Full text of Monthly Labor Review : February 1980, Volume 103, Number 2

The full text on this page is automatically extracted from the file linked above and may contain errors and inconsistencies.

r

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW

j

U.S. Department ot Labor
Bureau of Labor Statistics
February 1980

^

In this issue:

y
f

Employment and unemployment In 1979
Industrial relations in 1979
User cost of owner-occupied housing

J


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

d e p o s it o r y

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Ray Marshall, Secretary
BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS
Janet L. Norwood, Commissioner

The Monthly Labor Review is published by the
Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department
of Labor. Communications on editorial matters
should be addressed to the Editor-in-Chief.
Monthly Labor Review, Bureau of Labor Statistics,
Washington, D C. 20212.
Phone: (202) 523-1327.
Subscription price per year —
$18 domestic; $22.50 foreign.
Single copy $2.50.
Subscription prices and distribution policies for the
Monthly Labor Review (ISSN 0098-0818) and other Government
publications are set by the Government Printing Office,
an agency of the U.S. Congress. Send correspondence
on circulation and subscription matters (including
address changes) to:
Superintendent of Documents,
Government Printing Office,
Washington, D C. 20402
Make checks payable to
Superintendent of Documents.
The Secretary of Labor has determined that the
publication of this periodical is necessary in the
transaction of the public business required by
law of this Department. Use of funds for printing
this periodical has been approved by the Director
of the Office of Management and Budget
through October 31, 1982. Second-class
postage paid at Riverdale, MD.,
and at additional mailing offices.
Library of Congress Catalog
Card Number 15-26485

Regional Commissioners
for Bureau of Labor Statistics
Region I — Boston: Wendell D. Macdonald
1603 JFK Federal Building, Government Center,
Boston, Mass. 02203
Phone: (617) 223-6761
Connecticut
Maine
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
Rhode Island
Vermont
Region II — New York
1515 Broadway, Suite 3400, New York, N.Y. 10036
Phone: (212) 944-3121
New Jersey
New York
Puerto Rico
Virgin Islands
Region III — Philadelphia: Alvin /. Margu/is
3535 Market Street
P.O. Box 13309, Philadelphia, Pa. 19101
Phone: (215) 596 -11 54
Delaware
District of Columbia
Maryland
Pennsylvania
Virginia
West Virginia
Region IV — Atlanta: Donald M. Cruse
1371 Peachtree Street, N.E., Atlanta, Ga. 30309
Phone: (404) 881 -4418
Alabama
Florida
Georgia
Kentucky
Mississippi
North Carolina
South Carolina
Tennessee
Region V ~ Chicago: William £. Rice
9th Floor, Federal Office Building, 230 S. Dearborn Street,
Chicago, III. 60604
Phone: (312) 353 -18 80
Illinois
Indiana
Michigan
Minnesota
Ohio
Wisconsin
Region VI — Dallas: Bryan Richey
Second Floor, 555 Griffin Square Building, Dallas, Tex. 75202
Phone: (214) 767-6971
Arkansas
Louisiana
New Mexico
Oklahoma
Texas
Regions VII and VIII — Kansas City: Elliott A. Browar
911 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Mo. 64106
Phone: (816) 374-2481
VII
Iowa
Kansas
Missouri
Nebraska
VIII
Colorado
Montana
North Dakota
South Dakota
Utah
Wyoming

February cover:
Center panel of the polyptych
Tribute to the American Working People (1951)
by Honoré Sharrer
courtesy Sara Roby Foundation Collection.
The polyptych is included in the “ Working American” Exhibition,
a part of the Bread and Roses Project of District 1199,
National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees (AFL-CIO).
The Exhibition, supported by grants from the National
Endowment for the Humanities, The New York State Council on the
Arts, and The New York Council for the Humanities, opened in
Detroit, Mich, in January 1980, and is scheduled to open In
Rochester, N.Y. in March, Washington, D.C. in April,
Chicago, III. in May, Birmingham, Ala. in July,
Trenton, N.J. in September, and Lexington, Mass. In November.


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Regions IX and X — San Francisco: D. Bruce Hanchett
450 Golden Gate Avenue, Box 36017,
San Francisco, Calif. 94102
Phone: (415) 556 -46 78
IX
American Samoa
Arizona
California
Guam
Hawaii
Nevada
Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands
X
Alaska
Idaho
Oregon
Washington

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW

Reference Dept.

FEBRUARY 1980
VOLUME 103, NUMBER 2

MAR 1 0 1980

Henry Lowenstern, Editor-in-Chief
Robert W. Fisher, Executive Editor

Kalamazoo Public Library

C. B. Leon, P. L Rones

3

Employment and unemployment during 1979: an analysis
Labor force and employment growth slowed from the rapid pace which marked
the previous 3 years; the unemployment rate showed virtually no movement

George Ruben

11

Industrial relations in 1979: inflation still holds spotlight
Voluntary 7-percent ceiling on wage increases loses labor support as price surge
continues, but unions join new anti-inflation effort; George Meany steps down

LaVerne C. Tinsley

19

Workers’ compensation laws— key State amendments of 1979
All but three States increased temporary total disability benefits, but some sought
to reduce costs by investigating medical bills and using other transfer payments

Patricia S. Wilder

26

The productivity trend in the soaps and detergents industry
During 1958-77, annual productivity rose an average of 2.9 percent, as the industry met
strong demand for soap and detergent products and was aided by improved technology

Robert Gillingham

31

Estimating the user cost of owner-occupied housing
The Bureau of Labor Statistics is continuing to examine alternative ways
in which to measure homeowners’ costs in the Consumer Price Index

Everett M. Kassalow

36

Beyond Keynes: European unions formulate new program
Elements of the prescription put forth by economists of five union groups include
consensus-based decisionmaking and an incomes policy to abate European stagflation

REPORTS
T. M. Smeeding, I. Garfinkel
Lawrence J. Fulco
Lucretia D. Tanner and others
Roger L. Bowlby and others
Eugene H. Becker


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

41
46
49
53
58

New directions for income transfer programs
Productivity declines continue into third quarter 1979
Collective bargaining in the health care industry
Measuring the social costs of instability in construction
Meany farewell, reaffiliation bid mark AFL-CIO convention
DEPARTMENTS

2
41
46
49
58
63
65
73

Labor month in review
Communications
Productivity reports
Research summaries
Conventions
Major agreements expiring next month
Book reviews
Current labor statistics

Labor M onth
In Review
CPI CONTROVERSY. A frequent
criticism of the Consumer Price In­
dex is that the CPI overstates the
cost of living because the index is
based on a fixed market basket and
therefore does not reflect continuing
changes consumers make in their
buying habits. Commissioner of
Labor Statistics Janet L. Norwood
addressed that and other issues at a
Jan. 21 meeting of the National
Association of Government Labor
Officials, in Washington, D.C.
Excerpts:

The market basket. The CPI is
based on a fixed market basket.
That is, the weights for the mix of
goods and services purchased during
the base period are held constant
from year to year until a major revi­
sion occurs. We keep the market
basket constant deliberately because
we want to keep fixed the living
standard represented by that market
basket. Our purpose, to the extent
possible, is to isolate price changes
from other changes which may oc­
cur in living standards.
BLS economists, of course, know
that consumers shift their purchases
in response to changes in relative
prices. What we do not know,
however, is whether such changes in
consumption patterns result in a liv­
ing standard that is higher or lower
than that in the base period. If the
m arket basket were changed
whenever prices change—without
knowing whether the consumer is
equally satisfied with the shift—we
would not know whether a change
in the index was caused by a change
in prices or by a change in the
market basket. Because a market

2


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

basket change could amount to a
change in living standards, those
whose income payments are ad­
justed by the CPI would not be
assured that their living standards
would remain at the same level. The
purpose of such CPI cost-of-living
adjustment (indexation) has tradi­
tionally been to permit people to
purchase in today’s prices the bun­
dle of goods and services they pur­
chased in the base period, thereby
leaving them at least as well off as
they were then.
The following example will il­
lustrate my point. If, in adjusting to
higher prices, a family decides to
forgo its weekly restaurant dinner,
the family is both changing its
market basket and lowering its
satisfaction or standard of living. If
the objective of indexation is to en­
sure purchasing power necessary to
preserve living standards, a measure
used to index income should not
reflect this kind of a market basket
change.

