Wages
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Wages. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
payment made for labor. The term is somewhat vague. As distinguished from the salary paid a manager, a clerk, a teacher, or a clergyman, and the fee of the lawyer or physician, the word carries with it the idea of manual labor. It is difficult to draw the line. We hear of a section man's wages and a railroad president's salary, but we may regard the conductor's pay as wages or as salary indifferently. The question of what wages should be paid, especially by owners of mines, building contractors, printers, manufacturers, and all large employers of labor is a difficult one. It is natural for the workman to desire all he can get, and for the employer to pay as little as he may. Some writers have tried to show that wages are ever the least that wage earners can live upon; others, that wages are determined by the profits of the business. It is certain that laborers perish when wages are not sufficient to maintain life; and it is equally certain that when wages are so high as to eat up all the profits employers go out of business and cease to pay wages. Between these limits a constant struggle is going on. An opinion is widely prevalent that the laborer should receive a living wage and a further share of the profits, if any. Many employers maintain that a profit-sharing system of payment secures interest in the success of the enterprise in hand and obtains the best service for the wages paid. Then, too there is the question of real and nominal wages. Real wages are to be reckoned in the quantity of the necessities of life that earnings will buy rather than in the dollars and cents of nominal wages. Statistics of prices and of wages show that real wages have advanced rapidly in the United States . The average wage of 1900 bought three times as much food, clothing, and general comfort as the wage of 1840, but people need so much more nowadays in order to be considered comfortable, that the wage earner has need for all he can earn and more into the bargain. According to the census for 1900 the manufacturers of the United States employed 5,370,814 wage earners, counting men, women, and children who worked by the day, week, hour, or piece, but not counting clerks, managers, etc. The total amount paid by manufacturers for wages during the year was $2,323,055,634, an average for the year of $432.53 per person. Counting 300 working days in a year, this gives an average wage of $1.44 per day. The wages of men alone are higher. For the period of five years from 1900 to 1905 the cost of living has risen much faster than wages. The same statement is true for the period 1905-10. Wages are higher in Australia, Canada, and the United States than elsewhere. Women weed the oatfields of Scotland for twenty cents a day. Unskilled laborers work in the smelting establishments of Glasgow at from thirty to sixty cents a day. Carpenters in Belgium are paid liberally, so employers think, at $1 a day. Farm laborers in Germany receive from twenty-three cents to forty-eight cents a day. Factory hands may be had in Japan for fourteen cents a day. The artificial flower makers of Saxony earn seven cents an hour; lace makers get two and one-half cents an hour. The weavers of Aix-la-Chapelle have from sixty to ninety cents a day. The broom makers of Milan work for thirty-five cents a day. The toy makers of Nuremberg earn from fifteen cents to sixty cents a day. The lemon pickers of Sicily earn from eight to forty cents; the licorice diggers of Turkey fifteen cents; the rug weavers of Smyrna nineteen cents a day. The French coal miner works for ninety-two cents a day; the Welsh shepherd for fifty cents; the Russian landholder hires men in the springtime for thirty-four cents and women for twenty-one cents, but in hay-cutting time he has to come up to forty-one cents for men and thirty-three cents a day for women, though, if he gives board, wages are five cents a day less for women and eight cents less for