the males receive less than $500 per year, and from a tenth to a fifth of the females receive less than $250 per year. Thus the great bulk of the males are paid wage rates varying from $500 to $1,000, while the great bulk of the females are paid wage rates of from $250 to $500. To this general statement, Oklahoma and California are exceptions. The wage rates there are considerably higher than in the east.
The figures for the manufacturing industries, in the states compiling such figures, include practically all of the persons occupied in the manufacturing industries within a given state. The Census figures include only a fraction of the employees engaged in the manufacturing industry. The Census figures are interesting chiefly because they include a wide geographical range. They virtually cover an industry for the entire country. They differ in no essential particular from the conclusions already derived from the state and special wage figures.
IX. The Income of Wage-Earners Engaged in Public Utilities
Recent studies have made available a few figures which show the scale of wages paid by public utilities. These wages are higher than the wages for industry in general, but they are not materially higher than the wages paid in the other man-employing industries.
Three states (New York, Oklahoma and Kansas) publish wage rates for public utilities. The New York figures are for the First District. There were in 1911 38,139 employees on the street railways of the First District. Of this number the wages of 9,635 men employed by "selected" companies are tabulated. Of the total, 5 per cent, received less than $500 per year; two fifths received less than $750; and nine tenths received less than $1,000.[1] The gas and electric companies in the same district report the employment of 16,741 men, for whom the range of wages is considerably higher than the range for street railway employees. Eight per cent, were receiving wage rates under $500, 45 per cent, under $750, three quarters under $1,000, and nine tenths under $1,250.[2]
The figures for the two Western States differ little from those for New York. The Oklahoma report, covering 1,129 adult males engaged in public utilities, gives the wage rates for two thirds as under $750, and nine tenths as under $1,000.[3] In Kansas, of the 702 adult males reported as employed, three quarters received less than $750, and 95 per cent, less than $1,000.[4]
The compensation rates of persons employed in public utilities are fairly uniform. These occupations apparently range among the better