Special purpose indexes. Users of
the CPI should be aware of the
many subindexes which are produc­
ed as a part of the CPI system.
These are published prominently in
the monthly CPI news release, are
used for analytical and other pur­
poses, and, in some cases, are used
for indexation. Among these
subindexes, for example, is an index
for “ All Items minus mortgage in­
terest costs” and another for “ All
Items less energy.”
BLS also can produce other in­
dexes if they are required. Special
indexes may be needed when
government pursues social goals

which—at least in the short
run—may raise prices. Should it be
considered socially desirable to
reduce energy consumption by rais­
ing gasoline prices, consumers
would pay more for gasoline and the
index measuring the rate of inflation
would and should go up. It might be
useful to policymakers, in such a
case, to create a special index which
could exclude such increases or
which could treat other policydirected price changes, such as
changes in interest rates, in a special
way. Some also have suggested the
desirability of a special index—for
use in pension escalation—that
would represent the expenditure ex­
perience of persons receiving retire­
ment benefits.
The BLS is a service agency.
Given the resources and time
necessary, the Bureau can produce
special consumer price indexes for
particular needs. We should not,
however, permit these other needs
to weaken the ability of the present
CPI to fulfill the objective for which
it was intended.
Homeownership. Com m issioner
Norwood also introduced five alter­
native—and experimental—ways of
measuring the C PI’s most con­
troversial component, the cost of
homeownership. She announced
that BLS will publish these measures
monthly, but will make no change in
the official index at this time. (An
article about measuring costs of
owner-occupied housing appears on
pages 31-35 of this issue.) The full
text of Commissioner Norwood’s
discussion of the CPI is available
from the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
Washington, D.C. 20212.
Cj

Employment and unemployment
during 1979: an analysis
Labor force and employment growth
slowed from the rapid pace of the
previous 3 years; the unemployment rate
showed virtually no movement
Carol Boyd Leon

and

P hilip L. R ones

The Nation’s employment situation in 1979 was high­
lighted by a slowdown in the rate of job growth. Em­
ployment and labor force growth, while still fairly
strong at about 2 million each, was considerably slower
than during the previous 3 years. The unemployment
rate, which ended the year at 5.9 percent, remained in
the range of 5.8-5.9 percent for 5 consecutive quar­
ters.1
Adult women,2 who had made up about half of the
total employment increase between 1976 and 1978,
accounted for about two-thirds of the gain in 1979.
Adult men made up the remainder of the over-the-year
job growth, as teenagers experienced a slight decline.
Most of the major population groups experienced lit­
tle change in their rate of joblessness. Adult men posted
a 0.2-percentage point rise in their unemployment rate,
while the rates for adult women and teenagers showed
little change. Movements in several series which are in­
fluenced by the business cycle suggested a weakening in
some sectors of the job market. For instance, the unem­
ployment rate advanced about a point in the manufac­
turing industries, and employment in this sector was
only slightly above its year-earlier level. In addition, the
number of unemployed persons on layoff and the num­
ber of persons working part time for economic reasons
each increased by about a quarter of a million.

Carol Boyd Leon and Philip L. Rones are economists in the Office of
Current Employment Analysis, Bureau of Labor Statistics.


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Nonfarm payroll employment—as measured by the
survey of business establishments—increased by 2.4
million in 1979.3 While manufacturing employment
showed virtually no over-the-year increase, employment
growth was strong in construction and mining as well as
in several of the service-producing divisions. The serv­
ice-producing sector accounted for three-quarters of the
overall employment gains.
Slower employment growth
Employment growth slowed considerably in 1979, af­
ter 3 consecutive years of rapid advances. Civilian em­
ployment in late 1979 totaled 97.7 million, 2.0 million
higher than a year earlier. (See table 1.) In contrast, em­
ployment had grown by 3.3 million in 1978. The em­
ployment level in 1979 exhibited disparate movements
throughout the year: relatively strong advances were
registered in both the first and third quarters, but
growth was slower in the fourth quarter and the num­
ber of jobholders held about steady in the second quar­
ter.
Although employment growth among adult women
was 75 percent of the previous year’s increase, the pro­
portion of the total employment gain attributable to
women was even higher than it had been during the
previous year. The increase in jobholding among wom­
en— 1.4 million in 1979—accounted for most of the
over-the-year growth in employment. This growth oc­
curred without any lessening of unemployment because
3

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Employment and Unemployment in 1979
Table 1. Employment and unemployment highlights,
fourth quarter 1977 through fourth quarter 1979,
seasonally adjusted
Selected categories

1977

1979

1978
II

III

IV

96.4
52.1
36.2
8.1

96.5
52.1
36.4
8.0

97.2
52.4
37.0
7.9

97.7
52.4
37.3
8.0

5.9
2.1
2.2
1.6

5.9
2.2
2.2
1.5

5.9
2.2
2.2
1.5

6.0
2.3
2.2
1.5

6.1
2.3
2.2
1.5

6.0
4.1
6.1
16.2
5.2
11.8
12.4

5.8
4.0
5.7
16.2
5.0
11.5
12.2

5.8
4.0
5.7
15.9
5.0
11.4
12.3

5.8
4.0
5.7
16.1
5.0
11.5
12.4

5.8
4.2
5.6
16.2
5.1
10.9
12.0

5.9
4.2
5.7
16.1
5.1
11.2
12.0

2.7

2.5

2.6

2.6

2.9

2.9

5.5

5.6

5.4

5.3

5.2

5.0

5.0

9.3
5.5
9.1

8.6
5.5
8.9

7.7
5.2
9.0

8.2
5.2
9.0

8.6
5.2
8.9

7.9
5.3
8.5

8.4
5.4
8.5

6.4

5.9

5.9

5.6

5.8

5.5

5.6

5.4

839

84.8

86.3

869

87.8

88.7

89.4

898

90.2

24.7

24.9

25.6

25.7

26.1

26.5

26.6

26.6

26.6

59.2

59.9

60.7

61.1

61.7

62.2

62.7

63.1

63.6

36.0
40.5
3.5

35.7
40.0
3.6

35.9
40.5
3.6

35.8
40.5
3.5

35.8
40.6
3.7

35.8
40.6
3.7

35.5
39.8
3.2

35.6
40.2
3.2

35.7
40.2
3.2

IV

1

II

III

IV

Total employment (in
millions) ........................
Adult men ....................
Adult women ...............
Teenagers ....................

92.1
50.4
33.8
7.8

93.0
50.7
34.5
7.8

94.1
51.1
35.0
80

94.7
51.3
35.4
8.1

95.7
51.7
35.9
8.1

Total unemployment (in
millions) ........................
Adult men ....................
Adult women ...............
Teenagers ....................

6.5
2.5
2.4
1.5

6.2
2.4
2.2
1.6

6.0
2.2
2.3
1.5

6.0
2.2
2.3
1.6

6.6
4.7
6.7
16.5
5.7
13.2
14.1

6.2
4.5
6.0
16.9
5.4
12.4
13.1

6.0
4.2
6.1
16.0
5.2
12.0
12.8

3.3

3.0

2.8

6.2

5.5

8.9
6.1
9.2

8.2
5.8
9.0

69

Unemployment rates:
All workers....................
Adult men ....................
Adult women ...............
Teenagers ....................
W hite.............................
Black and other ...........
Black o n ly ..................
Married men, spouse
present......................
Married women, spouse
present ......................
Women who head
families......................
Full-time workers .........
Part-time w o rke rs.........
Median duration of
unemployment (weeks) .
Nonfarm payroll employment (in millions)' .........
Goods-producing
industries ..................
Service-producing
industries ..................
Average workweek1(in
hours):
Total private nonfarm . .
Manufacturing...............
Manufacturing overtime .

