EFFECT OF MINIMUM-WAGE DETERMINATIONS IN OREGON. To ascertain the effect of the Oregon minimum-wage determinations the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics has recently made a comparison of records of 40 department, dry goods, 5-and-10-cent, specialty, and neighborhood stores for the two spring months, March and April, in 1913, and for the same period in 1914-periods ending five months before and beginning five months after the date on which the first minimum-wage determinations went into effect, and at the same time nearly one month after the date on which the last retailstore determinations took effect. The results of this study are presented in Bulletin No. 176 of the bureau. The number of women under and the number over 18 years, with and without one year of experience in each occupation, was taken for both periods, together with each woman's rate of pay, the hours she worked, the amount of her actual earnings, and, if selling, the amount of her sales in both years. Data for men were taken for the same periods in 1913 and 1914 as to the number employed, the total earnings, and the total sales. The record covered 1,930 women and girls and 974 men before and 1,642 women and girls and 902 men after the determinations went into effect. All data were copied from store books by the bureau's agents. In addition, 443 women were personally visited and a record of their age and experience and their places of employment, occupations, rates of pay, earnings, and hours of work before and after the wage determinations was obtained.

The determinations in Oregon, fixed by the Oregon Industrial Commission, classify female employees in retail stores as girls under 18 years, inexperienced adult women 18 years of age and over with experience of not more than one year in an occupation, and experienced adult women 18 years of age and over having more than one year of experience in an occupation. Any change in the character of service rendered constitutes a change in occupation, and therefore the beginning of a new apprenticeship year. All girls under 18

and inexperienced adult women in retail stores in the State of Oregon must receive a minimum weekly rate of pay of $6; all experienced adult women must receive $8.25, save in Portland, where they must be paid at the minimum rate of $9.25 per week. These awards became operative on different dates, beginning on October 4, 1913, with an award fixing a minimum of $1 a day for girls under 18, followed on November 23 by one fixing a minimum of $9.25 a week for experienced adult women in Portland, and finally by two awards on February 7, 1914, fixing a minimum for experienced adult women outside of Portland of $8.25 a week, and for inexperienced adult women throughout the State a minimum of $6 a week.

In studying the effect of the fixing of minimum wage rates, it is necessary to bear in mind the fact that regardless of minimum-wage determinations there are constant changes in business organization from year to year which have a material bearing upon the opportunities and conditions of employment. New departments are added from time to time, successful departments are expanded, and other departments which have failed to secure the public recognition expected are curtailed and sometimes eliminated. All such rearrangements involve additions to, transfers, or reductions in the labor force. These adjustments are of common occurrence. Any study from which such normal changes were eliminated in the effort to single out the effects of the minimum-wage legislation would defeat its own purpose.

The general business depression of 1914 was felt by Portland mercantile establishments and complicated the problem of determining the effect of the minimum wage. A depression in business automatically reduces the numbers employed. It is therefore important to guard against confusing the effects of depressed business with the effects of minimum-wage determinations. Conditions in Oregon were further complicated because a reduction of legal working hours and a 6 p. m. closing regulation took effect at the same time as the wage orders.

Notwithstanding all the difficulties and complications, a number of conclusions can be drawn concerning changes in conditions of labor after the minimum-wage determinations.

Certain readjustments occurred in Portland stores such as might be expected even in a normal business year. The establishment of new departments and the elimination of other departments requiring different grades of labor brought about the employment of some women and the dismissal of others. A policy of charging for alteration of garments, inaugurated in 1914 by the Portland Retail Merchants' Association, decreased the demand for alterations, thereby necessitating a reduction in the number of women employed in the workroom, a department paying relatively high wages.

The effect of the country-wide depression manifested itself in a marked falling off in sales in many stores. This operated to decrease the labor force, both male and female. These changes in business conditions must be borne in mind, as they account very largely for the decrease in the number of women employees. The decrease in total numbers bears little or no relation necessarily to the minimumwage determinations, but the dismissal of some women rather than of others, because they had completed their apprenticeship period and must therefore be paid a higher wage if retained, can be considered as due to the determinations.

