II.2. The Money Income of the Worker in America and Europe

The chief source for the statistics of wages in the United States is formed by the census and the reports of the bureaus of labour statistics, on whose arrangement and importance I have spoken in my survey of the literature in vol. XX of the Archiv für Soz. Wiss. (cf. there nos. 2 to 20). Accordingly, a series of calculations of average wages and a large number of statistics of wage classes are at our disposal. The chief thing will be to set against suitably chosen American figures, as far as possible, comparable figures for Europe, in particular for Germany.

1. Average wages are given by the census, the problem child of official wage statistics: cf. my “Survey”, pp. 639 ff. In spite of all methodological misgivings I will nevertheless at least record the following quite general results of these inquiries:

The average annual wage of all industrial workers in 1900 was:

In this table what strikes one above all is the distance of the southern states from all the others; it is therefore expedient to add the average for the United States excluding the southern states; this was, respectively,

That these are not wholly fantastic figures is supported by the circumstance that the average wages in the various economic regions of the Union on the one hand do not differ too greatly from one another, and on the other hand do express fairly correctly the differences of economic culture. If we want to compare these quite crude average wages with similar figures in European countries, then the suitable object of comparison is no doubt offered by the average wages of our trade accident-insurance associations (Berufsgenossenschaften). Of course the American wages must then likewise be set beside them separately for the individual groups of industry (but uniformly for the whole country, in order to balance out all local differences, as in the German figures). For Germany I choose the same year for which the figures of the census hold — 1900 — that is, the year of the highest boom, whereby the leaving out of account of wages over 4 marks is probably more than balanced, so that the figures for Germany rather represent a maximum. For the sake of clarity I have converted the dollar into marks (= 4.20).

The various amounts within the same group of trades are explained, in the German figures, by the differences between the individual parts of the country, and in the American by the circumstance that several branches of industry, for which different average wages hold, correspond to the German group of industry. The compilation comprises all the groups of industry for which comparable figures could be ascertained at all:

Average annual wages were paid (1900) in:

The official statistical returns on the wages of workers in German mining owe their existence to a method of calculation similar to that by which the wages of the trade associations are ascertained. We may fairly set them against the wages calculated continuously by the census method for American mining. Both are again average annual wages. I give them for the year 1902. In that year the workers employed in American coal-mining (men, women and children taken together) earned

In Prussian coal-mining, on the other hand, wages in the same year were as follows:

2. The average-wage calculations are supplemented by the methodologically so much more valuable statistics of wage classes, in which America is especially rich. The Union now possesses a special wage statistic of undoubted value, in which the effective wages of 720 industrial establishments have been worked up by the wage-class system (no. 2b of my “Survey”), and besides it an immense number of valuable publications of the various bureaus of labour statistics, which I have likewise mentioned in my “Survey”. Unfortunately we cannot set against them, for comparison, anything like so many or such good wage-class statistics for Germany. Officially nothing of the kind has been published at all, so that we must be glad to possess at least a series of able private works with wage-statistical material of value, with whose help we can after all make some instructive comparisons. With a view to these German objects of comparison, I make my selection from the immense mass of American material accordingly: in such a way that a maximum of comparability is achieved.

Wage statistics relate either to all (or numerous) industrial workers of a locality or to the workers of a particular branch. Of the type named first I will set side by side for comparison: the wage statistics for Massachusetts (cf. no. 15 of my “Survey”) and those for Illinois (no. 18 of my “Survey”), and the wage statistics that we possess of the Stuttgart workers, the wage-statistical inquiries undertaken by the factory inspector Fuchs into the industrial workers in 17 rural communities near Karlsruhe, and the investigations into the Hanau workers.

That such a comparison is not free of objection I am very well aware. But I believe nevertheless that it is not wholly unjustified and therefore not without value. Certainly I should rather compare a wage-class statistic for the Kingdom of Saxony with that of Massachusetts, but we simply have nothing better. And what helps to some extent to dispel the misgivings that must be raised above all against the inequality of the areas compared is the consideration that the most various trades are united in each area of comparison, and that with the still considerable extent of the private German inquiries too (the Stuttgart one extended to 6,028, the Hanau one to 2,382, the Karlsruhe one, it is true, only to something over 1,000 workers) strong differences are to some extent balanced out. Above all, however, a glance at the individual tables gives encouragement. For there results an astonishing similarity in the structure of the various wage levels in the American statistics on the one hand and in the German on the other: a proof that one is dealing after all with tolerably reliable, because typical, figures. If one wants to go quite safely, one may make an addition of 10 or 15 per cent to the wage rates of the German investigations drawn in for comparison (because they relate to South Germany and the one to rural industries). Then, however, I believe for certain that the average wage conditions of German industrial workers (that is, so far as they do not belong exclusively to highly paid industries) come to expression fairly correctly in our tables.