1

1Data for the fourth quarter are preliminary.
NOTE: Comparisons of 1978 household survey data with earlier data are affected by
the introduction of an expansion in the sample and revisions in the estimation procedure
which raised total employment by roughly a quarter of a million. Unemployment was essen­
tially unchanged.

the female labor force expanded considerably. The num­
ber of employed adult men rose by about 700,000,
about half the group’s increase in the prior year.
In contrast to the preceding year, teenagers did not
share in the 1979 employment growth. After an advance
of 200,000 in 1978, teenage jobholding was about un­
changed in 1979, in part, because the teenage population
started to drop off as the “baby boom” generation was
moving out of the teen years. Also, there was a slight
drop in the labor force participation rate of teenagers
which may have contributed to their lack of employment
growth.
Employment-population ratios, which measure the
proportion of a population group that is employed, help
to delineate trends among various demographic catego­
ries. While the employment-population ratio increased
slightly for all workers during 1979, the ratio for wom­
en rose while that for men declined. (See table 2.) Mod­
4


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

est declines occurred among all major age categories of
men, except those 25 to 34 years, whose ratio was
unchanged. Generally, the employment increases among
men were too small to keep pace with population
growth. The largest decline took place among men 55
and over. While most age groups of women posted in­
creases in employment-population ratios, women age 20
to 24 years experienced a decline. (The ratio for these
women advanced substantially in 1978 and earlier
years.) But the growth among women age 25 and over
continued to be rather strong, especially among those
age 35 to 44, whose ratio advanced by nearly 3 points
to about 63 percent. These women have the highest fe­
male employment-population ratio.
Industry developments. Nonfarm payroll employment
rose by 2.4 million over the year to 90.2 million. The
payroll employment level increased in each quarter, but
the increases in the early quarters were larger than
those later in the year.
Over the year, each nonfarm industry division showed
some job growth. More than three-fourths of the growth
took place in the service-producing sector. About half of
that increase was in the services division, which
absorbed 1 of 3 additional jobs, followed by the whole­
sale and retail trade divisions, with 1 of 5. In terms of
relative growth, services again was on top, followed by fi­
nance, insurance, and real estate; transportation and
public utilities; and wholesale trade. The other serviceproducing divisions— retail trade and government —
grew at a slower pace than the overall economy.
Within the goods-producing sector, the number of
payroll jobs in manufacturing changed little. It should
be noted that manufacturing was the first industry divi­
sion to experience employment losses during the 197475 recession, followed by construction. However, in
1979, construction and mining showed the greatest rela­
tive growth of all nonfarm divisions.
Within manufacturing, the durable goods industries
— which had posted strong job growth in the prior
Table 2. Employment-population ratios for selected age
groups, by sex, 1975-79
Seasonally adjusted
quarterly averages

Annual averages
Categories
1975 1976 1977 1978 1979

Total, 16 years and over .. .
Men, 16 years and over
16 to 19 y e a rs .........
20 to 24 y e a rs .........
25 to 54 y e a rs .........
55 years and over ..
Women, 16 years and
over ........................
16 to 19 y e a rs .........
20 to 24 y e a rs .........
25 to 54 y e a rs .........
55 years and over . .

1979

1978
IV

1

II

III

IV

55.3
69.7
45.2
66.5
86.8
47.2

56.1
70.1
46.0
69.1
87.4
45.8

57.1
70.9
48.5
70.7
88.0
45.6

58.6
71.9
50.5
72.4
88.9
46.3

59.3
72.1
50.2
73.4
89.1
45.4

59.0
72.1
50.5
73.2
89.0
45.9

59.3
72.4
50.7
73.8
89.3
46.0

59.1
72.1
503
73.7
89.1
45.3

59.3
72.0
49.9
73.3
89.2
45.4

59.3
71.8
50.1
73.0
88.9
449

42.0
39.4
55.7
50.8
21.9

43.2
40.5
56.9
52.8
21.9

44.4
41 9
58.7
54.6
21.9

46.3
44.6
61.0
57.2
22.3

47.5
45.4
62.1
58.9
22.5

47.0
45.6
62.0
58.1
22.3

47.2
46.2
62.4
58.2
22.5

47.1
45.1
62.0
58.4
22.4

47.6
44.7
62.1
59.5
22.4

47.8
45.7
61.8
59.7
22.5

3 years— showed only small advances, as the employ­
ment level grew rapidly in the first quarter, held steady
during the middle quarters, and ended the year under
•moderate contraction. Substantial over-the-year gains
did take place in a few of the durables industries, but
an overall weakness was evidenced by the lack of
growth in consumption levels for durables and an actu­
al drop in constant dollars.4 A noteworthy develop­
ment during 1979 occurred in the transportation
equipment industry: despite the loss of more than
100,000 jobs in the motor vehicles and equipment and
travel trailers and campers industries, there was a
smaller overall employment drop as that decline was
partially offset by significant gains in other transporta­
tion equipment industries—especially aircraft and parts.
Also within the manufacturing division, nondurables
experienced a year of no job growth. Despite an ex­
tremely large increase in consumer outlays on gasoline
and oil (in current dollars), there was little reflection of
this in refining and processing employment. Only print­
ing and publishing exhibited fairly strong growth, con­
tinuing its postrecession upward trend.
Occupational changes. Employment increased in all ma­
jor white-collar occupations during 1979, but declined
in most other occupations. (See table 3.) The fastestgrowing occupations were salesworkers, managers and
administrators and professionals. The rate of growth
among clerical workers was somewhat slower, but be­
cause of their numbers, that group accounted for onefourth of the overall employment increase; managerial
and professional workers together contributed one-half
of the total advance. The remaining 25 percent of total
employment growth was accounted for by craft workers
and salesworkers. Employment was unchanged for op­
eratives and service workers, dropped modestly for farm
workers, and dropped substantially for nonfarm labor­
ers.
The occupational employment changes in 1979 con­
trasted markedly with those of the previous several
years, when blue-collar jobs generally grew faster than
white-collar positions. Managerial jobs had grown less
than any occupation, except farmworkers. Blue-collar
employment generally is more sensitive to economic cy­
cles; it declined substantially during the 1975 recession
and posted strong increases during the recovery years of
1976-78. The lessening of economic growth in 1979 re­
sulted in the smaller total employment increase being
concentrated among white-collar occupations, which
had remained fairly stable during the recession and had
grown steadily, but less spectacularly than blue-collar
jobs, during the recovery years.
Full- and part-time workers. As occurred in 1978, virtu­
ally all of the increase in employment in 1979 took

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

place among full-time workers.5 Persons employed full
time posted a gain of 1.5 million, of which 1.1 million
were adult women; the remainder were adult men, as
teenagers registered almost no change in full-time em­
ployment. The demographic pattern was similar among
voluntary part-time workers, except that teenage em­
ployment dropped substantially.6
Although most women work full time, more than
half of all persons working part time by choice were
women. There also were substantial proportions of men
and teenagers among the part-timers, as shown in the
following percentage distribution of 1979 annual em­
ployment averages:
Part time
Voluntary for economic
reasons
Full time part time

Total employed (percent)
Adult men ....................
Adult women ...............
Teenagers......................

100
60
35
5

100
18
55
27

100
36
45
19

As the tabulation shows, there is a third group of
workers— persons employed part time for economic
reasons. These are persons who want full-time jobs but
are working part time because of slack work, inability
to find full-time work or other economic reasons. In
late 1979, there were 3.4 million such persons in non­
farm industries. In other words, about 1 of 5 persons
working part time was doing so for economic reasons.
After declining by 100,000 in 1978, the number of per­
sons at work part time for economic reasons increased
by more than 200,000 in 1979, and much of the ad­
vance occurred in the fourth quarter.7 Generally, per­
sons working part time for economic reasons do so
because they are unable to find a full-time job, but in
1979, most of the increase was among persons who usu­
ally work full time, but whose hours had been curtailed.
This was the first time since the 1974-75 recession that
the number of persons employed part time for economic
reasons failed to decline. While the number of persons
on full-time schedules or voluntarily employed part time
each increased by about 2 percent, the level of total
part-time employment for economic reasons advanced
by 8 percent. Growth in voluntary part-time employ­
ment generally is interpreted as a favorable develop­
ment, but this is not true of those employed part time
for economic reasons.
Hours and earnings
Average weekly hours of production or nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls were 35.7 in
late 1979, down from 35.8 a year earlier. (See table 1.)
The manufacturing workweek was shortened by about
one-half hour during 1979, with an even larger reduction
occurring in the second quarter and only partial recov5

