TABLE 2. AVERAGE STRAIGHT-TIME Hourly EarninGS1 AND PERCENT OF PRODUCTION WORKERS Earning Less THAN SPECIFIED AMOUNTS, SELECTED INDUSTRIES, UNITED STATES, MAY 1958 the other hand, the component industries within the fabricated metal products, machinery, and transportation equipment industry groups showed little variation in either levels or distributions of earnings. Wage Changes, April 1954 to May 1958 Between the Bureau's last comprehensive study of the distribution of factory workers' earnings in April 1954 and the present survey, average earnings at straight-time rates advanced 17 percent, from $1.68 to $1.97 an hour. The number of production workers estimated in the May 1958 manufacturing survey was 1,345,000 fewer than the 122 million in April 1954. The proportion of workers earning less than $1-the Federal minimum wage effective March 1, 1956-all but disappeared between the two survey periods; the proportion earning between $1.50 to $2 an hour declined substantially, while the proportion earning $2 or more increased from a fourth to a half. The percentage distribution of production workers by average earnings for the two periods are as follows: NOTE: Because of rounding, sums of individual items may not equal totals. The increase in factory workers' earnings from 1954 to 1958 changed to some extent the wage relationships in each of the four geographic regions. Pay levels increased during the 4-year period by 27 cents in the Northeast and the South, 32 cents in the West, and by 33 cents in the North Central. Consequently, while the cents-per-hour differentials widened only between the South and the latter two regions, percentage differentials narrowed slightly between the South and all other regions. -HERBERT SCHAFFER Division of Wages and Industrial Relations The high cost of living . . . is merely the common term used to express the relation between the price of labor (wages) and the prices of foods, clothes, houseroom, fuel, etc. The high cost of living stalked through the land even in the days of Charlemagne when a whole beef could be bought for less than the price of a single sirloin steak today. Men complained bitterly of the high cost of living in that golden age when eggs sold for 8 cents a dozen instead of 8 cents a piece. Probably we pay at least 20 times as much for the necessities and comforts of life today as men paid in the thirteenth century, but the cost of living is no higher now than then, and we undoubtedly live much more comfortably, completely, and healthfully. In fact, we might say that generally the lower the prices the higher the cost of living. In India and China, long the countries of lowest prices, the cost of living is so high as to put life itself beyond the purchasing power of tens of thousands of the people. -Royal Meeker, The Possibility of Compiling a Cost of Living Index (in Monthly Multiple Jobholding in the United States ONE OF THE SIGNIFICANT PHENOMENA of postwar labor market history in the United States has been the increase in the number of workers who hold down two or more jobs during the same week. = Multiple jobholding-or "moonlighting" as it is often referred to-has generated considerable interest because of its relationships to the trends in hours of work, the income status of families, and the alternations in employment opportunities with changing business conditions. The U.S. Bureau of the Census conducted a series of surveys of multiple jobholding in connection with the Monthly Report on the Labor Force, covering 1 week during July in each of the years 1950, 1956, 1957, and 1958.1 These surveys show the following changes in the overall number and percent of workers with two or more jobs: conclusion that the current decade has witnessed a sizable increase in the number of such workers. In July of recent years, at any rate, about 1 out of every 20 American workers had two or more jobs during the survey week. Multiple jobholding fell, however, during the recent recession. The number of workers with more than one job declined by one-half million between July 1957 and July 1958. This was a 14percent drop, in contrast to a 3-percent loss in total employment over the same period of time. Characteristics of Multiple Jobholders The most recent Census report (for July 1958) contains a significant amount of information on both the personal and economic characteristics of workers who hold more than one job. Multiple jobholding was found to be much more prevalent among men than women. In fact, the proportion of men workers holding down more than one job (6 percent) was about triple the rate for women in July 1958 (table 1). As might be expected in view of his greater financial responsibilities, it was the married man who had the highest rate of multiple jobholding. Among the adult males (25 years of age and over) the proportion of the married men having more than one job was more than double that for the single men. The reverse was true among the women. Working wives had the lowest rates of multiple jobholding, single women had the highest. As a matter of fact, among workers 25 years of age and over, single women were just as apt to hold more than one job as were single men. In terms of sheer numbers, it was the wage and salary worker in nonfarm activities who accounted for most of the multiple jobholding (table 2). 