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American Wages The United States Steel Corporation and two other large steel-making concerns, employing 300,000 persons, have reduced wages by ten per cent. from October 1st. Smaller firms in the steel trade are following their example, so that, in all, a million workmen will suffer the reduction of pay. The leading firms in the copper industry and the General Motors Company are taking a similar course, while two large concerns in the rubber and artificial silk trades are adopting a five-day week. President Hoover's policy, reaffirmed in 1929, of maintaining the "high American standard of living " by means of high wages has thus suffered a severe check. In view of the vast numbers unemployed, it is believed that the American trade unions can offer no serious resistance to the reductions in wages. American industry professes to fear the com- petition of our manufactures, now that we are off the gold standard and our costs of production are, in terms of dollars, substantially less than before.
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