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Employment and Unemployment in 1979
Table 3. Employment in major occupations and
industries, fourth quarter 1979, seasonally adjusted,
and over-the-year employment changes, 1977 79
[Numbers in thousands]
Over-the-year employment change1
Occupation or industry

ment
IV
1979

1977

1978

1979

Num­
ber

Per­
cent

Num­
ber

Per­
cent

Num­
ber

Per­
cent

97,665
49,854
15,153

3,864
1,888
479

4.4
4.2
3.5

3,320
1,704
457

3.6
3.6
3.2

2,039
1,927
643

2.1
4.0
4.4

10,597
6,323
17,780
32,206
12,989

449
135
825
1,408
696

4.7
2.4
5.2
4.8
6.1

112
366
767
1,420
527

1.1
6.3
4.6
4.6
4.4

477
277
530
182
353

4.7
4.5
3.0
.6
2.8

10,991

302

3.0

639

6.1

-4 7

-.4

3,619
4,607
12,935
2,702

202
208
564
3

6.1
4.9
4.7
.1

140
115
318
-121

4.0
2.6
2.5
-4 .6

6
-131
-5
-6 4

.2
-2.8
( 3)
-2.4

90,172
26,609
987
4,722
20,900
12,636
8,264
63,564

3,797
1,209
1
388
820
622
198
2,588

4.7
5.1
.1
10.5
4.3
5.5
2.5
4.5

3,963
1,413
122
478
813
690
123
2,550

4.7
5.7
15.4
11.7
4.1
5.8
1.5
4.3

2,384
504
70
298
135
131
4
1,880

2.7
1.9
7.6
6.6
.6
1.0
( 3)
3.0

5,223

157

3.4

267

5.6

189

3.7

20,282
5,229
15,053

959
208
751

5.3
4.5
5.5

934
261
672

4.9
5.4
4.7

478
179
301

2.4
3.5
2.0

5,043
17,319
15,697
2,776
12,921

229
908
335
-1
336

5.3
6.2
2.2
( 3)
2.7

262
872
215
24
191

5.8
5.6
1.4
.9
1.5

221
769
223
20
203

4.6
4.7
1.4
.7
1.6

Occupation2
Total, all occupations ...........
White-collar w o rkers.........
Professional and technical
Managers and administra­
tors, except farm . . . .
Sales workers...............
Clerical workers ...........
Blue-collar w o rkers...........
Craft and kindred workers
Operatives, except
transport....................
Transport equipment
operatives..................
Nonfarm laborers .........
Service workers ...............
Farmworkers ....................
Industry4
Total nonagricultural wage and
salary ...............................
Goods-producing...............
Mining5 ........................
Construction ..................
Manufacturing...............
Durable goods...........
Nondurable goods . . .
Service-producing.............
Transportation and public
utilities ......................
Wholesale and retail
tra ce ..........................
Wholesale trade . . . .
Retail tra d e ...............
Finance, insurance, and
real estate..................
Services........................
Government ..................
Federal......................
State and local .........

* Over-the-year employment changes represent a comparison between the fourth quarter
of the previous year and the fourth quarter of the year shown, using not seasonally adjusted
data. The 1978 change allows for the changes in the CPS introduced in January 1978.
2 Occupational employment estimates are derived from the CPS.
3 Less than 0.05 percent.
4 Industry estimates are from the BLS survey of establishments. Data for 1979 are prelimi­
nary.
5The uneven growth pattern in mining primarily results from a major strike affecting the
employment level In the fourth quarter of 1977.

ery in the following quarter. Most of the decline was in
the more cyclically-sensitive durable goods manufactur­
ing. Other industry divisions also recorded over-the-year
declines, and only mining showed a modest advance.
The aggregate hours index—a comprehensive meas­
ure which takes into account both the number of pro­
duction or nonsupervisory employees on nonfarm pay­
rolls and their weekly hours— rose 2.2 percentage
points to 126.3 (1967=100). This gain was entirely due
to the over-the-year rise in employment. Manufacturing
was the only industry division to experience a drop in
aggregate hours index in 1979.
Average hourly earnings of production or non­
supervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls were
6


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

$6.33 in the last quarter of 1979, compared with $5.88
a year earlier—a rise of about 8 percent. Gross average
weekly earnings posted a similar percentage increase,
advancing by $16 over the year to $226. In constant
dollars (1967=100), weekly earnings decreased by
about 5 percent in 1979.
Unemployment stable
The Nation’s unemployment rate remained at about
the late-1978 level throughout 1979, as quarterly rates
were 5.8 percent, except for the fourth quarter, which
was 5.9 percent. The rates for adult women (5.7 percent
in the fourth quarter of 1979), and teenagers (16.1 per­
cent) each were about unchanged between late 1978 and
1979, while the rate for adult men (4.2 percent) rose
several tenths of a point. The number of unemployed
persons, 6.1 million, was up by about 200,000, with
adult men and women each representing about 2.3 and
2.2 million of the unemployed. Table 1 shows recent
trends in unemployment for major labor force groups.
The slight increase in joblessness over the year ap­
peared to be affecting many families which were already
experiencing some unemployment. The number of fami­
lies with both spouses unemployed was relatively small
—about 100,000 in the fourth quarter of 1979—but
was about 25 percent above its year-earlier figure. An
indication that unemployment often runs in families was
that about 1 of 10 jobless husbands had a wife who
also was unemployed, while only about 1 of 40 wives in
the population was unemployed.
Reasons for unemployment. The reasons cited by un­
employed persons for their joblessness often serve as an
indicator of cyclical activity. An increase in unemploy­
ment caused by unusually rapid labor force growth, for
instance, would be less a sign of economic weakness
than an increase of the same magnitude resulting from
employee layoffs. The proportion of persons who cited a
job loss as their reason for unemployment increased
over the year, from 41 to 45 percent; during the 197475 recession, that proportion rose to as high as 57 per­
cent. (See table 4.)
The rate of unemployment due to job loss is about
the same for men and women. However, proportionally
fewer unemployed women than men give this as their
reason for unemployment. The difference is a result of
the overall higher unemployment rate of women, which
reflects their greater likelihood of experiencing unem­
ployment due to labor force reentry. Most of the recent
expansion in the number and proportion of unemployed
who had lost their last job could be attributed to per­
sons who had been laid off, even though that group
makes up only about a third of all job losers. (Most job
losers are those whose jobs have been terminated and
who do not expect to be recalled.)

Table 4. Unemployment by reasons and duration,
selected quarters, seasonally adjusted
[Percent distribution]
1979

1973

1975

1978

I

II

IV

1

II

III

IV

4,335

8,214

5,885

5,890

5,890

6,008

6,084

100 0
39.2
11.0
28.2
14.7
31.2
15.0

100.0
57.3
24.0
33.3
10.0
23.4
9.4

100.0
40.9
12.0
28,9
14.4
30.4
14.3

100.0
41.6
13.1
28.5
14.6
29.7
14.1

100.0
41.4
13.5
28.0
15.0
30.0
13.6

100.0
43.6
14.3
29.3
14.2
29.6
12.6

100.0
44.8
15.6
29.1
13.6
28.6
13.1

Percent ......................................
Less than 5 weeks ...............
5 to 14 w e eks........................
15 weeks and over ...............
15 to 26 weeks ..................
27 weeks and over ...........

100.0
49.0
30.1
20.9
12.0
8.9

100.0
35.7
32.1
32.2
18.6
13.6

100.0
47.4
31.5
21.1
12.1
9.0

100.0
47.0
31.8
21.3
12.1
9.2

100.0
48.3
31 6
20.2
11.5
8.7

100.0
49.0
31.9
19.0
10.7
8.3

100.0
48.3
31.9
19.9
11.3
8.6

Median duration, in w e e k s .........

