National Youth Administration, school work program, average annual family income and average number in family, academic year 1 1942-43

National Youth Administration, school work program, average annual family income and average number in family, academic year 1 1942-43-Continued

1 Based on a field survey conducted in December 1942. Source: Reports of regional youth administrators on National Youth Administration Form S-95, Division of Finance and Statistics and Division of Student Work.

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ADVISIBILITY OF PROJECTING COLLEGE-AID PROGRAM ON BASIS OF PROPOSAL

Mr. HARE. Do you think that the program of aid for less than the college grade should be abandoned as proposed in the estimate submitted by Dr. Charters to the Bureau of the Budget?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. Chairman, I am a member of the staff of the War Manpower Commission.

My position in that matter, personally, is that the high-school program is of high character and it ought to be maintained. That is my position.

Mr. TARVER. You have a $5,000,000 college-aid program, which you say is on a 2 to 1 ratio. Dr. Charters proposed a $50,000,000 program. $10,000,000 would have met the needs of every applicant for the present fiscal year. Dr. Charters wants to make the program more attractive by not requiring any outside work.

I wish you would tell us what is the logic of that proposition. I know wou are a member of the War Manpower Commission, but I think the committee and Congress are entitled to some explanation of a program at this time which proposes to increase by 10 times the amount available for college aid, and to do that at a time when the Army and the Navy are educating a great many young men who are inducted into the armed services at the expense of the Government. and to do that at a time when, according to your own statement, the applications for aid of this sort are diminishing in volume. I just cannot get the idea, myself. I would like to have a frank discussion of your views concerning it.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Judge Tarver, I think that you will have to go back into the actual functioning of this program. The justification for Dr. Charters' position is that you have on the one side critical shortages in certain areas-in medicine, engineering, and common day-school teachers. Now, they have moved on fundamentally away from the need concept. Actually it is still there. But I am sure that the basis for talking about a $50,000,000 program has to do with service to the war and service to the common schools all over America, where I understand that about 100,000 teachers will be out when the next school term begins. It is based on that kind of program, and trying to do something about it is involved in the proposition here.

Mr. TARVER. You have had applications from college students to a number which would cost $10,000,000 in aid of the type that you

are able to accord. Now the proposal is made here, despite the expansion of college aid by the armed forces, to spend $50,000,000, or five times a much as you could use if you serviced every applicant. Now, just why should that be done?

Mr. WILLIAMS. All I can say is that it is their program. It is not my program. All I can try to tell you is what they have had as their background to propose this program.

Mr. ENGEL. What is the average amount that you pay per college student per month?

Mr. WILLIAMS. It amounts to $14.31.

Mr. ENGEL. And what is the average amount that you pay, Dr. Charters?

Dr. CHARTERS. I think it is probably about $20.

Mr. TARVER. I think that is all now, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. CHARTERS. Mr. Chairman, may I say that if and when these other matters are concluded we can talk over the details of it and the justification of it more fully.

Mr. HARE. Surely.

WORK STATIONS AND SHOP LOCATIONS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Chairman, there are one or two points that I would like to clear up. Mr. Williams, did I understand you to state that you now have 700 work stations?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Seven hundred locations.

Mr. THOMAS. I call them stations and you call them locations. There are 700 locations?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes.

Mr. THOMAS. And during the fiscal year 1943 you have closed up some 1,700 of your locations; is that correct?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, no; that is not correct. In these 700 locations we have about 39,000 work stations. Last year we took out a total of 17,000 work stations, most of which came from the regular program and not out of the war training program; but some of them did. Mr. THOMAS. You have closed up 17,000 work stations.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Stations; yes, sir.

Mr. THOMAS. And you have 700 locations now?

Mr. WILLIAMS. That is correct.

Mr. THOMAS. How many locations did you close last year?

Mr. WILLIAMS. I do not think we closed very many locations. Actually, the number of locations was not altered very greatly.

Mr. THOMAS. That is what I am getting at. You did not close your work centers, then?

Mr. WILLIAMS. No, sir.

Mr. THOMAS. You closed some particular type of station in the center?

Mr. WILLIAMS. That is right.

Mr. THOMAS. And you have relocated about one-third of your total of 700 locations, getting them closer to industry?

Mr. WILLIAMS. No, sir; not locations. We have relocated about one-third of our work stations.

86811-43-pt. 3--22

PAY OF TRAINEES UNDER 1944 BUDGET

Mr. THOMAS. Now, under your 1944 Budget do you intend to do away with the payment or the subsidy for those trainees who are not located on the station itself?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Under our 1944 Budget we propose to pay 58,000 trainees, of which 32,000 are to be in resident centers. That leaves 26,000 to be in local work units, where they live at home.

Mr. THOMAS. What do you pay those who live at home?