Girls under 18 years of age, for whom the minimum rate is $6 a week, have increased, especially in the errand, bundle-wrapper, and cashier occupations, but not in the more skilled work of selling, sewing, or of the office. These first-named occupations tend to become the sphere for minors to the exclusion of adult women with or without experience, a result, in all probability, of the minimum-wage determinations.

The wage determinations have not put men in positions vacated by women. The causes operating to decrease the number of women also operated to decrease the number of men, though to a less degree, as the nonselling male force is not as adjustable as the nonselling female force.

The rates of pay for women as a whole have increased, but the wages of the three groups have been differently affected. Girls under 18 were benefited. Before the determinations 26 per cent of these were receiving under $6 a week; after the determinations less than 1 per cent were paid under this rate. The proportion getting $6 a week was 53 per cent before and 79 per cent after the determinations, while the proportion getting more than $6 was practically 20 per cent both before and after. Before the determinations the average rate for the whole group was $5.93, while afterwards it was $6.24. The percentages given above show that this increase was mainly due to the increased wages of the girls who were formerly getting under $6. Evidently the more poorly paid girls have been benefited, while the better paid have not suffered.

For adult inexperienced women the results were not so favorable. Only 9 of this group had been getting less than $6 a week in the 1913 period, and only one was found who received less than this rate after the determinations. The average rate per week decreased slightly, falling from $6.88 to $6.84; before the determinations 59 per cent of the group received more than $6; after the determinations, only 50 per cent. The old employees did not suffer a reduction of wages, but the place of a $28 or a $30 a month girl was filled by a $26 girl.

For adult experienced women the wage determinations brought an improvement of conditions. There was an increase not only in the proportion receiving $9.25 (the legal minimum in Portland), but also

in the proportion receiving more than $9.25. The proportion of the force getting $12 and over a week also increased, although the actual number decreased. The average rate of pay for the whole group in Portland was before the determinations $11.74, after them $11.97. Some experienced women in Portland were still receiving rates below the minimum to which the determinations entitled them, but the number receiving these lower rates had decreased under the determinations from 344 to 102.

The net result seems to be an advance for the women as a whole. Women entering retail stores no longer have to begin at a $4 or $5 wage. There has been no leveling down of wages to a minimum. Some women, upon reinstatement after an absence, were compelled to accept only the rate to which they were legally entitled, although it was below that received during their earlier service, but whenever the wage rates of old employees have been changed since the minimum-wage rulings, the employees were benefited.

Employment was more regular in 1914 than in 1913. This was due in part to the fact that under depressed business conditions fewer new employees were taken on to fill vacancies. The disparity between rates and earnings was therefore less in 1914, but sufficiently large in that year to call attention sharply to the importance of giving unemployment consideration in making minimum-wage determinations. The Oregon commission took no cognizance of unemployment, confining its first attempts to determining the minimum amount below which a self-supporting woman could not subsist in health and comfort, and to fixing this amount as the minimum rate of pay. Whether conditions in the retail-store business in Oregon would permit a steadiness of employment that would insure average earnings approximating the minimum rates to any woman able and willing to work steadily is a question which would have involved an extensive and expensive investigation to answer satisfactorily. It is important, however, to know the extent of unemployment and also the extent to which the difference between actual and full-time hours is due to business conditions, to illness, to voluntary and personal absences from duty, or to other causes.

A comparison of sales made by women raised to or receiving the minimum with those of women above the minimum does not reveal differences that would indicate a decrease in the efficiency of those affected by the wage determinations. The numbers for whom comparable data on this subject could be secured were too limited, however, to warrant conclusions.

All the changes arising from decreased business, reorganization of departments, and increased rates of pay resulted in an increase in the female labor cost and also in the total labor cost of 3 mills per dollar of sales.