5.5

8.9

5.6

5.8

5.5

5.6

5.4

Reasons and duration

Total unemployed (in thousands) ..
Reasons
Percent ......................................
Job lo sers...............................
On la yoff.............................
Other job losers ...............
Job leavers.............................
Reentrants .............................
New entrants ........................
Duration

There was also a slight decline (both absolute and
relative) among unemployed persons who left their last
job and those who reentered the labor force and an
even larger drop among the unemployed who were
looking for their first job. The latter two categories
reflect both the smaller population of teenagers (who
make up most of the new entrant group) and their la­
bor force declines, as well as the overall slowing of la­
bor force growth during 1979.
Data on labor turnover rates in manufacturing
generally support the trends cited above. Layoffs, for in­
stance, occurred at a rate about 50 percent higher dur­
ing the second half of 1979 than a year earlier.
Concurrently, the rate of new hires declined slightly.
Duration. The duration of unemployment also can be a
cyclical indicator; historically, movements in the median
duration of unemployment have closely paralleled the
overall unemployment rate. However, changes in the
components of duration— that is, in the levels of shortand long-term unemployment—may be subject to
different interpretations, depending on movements of
other job market indicators.
The median duration of unemployment was 5.4 weeks
in the fourth quarter of 1979, a small drop from 1978.
A slightly larger proportion of the total unemployed
were short-term unemployed (less than 15 weeks) than
a year earlier. Often, this trend reflects improvements in
the job market; however, early in an economic down­
turn, it may reflect an increase in recent layoffs and,
thus, might precede a period of increasing duration. As
noted earlier, data on reasons for unemployment lend
support to this interpretation.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Men tend to experience a longer period of job search
than do either women or teenagers. In the fourth quar­
ter, the median duration for these three groups was 6.5,
5.5, and 4.4 weeks. One explanation for the relatively
short spells of unemployment for women and teenagers
is that these groups are more likely to terminate a peri­
od of joblessness by withdrawing from the labor force,
at least temporarily, to devote more time to school or
family responsibilities.
Jobseekers. About 8 of 10 unemployed persons were
looking for full-time work in late 1979, an increase of
several percentage points from a year earlier. About 9
of 10 jobless men, 8 of 10 jobless women, and 6 of 10
teenagers cited a preference for full-time work. Unem­
ployment rates have always been lower among those
seeking full-time work than among those seeking parttime jobs. In late 1979, the rates were 5.4 and 8.5 per­
cent. Those looking for part-time work tend to be dis­
proportionately young people and women; with greater
propensity for frequent movements into and out of the
labor force, these groups tend to have higher rates of
unemployment than do adult men. Interestingly, the un­
employment rate for adult men looking for part-time
work is slightly higher than that for women. This can
be explained by the predominance of younger persons
among male part-time jobseekers, as the vast majority
of prime working-age unemployed men seek full-time
jobs. Unemployment rates for full-time workers tend to
rise faster during a downturn than do those for parttime workers, since the most cyclically sensitive indus­
tries, such as manufacturing and construction, provide
primarily full-time jobs.
Insured unemployed. Initial unemployment compensa­
tion claims during the last quarter of 1979 were about
400,000 per week (seasonally adjusted), 60,000 higher
than during the same period of 1978. About 2.6 million
persons claimed benefits, 300,000 more than in 1978.
The number of unemployment compensation recipients
as a percent of covered employment stayed at about 3
percent throughout 1979. During the 1974-75 reces­
sion, weekly initial claims rose as high as 570,000 a
week, and claimants reached a peak of 4.7 million per­
sons.
Status of blacks and Hispanics
Black employment growth slows. Employment among
blacks8 grew more slowly in 1979 than during each of
the previous 2 years. Their over-the-year increase in em­
ployment was about 200,000, or 2.2 percent, compared
with approximately 4.5 and 6.0 percent in 1977 and
1978. Employment among whites had been growing less
rapidly than employment among blacks since the 197475 recession and continued this pattern in 1979, increas7

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Employment and Unemployment in 1979
Table 5. Employment levels and unemployment rates
by race, sex, and age, fourth quarter, 1978 and 1979,
seasonally adjusted
[Numbers in thousands]
Employed
Selected groups

White, total ...................................
Men, 20 years and ove r.............
Women, 20 years and over . . . .
Men, 16 to 19 years ..................
Women, 16 to 19 y e a rs.............
Black,1total ...................................
Men, 20 years and o ve r.............
Women, 20 years and over . . . .
Men, 16 to 19 years ..................
Women, 16 to 19 y e a rs .............

Unemployment rate

1978

1979

1978

1979

IV

IV

IV

IV

84,930
46,383
31,179
3,918
3,451
9,074
4,477
4,017
309
270

86,640
46,971
32,350
3,879
3,439
9,266
4,563
4,158
281
263

5.0
3.5
5.0
14.0
13.8
12.2
8.8
10.8
35.0
38.6

5.1
3.7
5.0
13.9
14.1
12.0
9.0
10.4
35.5
39.1

1These data refer only to blacks. According to the 1970 Decennial Census, they account
for about 89 percent of the "black and other” population group.

ing by only 2.0 percent. The ratio of employment to
population edged up slightly only for whites. As shown
in the following tabulation, the ratio for blacks had not
regained its prerecession level by the end of 1979 (sea­
sonally adjusted data for fourth quarter):
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979

........................
........................
........................
........................
.................
........................
........................

White

Black

58.6
57.9
56.7
57.7
59.3
60.5
60.8

55.0
52.2
49.9
50.8
51.9
54.0
53.9

Black adults experienced modest employment ad­
vances over the year, while the employment of black
teenagers edged down. (See table 5.) Part of the teenage
reduction can be traced to a slight decline in popula­
tion, but a more important factor was a drop in their
labor force participation. The number of unemployed
black teens was about unchanged in 1979, so that simi­
lar reductions occurred in their labor force and employ­
ment level.
Overall, the level of unemployment among blacks
changed little in 1979. Similarly, their jobless rate was
fairly stable, remaining in the range of 12.0-12.4 per­
cent for each quarter. The rate for black teenagers was
unchanged; the rates for black women and men also
showed almost no change. The jobless rates for whites
followed a similar pattern of very small movements.
Blacks experienced somewhat longer periods of jobless­
ness than did whites; the median duration of unemploy­
ment at yearend for nonwhites was 7.1 weeks, com­
pared with 5.0 weeks for whites.9
The ratio of black-to-white unemployment rates re­
mained at about 2.4-to-l in 1979. An even larger differ­
ential existed between the rates for black teenagers and
white teenagers. The unemployment rates for both
8

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

groups of teenagers rose during the last recession, but
only the rate for whites declined perceptibly during the
recovery period. Although blacks appeared to be start­
ing to benefit from an improving job market in 1978,
the relatively stagnant labor market situation through­
out the economy in 1979 resulted in no further gains.
Job gains for Hispanics. The job situation for persons of
Hispanic origin improved slightly in 1979. The annual
average labor force participation rate in 1979 was 63.5
percent, compared with 62.8 percent in the previous
year. Additionally, the unemployment rate moved from
9.1 to 8.3 percent on an annual basis, while employ­
ment advanced by 240,000 to 4.6 million. (Persons of
Hispanic origin represent about 1 in 20 workers, nation­
wide.)
Unemployment rates for adult Hispanic men (5.7 per­
cent), women (8.9 percent), and teens (19.1 percent) fell
between the corresponding rates for whites and blacks.
Among Hispanics, persons of Puerto Rican origin expe­
rienced the highest rate of joblessness, 13.2 percent;
persons of Mexican and Cuban origin had unemploy­
ment rates of about 8 percent. About two-thirds of the
working-age persons of Mexican and Cuban origin were
in the labor force in 1979, while only slightly more than
one-half of all persons of Puerto Rican origin participat­
ed in the labor force.
The occupational distribution of Hispanics was simi­
lar to that for blacks in that both groups were un­
derrepresented in the higher skilled, particularly whitecollar, occupations. A smaller proportion of Hispanics
than black workers were employed in blue-collar occu­
pations. (See table 6.)

Table 6. Employment of whites, blacks, and persons
of Hispanic origin, by occupational group, 1979 annual
averages
[Numbers in thousands]
Occupation

Employed.................................................
Percent distribution:.............................
White-collar workers ......................
Professional and technical...........
Managers and administrators,
except farm .............................
Sales workers .............................
Clerical w orkers...........................
Blue-collar workers ........................
Craft and kindred workers...........
Operatives, except transport . . . .
Transport equipment operatives . .
Nonfarm la borers........................
Service workers...............................
Private household workers .........
Other service workers ...............
Farmworkers...................................

