ARE E BETTER OFF ?

By COLIN CLARK Before we say anything about the economic position of the average family, the first thing we must examine is its size. This is falling rapidly. Everyone knows that the representative working-class family does not consist of father, mother, and a number of dependent children ; the most frequent type has more than one wage-earner ; a large proportion of the population, in fact, lives in families with three or more wage-earners. During the last 15 years the size of the family has been falling rapidly. An approximate figure for the average working-class family is as follows :— Earners. Total.

1911 .. 1.8 4.1 1924 • • 1.9 4.2 1936 1.7 3.7 The size of the average family increased between 1911 and 1924, and since then has been decreasing fast. The decline in the number of dependants in recent years can easily be explained by a fall in birth-rate. The increase between 1911 and 1924 is much more surprising. This is not due to any increase in the number of children—in fact they were declining—but was one of the most striking effects of the housing shortage of those years. One of the most important effects of this shortage was to force people to go into "families " who might in other circumstances have lived in separate houses; the amount of discomfort and friction which underlies these figures cannot be described statistically. In the same way, the ample supply of new houses which has been available during the last seven years has had the effect of enabling families to live apart who had hitherto been living together. We have thus the curious but inevitable paradox that the building of new houses causes the breaking up of old homes. It is said that the operation of the Means Test has been the cause of breaking up of a certain number of homes, but this cause is probably less important than the simple effect of the building of numbers of new houses. An income of ‘25o a year makes a convenient dividing-line. The families whose head has an income of over £250 a year, and which may be described as middle-class, take about half the national income, working-class families taking the remainder. Working-class families, defined in this way, number about ;ths of the population. An income of L25o nowadays corresponds almost exactly in purchasing power to k760 in 1911. At that date people with incomes over 160 a year also took about half the national income, so, in spite of the large changes in recent years, the fundam ental distribution of income remains much the same.

The mast interesting thing that has happened in the last 25 years has been the increase in numbers of middle-class families. This has been partly offset by some decline in the number of farmers and small traders. There has also been a large increase in the number of families of what are rather inaptly called "black-coated proletariat," that is to say clerks, shop assistants, &c., earning less than £25o a year. In America these are called "white collar occupations," which is considerably more precise, because the white collar has survived the death of the black coat. No stylist has yet invented a phrase which will cover women workers in the same category ; however, if we lump them together under the rather clumsy title of "shop and office workers with salaries below £250," we find that their numbers have also greatly increased. If we again take a salary of £160 in 1911 as an equivalent of £250 today, in the following table we can show the increase in numbers. (The description "independent worker" covers people like small farmers, shopkeepers and those who do not work for wages themselves, and do not employ others.) Percentage of Working Population. 1911 1930 • • • • 1.9 5.6 13.8 15.9 14.2 12.0 The highly paid salary worker, who used to constitute a very small section of the community in 1911, has trebled his numbers and more than doubled his share of the national income in the last 25 years. "White collar workers" were already fairly numerous in 191 1, but have continued to increase in numbers. Manual-work* wage-earners, how- ever, still constitute two-thirds of the working population.

Many people are aware of this increase in the number of salary-earners and office-workers, and view it with appre- hension. They say that professions and offices are becoming overcrowded, that too many boys are being trained for Highly paid salary earners • • Lower paid salary earners.. .. Employers and independent workers work of this sort, and that professional and black-coated unemployment is becoming a very grave problem.

They are exactly and diametrically wrong, as they will find if they examine the statistics of unemployment class by class. - In 1931, which was a year of fairly severe unem- ployment, the following were the percentages unemployed in different types of work :

Unskilled manual workers ..

• •

30.5 Skilled and semi-skilled manual workers ..

14.4

Salesmen and shop assistants

7.9 Clerks and typists ..

5.5 Higher office workers..

5.r Professions* •.

5.5

The amount of unemployment among office workers is completely -overshadowed' by the -far greater amount of unemployment among manual workers, and a working-class father will clearly -be able to give his son a more secure livelihood- if he 'gets. him into a• shop or an office than if he remain'* Manual worker. • The movement into middle-class jobs is therefore in response to powerful economic forces, namely the pressure of unemployment and insecurity of the working-class, and he strong demand for more salaried .workers owing to the far greater complexity of present-day beighiesS anh of adminis- tration. The vehicle for transferring population is, or should be, the educational system. Whether it is working adequately is ,another question. However, it has so far created, this big incre4e in ".salariat,". and their numbers continue to rise.

How well off are they ? Comparison of average salaries is, of course, affected -by the changes in the cost of living, and in the following table the 1911 figures are re-expressed at the 1930 value of money :

• ..

* Unemployment in the professions in 1931 was largely accounted for by the existence of large numbers of unemployed actors and musicians. Excluding these, it was only z per cent.

AVERAGE INCOMES PER HEAD.

The decline in the first category does not, of course, mean. that high salaries have in general been reduced, but is largely the reflection of the addition of large numbers of new persons to this class, mostly at the lower end of the salary scale. The average employer or small trader is in much the same position now as in 1911. His numbers have been decreasing slightly. The lower paid salary, earner has improved his position. This again is not due to increases in the salaries for individual jobs, but to the addition of large numbers of new posts, in this case at the higher end of the salary scale, in offices of various types.

Between 1911 and 1930 the average income produced per worker, measured at 1930 prices, increased by 21 per cent. The distribution and utilisation of this income was very curious. The share of salary earners rose from 15.6 per cent. to 25.3 per cent., but more as the result of an increase in their numbers than in their average income. The share of the wage-earner remained almost exactly the same at 40 per cent., but there was a decline in the share taken by profits, interest and rent. Since 1930 there has again been a remarkable stability in the proportions into which the national income is divided up. Wage earners' share rose to 42.8 per cent. in 1931 and has since fallen back to 40 per cent. The salary earner continues to take 25 per cent., and the recipients of rent, profit and interest the remaining 35 per cent. Since 1930 the value of income produced per person in work, allowing for changes in prices, has risen by another 81 per cent., so each section of the community is better off, and in almost exaztly the same proportion.

,C per annum 1911 1930 Higher salaried workers .. • . 696

643

Employers and independent workers

456

443 Lower salaried workers ..

18 572

Whole working population.. ..

589 230