men. The tobacco planter of Java pays top prices when he employs men at sixteen cents a day, women at twelve cents, and children at six cents. The Chinese street laborer works for ten cents a day, but the painter, the paperhanger, the blacksmith, the carpenter, the mason, and the bricklayer expect from twenty to twenty-seven cents a day. Japanese mechanics in the cities begin at forty cents, but the more skillful workmen earn $1 a day. As to wages in the United States, definite information is published in the bulletins of the United States Bureau of Labor. The report for 1907 gives the average wage for forty-one industries. Representative wages are: Occupation. Wages per hour. Baker $0.25 Blacksmith 30 Stonemasons 51 Bricklayers 62 Plumber 53 Carpenter 40 Painter 38 Hodcarriers 31 Lumbermen, with board 17 Streets and Sewers-- Contractors 19 Cities 22 Farm labor, with board 10 Iron and steel workers 13 to .98 Cigarmakers-- Men 31 Women 16 Woolen Mills-- Men $0.15 to .20 Women 10 to .16 Cotton Mills-- Men 11 to .30 Women 06 to .14 Clothing Factories-- Men 21 to .44 Women 09 to .16 Boot and Shoe Factories-- Men 25 to .39 Women 17 to .24 Bookbinders 32 Job printers 33 Compositors 23 to .44 Press Feeders-- Men 19 Women 13 Proofreaders-- Men 41 Women 30 Newspaper Work-- Compositors 51 Pressmen 44 Stereotypers 48 Linotype operators 57 The prices given in the foregoing table are from seven to fifty per cent higher than those that prevailed in the same industries in 1890, the building trades having advanced the hourly wages forty-four per cent, and street contractors fifty-four per cent. The average advance for the forty-one occupations is twenty-eight per cent. A statement of the cost of commodities between 1890 and 1908 may be gleaned from statistics published in London by A. Sauerbeck and in Washington by the United States Bureau of Labor. The Sauerbeck table of prices is as follows: SAUERBECK'S TABLE OF PRICES. 1878 87 1879 83 1880 88 1881 85 1882 84 1883 82 1884 76 1885 72 1886 69 1887 68 1888 70 1889 72 1890 72 1891 72 1892 68 1893 68 1894 63 1895 62 1896 61 1897 62 1898 64 1899 68 1900 75 1901 70 1902 69 1903 69 1904 70 1905 72 1906 77 1907 80 1908 73 The London statistics as given above cover the average prices of forty-five articles needed by a British workingman's family. Mr. Sauerbeck takes as a basis the average cost of these articles during the years 1867-77. Starting with 100 as the average price during these years, he constructed the preceding scale, showing that the same articles and quantities cost not quite three-fourths as much during 1908 as during the years 1877-87. The tables of the United States Bureau begin with 1890. Some 250 standard articles are grouped in nine classes. The average price of the articles for the years 1890-1900 is taken as a basis and is considered 100. The table shows that prices in this country ran down to 1896-7 and that they have been coming up ever since. The tables prepared by the United States Bureau of Labor are as follows: BUREAU OF LABOR TABLE OF PRICES. Farm Food, Clothes and Year. products. etc. clothing. 1890. . . . . 110.0 112.4 113.5 1891. . . . . 121.5 115.7 111.3 1892. . . . . 111.7 103.6 109.0 1893. . . . . 107.9 110.2 107.2 1894. . . . . 95.9 99.8 96.1 1895. . . . . 93.3 94.6 92.7 1896. . . . . 78.3 83.3 91.3 1897. . . . . 85.2 87.7 91.1 1898. . . . . 96.1 94.4 93.4 1899. . . . . 100.0 98.3 96.7 1900. . . . . 109.5 104.2 106.8 1901. . . . . 116.9 105.9 101.0 1902. . . . . 130.5 111.3 102.0 1903. . . . . 118.8 107.1 106.6 1904. . . . . 126.2 107.2 109.8 1905. . . . . 124.2 108.7 112.0 1906. . . . . 123.6 112.6 120.0 1907. . . . . 137.1 117.8 126.7 1908. . . . . 133.1 120.6 116.9 Fuel Metals Lumber & and and building Year. lighting. implements. materials. 1890. . . . . 104.7 119.2 111.8 1891. . . . . 102.7 111.7 108.4 1892. . . . . 101.1 106.0 102.8 1893. . . . . 100.0 100.7 101.9 1894. . . . . 92.4 90.7 96.6 1895. . . . . 98.1 92.0 94.1 1896. . . . . 104.3 93.7 93.4 1897. . . . . 96.4 86.6 90.4 1898. . . . . 95.4 86.4 95.8 1899. . . . . 