Mr. WILLIAMS. We average, as I said, about $13 per month in actual earnings, or a wage of $22 to $25 for a full month of 160 hours of work. Mr. THOMAS. That is under the 1944 Budget?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Under the 1944 Budget, they have agreed for us to have an average of $24 per month. That is the basis of the Budget estimate. That is what it would come to for these 26,000 if they worked out the 160 hours.

Those in residence, the 32,000, average about $40. That is the money recommended by the Budget Bureau. That includes maintenance, and an average of about $10 in cash. That would be the money they would get if they worked full time.

Mr. THOMAS. What are you getting under the 1943 Budget? As I understand, in the 1944 Budget you increase about 100 percent the amount of cash that the trainee gets where he does not live on the work center itself, but lives at home.

Mr. WILLIAMS. It is possible for us to do it. Actually this year we could have paid, under the law, an average of about $18.90. Actually what the average got was about $13, because of the large turnover; and it will unquestionably be pretty much the same next year. Mr. THOMAS. And you intend to hike that up in the 1944 budget to about $22?

Mr. WILLIAMS. To an average of $24 per month.

COST OF NATIONAL YOUTH ADMINISTRATION TRAINING PROGRAM AS
COMPARED WITH IN-PLANT TRAINING

Mr. THOMAS. What is it costing for food and sleeping quarters at the resident center?

Mr. VALENTINE. About $29.87.

Mr. THOMAS. For room and board?

Mr. VALENTINE. That is correct, sir.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Then what is the average pay?

Mr. VALENTINE. The average cash payment to an employee excluding subsistence is $6.12 per month.

Mr. THOMAS. How do those over-all costs in the two categoriesone where they live on the work station and the other where they live at home-compare with the in-plant training program cost by industries? Do you have information on that?

Mr. WILLIAMS. No, sir; I have not.

Mr. THOMAS. You are bound to have some rough idea.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I can say this: that the average pay for beginners runs from 40 cents to 50 or 60 cents an hour.

Mг. THOMAS. Let us take it at the minimum of 40 cents an hour. Under this program, and under both programs, the cost comes from the taxpayers of this country?

Mr. WILLIAMS. That is right. It would be $64 for their wages, and on top of that there is whatever supervision they would furnish, which would undoubtedly be as much as ours, which runs as much as $35 to $40 a month. That is the big cost. Then there is the administrative overhead, and then the plant cost and the materials that they use, just as we do. So I frankly think that our program would run probably a cost of something like a third of the cost inside industry. Mr. THOMAS. You mean no more than a third of the total?

Mr. WILLIAMS. If you pay the trainee 40 cents an hour, that is $64 to start with; and you pay for supervision; you pay for the plant; you pay for the overhead, the front-office business; and then you pay for the materials they use. If you take the supervision, the material, and the overhead, and just say that it is the same as ours, it would run about twice; and, frankly, most industries do not run on this basis. They have 1 instructor to more than 1 worker. I mean, the instructor does not give his whole time to 1 trainee, but he gives time to each trainee, and at most they say 1 instructor to 10 workers, whereas we have on the average 1 to 12, 14, or 15. So, if you say twice as much, you would not make any mistake, and I think it is

more.

NUMBER OF TRAINEES DURING 1944

Mr. THOMAS. Let us assume it is twice. How many do you intend to train during the fiscal year 1944 with this money?

Mr. WILLIAMS. 98,000.

Mr. THOMAS. 98,000 next year?

Mr. WILLIAMS. And we agreed to train 98,000 at one time, turning them over six times in the year.

Mr. THOMAS. What percentage of that 98,000 do you contemplate will be females, and of what age?

Mr. WILLIAMS. I will say that it will have to get up to 60 or 65 or 70 percent females, and I think it will go to that.

Mr. THOMAS. Of all ages?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir; of all ages.

Mr. THOMAS. Sixty-five percent, you say?

Mr. WILLIAMs. I think it will have to be that. That is what industry is going to come to.

Mr. THOMAS. Then do you contemplate that any considerable number of that 98,000 will be men past the draft age, say from 45 to 65 years of age?

Mr. WILLIAMS. I do not know how to answer that, whether it would be or would not be.

Mr. THOMAS. Well, the program is going to be available to them if they see fit to take advantage of it, is it not?

Mr. WILLIAMS. I hope it will work, but it depends upon what the attitude of industry is; whether they would take elderly workers.

Dr. CHARTERS. The Boeing plant in Chicago, which I visited, takes nobody above the draft age. I would judge that the average age of the people I saw there would be 45 to 50.

Mr. THOMAS. The testimony of Mr. McNutt is that industry is going to be glad to get these people from 45 to 65, because they are going to be forced to take them.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, we certainly cooperate with industry, whatever it says.