Total1

White

Black1

Hispanic
origin

96,945
100.0
50.9
15.5

86,025
100.0
52.5
15.9

9,160
100.0
35.2
10.5

4,604
100.0
32.6
7.6

10.8
6.4
18.2
33.1
13.3
11.3
3.7
4.8
13.2
1.1
12.1
2.8

11.6
6.8
18.2
32.6
13.8
10.8
3.6
4.5
12.0
0.8
11.1
2.9

4.6
2.4
17.6
38.4
9.6
15.4
5.3
8.1
24.3
3.8
20.5
2.1

6.0
3.9
15.1
47.3
13.9
21.5
4.0
7.8
16.3
1.5
14.8
3.8

1Detail by race and ethnicity do not add to employment total because races other than
white or black are included only in the total, and because most persons of Hispanic origin
are also included in the data for whites.
NOTE: Percent distribution may not add to 100.0 percent because of rounding.

Table 7. Civilian labor force participation rates by sex and
age, selected years, 1949 to 1979 annual averages
Sex and age

Both sexes, 16 years and over , . ,
16 to 19 y e a rs ...........................
20 to 24 y e a rs ..........................
25 to 54 y e a rs ...........................
55 years and over ....................
Men, 16 years and o v e r ...............
16 to 19 y e a rs ..........................
20 to 24 y e a rs ..........................
25 to 54 y e a rs ...........................
55 years and over ....................
Women, 16 years and over .........
16 to 19 y e a rs ...........................
20 to 24 y e a rs ..........................
25 to 54 y e a rs ..........................
55 years and over ....................

1949

1954

1959

1964

1969

1974

1979

58.9
52.2
64.9
65.1
43.1
86.4
62.8
86.6
96.5
69.5
33.1
42.4
45.0
35.7
18.0

58.8
48.3
61.6
67.0
41.7
85.5
58.1
87.0
97.3
65.8
34.6
39.4
45.1
38.7
19.7

59.3
46.7
64.3
68.7
41.1
83.7
55.8
88.8
97.1
61.7
37.1
38.2
45.1
42.4
23.1

58.7
44.5
66.3
69.6
39.5
81.0
52.4
86.1
96.8
57.4
38.7
37.1
49 4
44.5
24.3

60.1
49.5
68.2
71.6
39.3
79.8
55.9
82.8
96.1
56.1
42.7
43.3
56.7
49.1
25.5

61.2
54.9
74.0
73.5
35.2
78.7
60.7
86.0
94.8
50.7
45.6
49.2
63.0
53.8
23.0

63.7
58.1
77.6
77.8
33.6
77.9
61.7
86.6
94.4
46.7
51.0
54.5
69.1
62.2
23.2

Persons in and out of the labor force
The overall civilian labor force for persons age 16
and over grew by 2.2 million in 1979, to 103.7 million
persons. Over the previous 3 years, however, labor force
growth had averaged 2.9 million. Adult women made
up two-thirds of the labor force growth; the teenage la­
bor force declined by about 100,000, due, in part, to a
drop in population.
Labor force participation rates-—the percentage of
the civilian population that is employed or unemployed
—provide the clearest picture of labor force movements
for specific groups, because the rates account for chang­
es in population levels as well as absolute labor force
changes. The overall participation rate was 63.8 percent
in the fourth quarter of 1979, three-tenths of a point be­
low a year earlier.
Over the past 3 decades, participation rates for wom­
en of all ages have increased dramatically, with their
overall rate moving from slightly above 30 percent in the
late 1940’s to more than 50 percent in the late 1970's.
(See table 7.) Among the major influences on rising par­
ticipation rates have been a lowering of the birth rate;
increases in age at first marriage; a desire to maintain or
increase the household’s standard of living and the effect
of inflation on a family’s buying power; growth in those
industries (particularly the service sector) and occupa­
tions which traditionally employ women; and, of course,
the growing social acceptance of work for women. Until
the latter half of the 1970’s, there also had been a
protracted decline in labor force participation of men.
This drop had been concentrated in the oldest age
groups and had resulted almost exclusively from the im­
proved financial ability of men to retire at an earlier age.
This ability to retire was partially related to the in­
creased labor force activity of wives, who provided ei­
ther additional income or retirement benefits to support
the labor force withdrawal of their husbands.
The labor force participation rate for adult women
had advanced a percentage point a year for each of the

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

previous 6 years and followed this pattern again in 1979,
increasing from 50 to 51 percent. The greatest gains were
registered by women 35 to 44 years, whose rate increased
from 62 to almost 65 percent. No significant gains were
shown for women over age 55. Conflicting forces have af­
fected the recent labor market decision of these women.
Improved social security, private pension and disability
benefits may have allowed some working women to retire
earlier than had previously been possible. On the other
hand, the increased social acceptability of work for wom­
en, the recent amendments to the Age Discrimination in
Employment Act, and, perhaps most importantly, the re­
cent high rates of inflation and economic uncertainty
have all worked to induce older women to remain in, or
to reenter, the labor force.
The overall labor force participation rate for adult
men, 79.6 percent at yearend, was 0.2 point below that
of a year earlier and has remained at about that level
for 4 years. (During the same period, the rate for adult
women rose almost 5 points.) The rates for prime work­
ing-age men — those 25 to 54 years of age— were virtu­
ally unchanged over the year; however, rates for older
men declined slightly following 2 years of little move­
ment. While the one point over-the-year decline for
older men might have been unexpected in view of the
recent high rates of inflation and legislation protecting
workers from age discrimination through age 70, it is
too early to conclude that 1979 began a return to the
groups’ long-term trend of labor force decline.
The number of persons outside of the labor force—
that is, neither working nor looking for work — grew by
slightly less than 500,000 over the year to 58.8 million,
following 2 years of declines which totaled about 0.8
million persons. There was an increase of 470,000 in the
number of adult men outside the labor force, a
50,000-decline in the number of adult women in this
Table 8. Job desire of persons outside the labor force,
by sex, 1979 annual averages
[Numbers in thousands)
Labor force status

Total

Men

Women

85,083

Civilian nonlnstitutional
161.532

76,449

.............................

102,908

59.517

43,391

................................

58,623

16.931

41,692

53,328

15,248

38,079

100.0

100.0

100.0

................

11.2

19.5

Ill, d is a b le d ..........................

16.1

7.8
5.5

...................

8.5
54.4

1.9

75.4

R e tir e d ..................................

186

49.0

6.4

O t h e r .....................................

7.3

13.5

4.9

W ant a jo b n o w ................................

5,293

1,682

3,613

100.0

100.0

100.0

27.0

42.6

Ill health, d is a b ility .............

14,0

19.7

11.4

H om e responsibilities

23.4

2.6

34.3

14.2

16.6

13.1

population, 16 ye a rs and o v e r .............
Civilian lab o r force
Not in lab o r fo rce

Do not w a n t jo b now

.....................

C urrent activity (percent
distribution)

.............................

G oing to school
K eeping house

R eason not looking (percent
distribution)

.............................

School attendance

..........
. . .

Think cannot get jo b . . . .
J o b -m a rke t fa c to rs
Personal fa cto rs
O th e r reasons

. . .

..........

...................