The wage structure in the industry of Massachusetts and Illinois gives (for the year 1900) the following picture:

Of every 100 men there had a weekly wage of

Likewise of every 100 women:

The German industrial workers, on the other hand, are divided by their wages as follows.

Of every 100 men there earned a weekly wage of

Likewise of every 100 women:

If one considers the broad features of these series of figures, the following outlines can be drawn in a clear way:

Of 100 men, less than 24 marks (6 dollars) was earned:

In Illinois about as many (63.77 per cent) of the men earned between 38 and 84 marks (9 and 20 dollars) a week as earned between 15 and 27 marks in the neighbourhood of Karlsruhe (67.1 per cent). Four-fifths (81.26, and 79.2 and 82.5 per cent respectively) of the men, that is, the great majority, earned between 30 and 84 marks (7 and 20 dollars) in Massachusetts, and between 15 and 27 marks in Stuttgart and Hanau.

More than 20 marks (5 dollars) was earned in the German areas of inquiry by only very few women (over 15 marks: 0.8 and 1.5 per cent respectively), in the American by 80.04 and 66.57 per cent. Four-fifths of the women, who in Germany earned between 6 and 12 marks, had a weekly wage of between 20 and 50 marks in Massachusetts.

Let us now see whether these results are confirmed by the wage statistics arranged by branches of trade.

For the workers in coal-mining we possess an American wage-class statistic in the census report, and a (west-)German one in the figures of the Knappschaftsverein in Bochum, which present the following picture for the same year (1902):

Of every 1,000 workers employed in American coal-mining (excluding anthracite), a daily wage was drawn of

In the Ruhr district, on the other hand, of every 1,000 miners there had a daily wage of

I have deliberately arranged the total number of wage-earners in the two countries in approximately the same groups, in order to make the picture clearer.

Comparable figures can also be set against each other for the cigar industry. True, for Germany they relate to the Grand Duchy of Baden, the region of the lowest cigar-workers’ wages: one may put the German average 50 to 100 per cent higher. I have therefore taken out for America too only the figures that hold for the southern states (so far as possible, namely for men’s wages; particular data on the wages of women workers in the cigar industry are not given for the southern states, so here I had to take the national average). I have again formed equal groups as far as possible. Thus: of every 1,000 adult men (over 16 years) in Baden there earned a weekly wage

and likewise in the American southern states (for the year 1890, because it is closer to the German statistics)

Of every 1,000 adult women employed in the tobacco (cigar) industry, there drew a weekly wage in Baden of

and likewise in the United States

Likewise from the sphere of activity of the unforgotten Woerishoffer comes a wage-class statistic for five chemical factories. Of every 100 workers there drew (in 1896) an average weekly wage of

The great mass of the workers (three-quarters to four-fifths) earns in factories B, D and E between 15 and 27 or 24 marks (74.59, 77.17, 85.47 per cent), in factory F between 18 and 30 marks (72.60 per cent), in factory C between 12 and 21 marks (79.29 per cent). Wages in the chemical factories of Baden are, so far as I know, not especially low, but come close to the average for Germany. It will therefore be permissible to set against them the wages in the chemical industry of America at the average for the United States. According to the supplement to the census, they give the following picture. Of every 1,000 male workers over 16 years (other categories of workers are not listed), there drew a weekly wage of

The earnings of the great mass (76.3 per cent) thus moved between 31.50 and 52.50 marks.

Finally, I set against each other the wages of the workers in the woodworking industries. For this category of workers we possess for Germany in the inquiries of the woodworkers’ union valuable material, which, it is true, gives a picture of wage conditions only in very broad outline. According to it — of 71,054 workers — weekly earnings were

In the United States, on the other hand, of 38,387 workers there earned weekly

But I think these examples may suffice. However open to challenge every individual figure, and in particular every comparison between German and American figures, may be from the standpoint of a strict statistical method: in their totality they nevertheless give, in my judgement, a wholly accurate picture: this is supported by the agreement of figures coming from the most various sources. I believe that on the basis of the figures before us one can say this with fair certainty: money wages in the United States are two to three times as high as in Germany. At least twice as high: for hardly a single comparison gave a smaller margin; on the other hand the cases are numerous in which the American wage amounts to three times the German, while in isolated (probably not typical) cases it reaches four times: the sugar industry, the cigar industry if we take Baden for comparison: compare, on the other hand, the average wage of the tobacco trade association, which amounts to a third to a half of the American. One can perhaps also formulate the judgement thus: American wages (leaving aside, say, the South) are 100 per cent higher than wages in the best-paid regions of Germany (the West), and certainly 150–200 per cent higher than in the regions of Germany with low wages (the East, parts of the South). The miners’ wages offer the best evidence for this.

But we did not, after all, want to ascertain the wages of the American workers, but the height of their standard of living. The task is therefore now to establish what quantity of goods the worker can acquire with his so much higher money wages, and whether here too the distance between the American and the German worker proves as great as in money wages. It is thus the question of the height of real wages that we shall first try to answer, with regard to general price conditions.