105.0 114.7 105.8 1900. . . . . 120.9 120.5 115.7 1901. . . . . 119.5 111.9 116.7 1902. . . . . 134.3 117.2 118.8 1903. . . . . 149.3 117.6 121.4 1904. . . . . 132.6 109.6 122.7 1905. . . . . 128.8 122.5 127.8 1906. . . . . 131.9 135.2 140.1 1907. . . . . 135.0 143.4 146.9 1908. . . . . 130.8 125.4 133.1 Drugs House All and furnishing com- Year. chemicals. goods. modities. 1890. . . . . 110.2 111.1 112.9 1891. . . . . 103.6 110.2 111.7 1892. . . . . 102.9 106.5 106.1 1893. . . . . 100.5 104.9 105.6 1894. . . . . 89.8 100.1 96.1 1895. . . . . 87.9 96.5 93.6 1896. . . . . 92.6 94.0 90.4 1897. . . . . 94.4 89.8 89.7 1898. . . . . 106.6 92.0 93.4 1899. . . . . 111.3 95.1 101.7 1900. . . . . 115.7 106.1 110.5 1901. . . . . 115.2 110.9 108.5 1902. . . . . 114.2 112.2 112.9 1903. . . . . 112.6 113.0 113.6 1904. . . . . 110.0 111.7 113.0 1905. . . . . 109.1 109.1 115.9 1906. . . . . 101.2 111.0 122.5 1907. . . . . 109.6 118.5 129.5 1908. . . . . 110.4 114.0 122.8 The actual cost in 1901 was determined by the Bureau of Labor by taking the average expenditure of 2,567 workingmen's families. The following is given as THE COST OF LIVING. Food $326.90 Rent 99.49 Mortgage: Principal 8.15 Interest 3.98 Fuel 32.23 Lighting 8.15 Clothing: Husband 33.73 Wife 26.03 Children 48.08 Taxes 5.79 Insurance: Property 1.53 Life 19.44 Organizations: Labor 3.87 Other 5.18 Religious purposes 7.62 Charity 2.39 Furniture and utensils 26.31 Books and newspapers 8.35 Amusements and vacation 12.28 Intoxicating liquors 12.44 Tobacco 10.93 Sickness and death 20.54 Other purposes 45.13 Total $768.54 We may add that the cost of living rose rapidly during 1909-10. It is altogether probable that wages in Europe and America are approaching each other. Labor has had an outlet in this country; free fertile lands with the world's market for the farmer's produce have enabled wage earners to turn to the soil; but our cheap lands have passed into the hands of private owners. Pauper conditions, sweat-shops, and child labor in factories are symptoms that America is becoming more and more like Europe. See Labor ; Strikes; Socialism ; Communism ; Cooperation; Sweat-Shop ; Child Labor
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the payment for work done or services performed; the price paid for iabor; the return made or compensation paid to those employed to perform any kind of labor or service by their employers; hire, pay, recompense, need. The rate of wages is determined by the ratic which the capital, for the productive use of which labor is sought, bears to the number of laborers seeking that kind of employment. When the capital capital increases more rapidly than the laboring population of the country, wages rise; when it Increases more slowly, they fall. But in the United States and most countries, the rise of wages produces an increase in the number of marriages, and in due time, of population, with the result of ultimately causing wages again to fall. All attempts to fix wages by law are inoperative and mischievous. The effort was made, in England, in the reign of Edward III. (1350), on the part of capitalists, after the black death, in 1346, had swept away so large a part of the pulation, both in Great Britain and and greatly rose. If, on the other hand, the the continent, that wages naturally capitalists were required by law to give higher wages than the natural law of supply and demand fixed, his motive for continuing to carry on his business would become less potent, or might wholly cease, and ultimate injury be done to those whom it was sought to benefit. Wages in ordinary language is retricted to the payment for mechanical or muscular labor, and especially to that which is ordinarily paid for at short, stated intervals, as daily, weekly, fortnightly, etc., to workmen. Strictly speaking, however, the term wages comprehends as well the pay of officers, the fees of barristers, medical men, etc., the salary of clerks, the stipends of clergymen, as the remuneration for mechanical labor. See MINIMUM WAGE: UNEMPLOYMENT, etc.