19.7

9.4

5.9

4.7

10.6

8.9

21.4

18.4

21.6

4.2

9

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Employment and Unemployment in 1979
status, and no change in the number of teenagers. In
each of the past 4 years, the number of women outside
the labor force declined while the number of men grew
by a total of about 1.4 million. (See table 8.)
More than 90 percent of the persons classified as not
in the labor force did not want a job. The majority of
them were women who cited housekeeping duties as
their major nonwork activity; most of the others were
students, retirees, and the ill or disabled. Among the 5.3
million persons who said that they would like a job
“now,” most cited school attendance, ill health, or home
responsibilities as the factors which keep them from

looking for work. At the end of 1979, about 740,000
persons were not looking for work because they felt they
would be unable to find a job. These “discouraged
workers” are not classified as unemployed because they
do not meet the labor market test of having searched for
work during the month prior to the Current Population
Survey. Typically, about a third of them cite personal
factors such as age or lack of education as the reason
they feel they would not be able to find work; the re­
mainder cite job market factors. The size of the latter
group tends to respond to cyclical pressures, while the
former usually shows little cyclical movement.
□

FOOTNOTES
Except where noted, labor force, employment, and unemployment
data in this article were derived from the Current Population Survey
(CPS), a monthly survey of about 56,000 households conducted by
the Bureau of the Census for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As most
analysis in this article is on a quarterly basis, “yearend” and “late
1979” refer to the fourth quarter. Over-the-year changes in employ­
ment and labor force for 1978 were adjusted to take account of the
January 1978 revisions to the CPS estimates. All over-the-year com­
parisons are calculated from unadjusted quarterly averages, although
all numbers cited for a quarter are seasonally adjusted. Over-the-year
changes for 1978 cannot be calculated directly from the tables provid­
ed; see “Revisions in the Current Population Survey in January
1978,” Employment and Earnings, February 1978, pp. 7-10.
In this article, the term “adult” refers to persons age 20 and over.
Data on nonfarm payroll employment, hours of work, and earn­
ings are based on payroll reports from a sample of establishments
which together employ more than 30 million workers. The data reflect
March 1978 benchmark levels and seasonal adjustment revisions insti­
tuted in September 1979 for all seasonally-adjusted series since Janu­
ary 1974. For an explanation of these changes, see “BLS estimates
revised to March 1978 benchmark levels,” Employment and Earnings,
October 1979, p. 7-13.

10

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

4 Based on U.S. Department of Commerce’s preliminary data on
consumer expenditures for the fourth quarter of 1979.
For purposes of this analysis, full-time employment includes all
jobholders on full-time schedules. Part-time employment consists of
voluntary part-time workers and persons working part time for eco­
nomic reasons.
For a discussion of part-time workers in terms of the probability
of their part-time status in relation to socioeconomic and labor mar­
ket influences, see R. W. Bednarzik, A micro model of labor supply for
part-time workers using matched CPS data, Staff Paper 10 (Bureau of
Labor Statistics, 1979).
These data on parttimers refer only to nonfarm part-time employ­
ment for economic reasons.
This section deals only with blacks; they account for about 89 per­
cent of the “black and other" population group, according to the
1970 Decennial Census. The employment-population ratios in this sec­
tion were calculated using civilian noninstitutional population levels,
as quarterly total noninstitutional population levels are not available
for blacks.
Data on duration of unemployment are available only for the
“black and other” group.

Industrial relations in 1979:
inflation still holds spotlight
Voluntary 7-percent ceiling on wage increases
loses labor support as price surge continues,
but unions agree to help Administration devise
new anti-inflation program; Meany steps down;
worker safety and anti-bias efforts pressed
G

eorge

R lben

Inflation continued to be a major concern of Americans
in 1979. Workers experienced a loss of purchasing pow­
er as prices rose at an even faster rate than in 1978.
Late in 1978, the Carter Administration had adopted
a plan to restrain wage and price increases through the
voluntary cooperation of labor and management. It
called for a 7-percent ceiling on price and wage in­
creases. But with the Consumer Price Index rising at an
annual rate exceeding 13 percent in the fall of 1979, the
Administration tried a new approach. The Government
and organized labor signed a “national accord,” under
which a board composed of representatives of labor,
management, and the public would advise the President
on anti-inflation actions, including a new wage guide­
line.
Employment continued to grow in 1979, but there
were major layoffs in the steel and automobile indus­
tries, with Chrysler Corp. facing bankruptcy. Unem­
ployment also increased in the construction industry, as
the Federal Reserve Board tightened credit, sending in­
terest rates to record highs.
Collective bargaining activity was heavy in 1979 as
settlements were negotiated in a number of major in­
dustries. The unions generally focused on obtaining

George Ruben is co-editor of C urrent Wage Developments, a monthly
publication of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

more money for their members by pressing for larger
“set” wage increases or more liberal wage escalator
clauses.
In the automobile industry, another major goal of the
Auto Workers was to win larger pensions for current
and future retirees to counter the erosion of purchasing
power that had occurred since the industry last
bargained on pensions in 1973. In the trucking talks,
the Teamsters also sought substantial increases in em­
ployer payments in order to maintain employee benefit
plans.
The most significant development in union affairs was
the change in leadership of the AFL-CIO , as George
Meany retired and Lane Kirkland succeeded him. (A
report on the AFL-C IO convention appears on pp. 58
-62.) Meany’s decision, announced on September 28,
ended months of speculation that centered on the de­
teriorating health of the 85-year-old leader. Meany had
headed the federation since its formation in 1955. Lane
Kirkland, whom Meany nominated, indicated that he
would follow the same general policies as Meany. There
also was continuing turmoil involving the United Mine
Workers, and there were several important union
mergers.
Developments in occupational safety and health in­
cluded new court rulings on workplace standards
established by the Department of Labor’s Occupational
Safety and Health Administration to protect employees.
11

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Industrial Relations in 1979
There also were important developments in the area of
equal employment opportunities, as two of the Nation’s
largest retailers were involved in disputes with the Fed­
eral Government over their employment practices.
The Department of Labor also issued an important
ruling permitting greater diversifications of pension fund
investments, which now total about $250 billion.
Union wage increases
For the first 9 months of 1979, settlements involving
1,000 workers or more provided for first-year wage ad­
justments that averaged 7.5 percent, compared with 7.6
percent for all 1978 settlements.1 Total wage adjust­
ments (excluding cost-of-living increases) averaged 6.1
percent when converted to an annual rate, compared
with 6.4 percent for 1978 settlements.
As expected, the 1979 settlements that did not con­
tain cost-of-living escalator (COLA) clauses generally
provided for larger specified wage increases than those
that did. First-year negotiated wage adjustments in con­
tracts without COLA provisions averaged 9.1 percent,
compared with 6.3 percent for contracts with such
clauses. For 1978, the figures were 8.0 and 6.9 percent.
When specified wage adjustments are averaged over the
life of the contract, the annual rates were 4.6 percent
for contracts with COLA clauses and 8.1 percent for
those without, compared with 5.3 and 7.1 percent in
1978.
When benefits are combined with wages (in settle­
ments for 5,000 workers or more) the average adjust­
ment was 9.1 percent in the first contract year and 6.7
percent a year over the contract term, compared with
8.4 and 6.3 percent in 1978. Settlements that included
COLA clauses provided for wage and benefit increases
averaging 8.6 percent for the first year and 6.0 percent a
year over the contract term, compared with 10.2 and
8.2 percent for those without COLA clauses. For the
full year 1978, the figures for settlements with COLA
provisions were 6.7 for the first year and 5.3 a year over
the term and the figures for those that did not provide
for COLA clauses were 9.6 for the first year and 7.2 a
year over the term.
The major settlements during the first 9 months of
1979 covered 2.6 million workers in 414 bargaining
units in the private nonfarm sector. The settlements did
not result in any increase in the number of workers cov­
ered by COLA provisions, partly because 1.5 million of
the workers involved in the bargaining already were
covered by COLA clauses. The eight settlements (for
15,700 workers) that established COLA clauses and the
seven settlements (for 82,500 workers) that terminated
clauses brought the total coverage to 5.5 million or 59
percent of the 9.4 million workers in bargaining units of
1,000 or more.
During the first 11 months of 1979, labor-manage­
12


