Comparison of Actual Weekly Earnings in Different Departments of a Large Industrial Plant Showing Percentage of Men in Each Department Receiving More than Any Specified Amount of Earnings per Week

This illustration was made by photographing directly from the universallj' ruled paper shown also in Figures 57, 103, 130 and 134. The scales and the different titles were put on the paper with a typewriter. Lack of steady work caused many of the laborers to get the very small earnings sho-n-n by the upper portion of the curve marked "Laborers"

FREQUENCY CURVES 183

week. The fact that 20 per cent of all the laborers earn less than $5.00 per week is due to intermittent employment given laborers in this particular business. As $5.00 per week is not a living wage for any man, the shape of the cumulative curve for the laborers at once points out the desirabilitj^ of some change in management by which fewer men might be employed and all the men employed more steadily than indicated by the curve for laborers in Fig. 156. Since all the laborers were paid the same rate per hour, the only possible explanation of the fact that a large number of men earn as little as $5.00 per week must be that the laborers were not employed continuously. More continuity of employment for a smaller number of laborers would, in this particular case, have resulted in more money being paid on an average to each man, so that the men would, to all essential purposes, have received an increase in pay even though the hourly wage rate were not increased.