1 All data in this article are based on or derived from Current Population Reports, Labor Force, Series P-50, Nos. 30 (March 31, 1951), 74 (April 1957), 80 (February 1958), and 88 (April 1959). For purposes of these surveys, multiple jobholders include wage and salary workers with more than one employer during the survey week and persons with a combination of a wage and salary job and either self-employment or unpaid family work. Persons employed only in private households (e.g., maids and babysitters) who worked for more than one employer are not counted as multiple jobholders; private household employees who also had other types of employment are, however, so counted. Similarly, self-employed persons and unpaid family workers were counted as multiple jobholders only if they also worked at a wage or salary job. About 214 million, or 73 percent, of all the workers holding down more than one job in July 1958 were nonagricultural wage and salary earners on their primary jobs.2 Several other important dimensions of multiple jobholding are evident. Table 2 shows, for example, that the preponderant proportion of persons with more than one job tend to stay within the same class of worker on both their primary and secondary jobs. This was the case for almost two out of every three nonagricultural wage and salary workers (the biggest group numerically, as already indicated) and for well over half of the wage and salary workers in agriculture. Nevertheless, there were some very important instances of shifts in class of work, particularly among the self-employed. For example, two out of every three multiple jobholders who were self-employed on the farm were working as nonagricultural wage and salary earners on their A person's primary job (or business) is that at which he worked the greatest number of hours during the week. Self-employed persons who owned two businesses-excluded from this count by definition-were very few in number. 4 Under Census rules, teachers with definite contracts to resume teaching in the fall are counted as employed during the summer vacation; where such teachers were working at another job during July, they would be classified as multiple jobholders. second jobs. Similarly, just about all of the selfemployed in nonagriculture held a secondary wage and salary job off the farm. Occupational Distribution Some of the most significant aspects of multiple jobholding can be derived from the occupational returns of the Census surveys. They serve to answer at least two questions: (1) What occupations account for the highest rates of multiple jobholding? and (2) How do the occupations of the primary and secondary jobs compare? Off by themselves were farm laborers, with by far the highest rates of multiple jobholding. About 1 out of 11 farm laborers and 1 out of 12 farmers had a second job during the survey week in July 1958. (See chart.) There was a considerable range of multiple jobholding among the different occupational groups in the nonfarm sector, however; the highest rate (found among professional personnel and accounted for in good part by men teachers) was almost double that of the lowest rate (found among managerial personnel). By far the great majority (more than 70 percent) of the multiple jobholders were working in two entirely different occupational categories on their primary and secondary jobs. Aside from the farm laborers, only the professional and technical workers had as many as half the multiple jobholders working in the same occupation on Holding down more than one job meant a coniderably longer workweek for the multiple jobholder (table 3). The difference in working hours between the single and the multiple jobolder was not very great in agriculture where ong hours are the rule anyway. For workers in onagriculture, however, the difference was substantial indeed. For example, the proportion of nultiple jobholders who were wage and salary workers in nonagricultural industries who put in #1 or more hours a week in July 1958 was more Chan double that of persons with one job only; the proportion of these holders of two or more obs putting in 49 or more hours a week was just about quadruple that of single jobholders. In important industry groups such as manufacturing, he differences were even larger. In putting in these longer hours of work, muliple jobholders held different combinations of full- and part-time jobs. Data on hours worked n July 1958, which are available for about 1.8 nillion nonagricultural workers, or about threeifths of the multiple job total, show that the typical pattern was a combination of a full-time and · part-time job: 65 percent had a full-time pri NOTE: Dashes indicate a base of less than 150,000 workers. mary job and a part-time secondary job; 30 percent worked part-time on both jobs, and the remaining 5 percent had two full-time jobs. Future Research As already indicated, the surveys conducted so far have pertained to the month of July only. July is one of the seasonal peaks in multiple jobholding. Also, it is the month for which information on the number of persons holding more than one job may be particularly useful for assessing differences in employment trends as shown by household survey and by establishment reporting. The former counts a worker only once, no matter how many different jobs he holds during the week; the latter counts him in each of the different jobs he holds if he should appear on different payrolls. Resources permitting, it is hoped that future surveys will be carried out during various months of the year so that seasonal patterns in both extent and composition of multiple jobholding can be established. -SEYMOUR L. WOLFBEIN Division of Manpower and Employment Statistics 511024-593 |