WAGES. In the following article, which should be read in connexion with those on COST OF LIVING and PRICES, the changes in wages during 1900-20 are considered.
United Kingdom. In the movement of wages in recent years it is specially important to distinguish between rates ' of wages and earnings. Rates of wages are time-rates, sums 1 payable for work in a definite time (hour, week consisting of a j recognized number of hours and, rarely, a longer period) or piece- rates (sums payable for the performance of a definite task, or ' as additions to or in combination with time-rates, when the rate depends both on the quantity produced and the time taken in I producing it). Earnings are the sums actually received by an employee, generally computed for a week or a year; the term is I used specifically when the amount received on piece-rates is in I question, and is also used to include payments for overtime in
- the case of time-workers. Time-rates are generally stated for
| the normal week or if the rate is an hourly one, as in the build- ing trades, both for the hour and for the normal week; to get a comparable statement for piece-rates it is necessary to compute ', the average earnings of a number of men who worked normal [ hours. In modern times a statement of time-rates generally re- [ lates to rates agreed to by associations of employers and em- j ployees or umpired by the Government; these are frequently j minimum rates and the relation between minimum rates and the average of those actually paid to a group of work-people can I only be ascertained by special inquiries, such as those undertaken by the Board of Trade in 1886 and 1906.- The assumption has to be made that between such inquiries average rates have kept the | same proportion to minimum rates, which is only true over a I short period and in the absence of disturbing causes. For piece I payments the assumption that earnings move by the same per- ( centage as the rates can never yield more than an approximation to the facts, and during the war such an assumption would be I completely invalid even if reference was only made to earnings in I a normal week, since there were very important changes in facil- | ities for production, in the effort put into the work and in the nature of the work. In the absence of any general information | about earnings, statistics in the war period must be confined to j statements of time and piece-rates, which do not give a true pic- I ture of the economic position of the working class in that time; ! in 1920, however, industry was more nearly normal and overtime j was relatively uncommon, so that a comparison of rates in 1920 I and 1914 is not altogether misleading. In making such a com- parison the general reduction of hours in 1918 and 1919 must be borne in mind; generally at the dates of reduction piece-rates and hourly rates were raised so as to give approximately the same earnings for the reduced as for the longer week, and weekly rates were the same before and after the reduction, but in some in- dustries an increase for the week was arranged at the same time. Table i shows the general movement from 1890 to 1914. The first column, computed from the XVII. Abstract of Labour Statistics, gives the average of a number of changes of time and of piece-rates. The second and third columns depend on additional data (see Bowley, Elementary Manual of Statistics, 1920, and Wood, Statistical Journal, 1909, p. 103, and 1912-3, p. 220), and give the computed averages based on the numbers in various occupations at the different dates, thus allowing for the relative increase of numbers in the better-paid industries. These figures should be taken in conjunction with the change in retail prices I (see COST OF LIVING); the rise in wages from 1902 to 1913 was neutralized by the falling value of money.
Average annual earnings, allowing for unemployment and overtime, for all wage-earners in the United Kingdom (excluding shop assistants), men, women, boys and girls, are estimated at 51 in 1913 (Change in Distribution of National Income, Bowley, 1920, p. 13); average family earnings were probably between 95 and 100 annually. For full week's work the average earnings of a were about 313., for a woman 143., for a boy us. 6d., and for a
girl 8 shillings. There were very few changes between 1913 and the outbreak of the war.
Table I. Estimates of money earnings of all wages earners in the United Kingdom (expressed as percentages of their level in 1913).
| A table should appear at this position in the text. See Help:Table for formatting instructions. |
Not allowing for changes in relative numbers
Labour Abstract
Allowing for changes in rela- tive numbers
Bowley
Wood
1890
86
83
83
I
87
84
83
2
86
84
83
3
86
84
83
4
85
84
83
5
84
84
83
6
85
84
83
7
86
85
85
8
89
88
85
9
91
90
88
1900
95
95
91
i
94
94
91
2
93
92
90
3
92
91
90
4
92
90
90
5
92
90
89
.6
94
92
93
7
97
97
97
8
96
95
95
9
95
94
94
1910
95
95
95
i
95
96
2
98
99
3
TOO
IOO
The dates and amounts of increase of rates of wages in the
period 1914-20 may be illustrated by the records in a number of
selected industries. The summary in Table 2 is taken from
Bowley's Prices and Wages in the United Kingdom, 1914-1920
(1921), pp. 105-6.
Table 2. Estimate of movements of time-rates (for normal week)
and of piece-rates in the United Kingdom, 191420. (Average rates expressed as percentages of those in 1914).
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
I92O
July
July
July
July
July
July
July
Bricklayers
IOO
103
1 08
123
1 60
1 88
228
Bricklayers' labourers
IOO
103
"3
133
1 80
225
284
Printers (compositors)
IOO
IOO
105
I2O
'57
196
246
Railwaymen
IOO
no
I2O
155
195
225
280
Dock labourers
IOO
IOI
130
15
193
209
266
Cotton operatives
IOO
105
no
no
157
202
205
Woollen and worsted
operatives
IOO
"5
126
144
164
196
239
Engineering artisans
IOO
no
in
134
173
199
231
Engineering lab&urers
IOO
. .
. .
154
213
255
39
Shipbuilding:
Platers' time-rates
IOO
. .
130
169
193
223
Coal-mining
IOO
113
129
136
187
224
260
Aug.
May
Agriculture:
?54 Aug.
England and Wales
IOO
112
189
226
277
General rough aver-
age of percentages
IOO
105
"5
135
i/5
2IO
255
to
to
to '
110
I2O
260
The increases in the first two years of the war often took the form of a weekly war-bonus of the same amount for artisans and labourers (in some cases greater for the latter) to meet the rise of food prices (see COST OF LIVING and PRICKS). In 1917 the usual method of changing miners' wages by percentage was replaced also by flat increases of 2s. or 33. a shift to all underground workers, and no percentage increase was given till March 1920. In engineering and other trades in which munition work formed an important part an addition of i2i% to time-workers and 7!% to piece-workers reckoned on weekly earnings was awarded in
