CIO FAIR LABOR STANDARDS COMMITTEE FACT SHEET NO. 13 CHART NO. 4 PERCENT INCREASES IN PER-FAMILY EXPENDITURES Mr. BARKIN. Then there is $225 million for increased clothing. I can tell you that we in the textile industry, and certainly in the clothing industry, can use that additional business and absorb some of the tremendous unemployment that we have in our industry. Here is the food bill. That is $606 million more in food. This $283 million here is for transportation. If they have that, they can keep more of Detroit going. If we can get that money into circulation as quickly as possible and keep all of the various transportation systems going, that way we could assure the continuance of prosperity and high activity. |