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

ment disputes led to about 5,100 work stoppages, in­
volving about 1.9 million workers. This was about the
same as during the same period of 1977, but higher
than in 1978. There were 33.1 million days of idleness,
or 0.16 percent of the estimated working time, com­
pared with 35.6 million (0.18 percent) and 30.8 (0.16
percent) in the corresponding periods of 1978 and 1977.
These data cover work stoppages involving six workers
or more and lasting a full day or shift or longer.
Anti-inflation program
The general 7-percent wage guideline and other provi­
sions of the voluntary anti-inflation plan President Car­
ter announced in October 1978 were revised at the end
of that year. Alfred Kahn, chairman of the Council on
Wage and Price Stability, said the changes were trig­
gered by complaints from business and labor that the
standards were too rigid. The revisions in wage guide­
lines—
— exempted any cost increases needed to maintain
existing levels of pension benefits from counting toward
the 7-percent guideline limit for annual increases in
compensation;
— specified that only the first 7 percent of any in­
crease in health insurance premiums required to main­
tain benefits would count toward the guideline;
—exempted from the guideline any increases in labor
costs required to comply with Federal statutes;
— suspended the 7-percent guideline when necessary
to counter specific labor shortages; and
—revised the methods of assessing compensation in­
creases for nonunion workers to make it similar to that
for union-represented workers.
The President’s proposal to provide “real-wage insur­
ance” for employees who conform to the 7-percent
guideline encountered resistance in Congress, as the
House Ways and Means Committee ended March hear­
ings on the proposal without reporting out a bill. The
proposal, which was generally opposed by organized la­
bor, was not presented for reconsideration later in 1979.
In February, the General Accounting Office, the in­
vestigative arm of Congress, declared that it would be
illegal for the Administration to withhold Federal pur­
chase contracts from firms that failed to comply with
the wage and price guidelines. The Administration nev­
ertheless initiated the requirement for all contracts
worth $5 million or more, beginning February 15, and
subsequently won a court test in which the A FL-C IO
and some member unions challenged the legality of the
sanctions.
The first major test of the wage guidelines came in
January, when the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers
settled with the major petroleum refiners for 60,000 em­
ployees. The parties and the Council on Wage and Price
Stability agreed that the 2-year contract met the

guidelines but the union late in the year announced that
it would not be bound by the guidelines when the con­
tract was reopened in January 1980.
In April, the Teamsters settled with the trucking in­
dustry on a 3-year contract. Alfred Kahn, chairman of
the Council, said that the accord met the guideline limit
of 7 percent a year for increases in compensation, but
the parties valued it at about 10 percent a year.2
In June, the Council announced that a settlement be­
tween United Airlines and the International Association
of Machinists was in “probable noncompliance” with
the wage guidelines. The 3-year agreement, which was
valued at 35 percent over the term by United, was sub­
sequently upheld by the Council, which approved an
“undue hardship” exception to the guidelines based on
company data indicating that “adherence to the pay
standard would seriously have threatened the financial
viability of the company.”
Mid-year settlements with the major rubber compa­
nies also were questioned by the Council but were later
approved after the firms agreed to offset the excess part
of the increase in compensation by restraining their pro­
fits.
In August, the Council began soliciting union and
management views on its proposals for changes in the
anti-inflation plan to become effective October 1, the be­
ginning of the second year of the plan. In a policy shift,
the AFL-C IO indicated that it could live with volun­
tary guidelines if they underwent a “wholesale re­
vamping” that would loosen the wage standard and
clamp down on prices. It proposed the formation of a
committee from labor, business, and the general public
which would establish and modify pay guidelines in ac­
cord with the “broad concept that wage increases
should be based upon changes in the Consumer Price
Index, plus changes in the long-term rate of increase in
manufacturing productivity.” The Federation also sug­
gested the creation of a committee of consumer, busi­
ness, and public representatives to oversee price in­
creases.
This led to negotiations between the Administration
and the AFL-CIO, the Auto Workers, and the Team­
sters that resulted in a national accord aimed at
fighting inflation. In conjunction with the accord, which
was announced on September 28, the parties also agreed
on the establishment of a 15-member (later increased to
18) Pay Advisory Committee with equal representation
from the general public, labor, and business to “provide
public participation and advice to the Council on Wage
and Price Stability on encouraging anti-inflationary pay
behavior by private industry, employers, and labor."2
The national accord committed the parties to support
fiscal restraints; “countercyclical” actions to alleviate
the effects of a downturn in the economy; reduced de­
pendence on petroleum (particularly from foreign pro­

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

ducers), increased U.S. exports, and prompt assistance
to American workers displaced by imports; and contin­
ued efforts to assure safe living and working conditions.
A FL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Lane Kirkland head­
ed the labor team that negotiated the accord with the
Administration. The accord was approved by the A FLCIO’s Executive Council and by the Teamsters and
Auto Workers unions.
Although the President was delaying his decision on
pay guidelines until the Pay Advisory Committee formu­
lated its recommendations, there was one immediate
change. In October, the Council ruled that employees
whose wages are not subject to wage escalator adjust­
ments could receive up to 8 percent increases in compen­
sation during the second year of the program, if they
had not exceeded the 7-percent standard during the pre­
ceding 12 months. The Council on Wage and Price Sta­
bility estimated that the 8-percent guideline would apply
to 78 million nonunion employees and 12 million repre­
sented by unions but not covered by COLA clauses.
In November, the Council informed General Motors
Corp. and Ford Motor Co. that their settlements with
the Auto Workers were in probable noncompliance with
the guidelines. Chairman Kahn said that even with the
most liberal (low) assessment, the contracts were several
percentage points above the 22.5-percent guideline for a
3-year period. The Council later approved the GM ac­
cord, after the company agreed to conform to the price
limitations. Talks between the Council and Ford contin­
ued into 1980.
The less costly accord at Chrysler Corp. also was
questioned by Kahn but he subsequently indicated that
the agreement would not have to be renegotiated to
meet the guidelines. Despite this, bargaining was re­
opened at year end to comply with a legislated require­
ment that the cost of the UAW settlement be cut an
additional $243 million before Chrysler could receive
Federal aid. (The resulting January 6 settlement provid­
ed for further delays of general wage increases and a
still lower number of paid personal holidays than at
GM and Ford.)
Bargaining issues
Wages. The unions’ drive for large wage increases in
1979 settlements was generally accomplished by win­
ning larger specified wage increases or more liberal
wage escalator clauses. Contracts that provided for
more liberal escalator clauses usually provided for speci­
fied wage increases similar to those in the just-expired
contracts. The liberalizations of COLA clauses usually
took the form of reducing the amount of movement in
the Consumer Price Index required to trigger an escala­
tor adjustment but a few settlements increased the fre­
quency of possible adjustments or eliminated restric­
tions on the size of adjustments.
13

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Industrial Relations in 1979
The Rubber Workers’ 3-year settlements with the
various rubber manufacturers provided for quarterly es­
calator adjustments at the rate of 1 cent an hour for
each 0.26 point movement in the CPI-W (1967=100),
beginning in the second year. The later settlements be­
tween the Auto Workers and General Motors Corp.,
Ford Motor Co., and Chrysler Corp. also provided for
a formula of 1 cent for each 0.26 point movement but
the auto accords continued to call for use of a 1967 =
100 composite index derived from the U.S. and Canadi­
an government indexes. Another difference was that the
escalator formula in rubber provided for “advances” of
20 cents at the beginning of the first year and 15 cents
at the beginning of the second and third years. Howev­
er, 5 cents was to be withheld from some regular quar­
terly adjustments to offset the advances. Unlike the
rubber contracts, the auto agreements provided for the
permanent diversion of a total of 14 cents from quarter­
ly COLA adjustments to help meet the cost of the set­
tlements.
The rubber contracts provided for a total of 72 cents
an hour in “set” general wage increases and an addi­
tional 40 cents for skilled workers. Under their 1976
agreements, workers received $1.35 in general increases
plus 40 cents to skilled workers, and 93 cents in COLA
adjustments. The new auto agreements provided for
general wage increases of 3 percent plus 24 cents an
hour, effective immediately, and 3 percent on both the
first and second anniversaries. This matched the general
increases in the 1976 contract, except that it provided
for an initial increase of 3 percent plus 20 cents. COLA
adjustments totaled $1.37 during the 1976 contracts.
In the trucking industry, the 3-year settlement be­
tween the Teamsters and Trucking Management, Inc.,
and other employer groups provided for continuation of
the COLA formula of 1 cent an hour for each 0.3 point
movement in the CPI-W (1967=100) but adjustments
were to be made semiannually instead of annually. An
unusual feature of the new COLA clause provided that
the final semiannual adjustment will be effective on
April 1, 1982, the day after the contract expires. As a
result, that adjustment will apparently count as part of
the cost of the 1982 settlement, rather than the 1979
settlement, for determining conformity with wage guide­
lines.
The 1979 trucking accord provided for a total of
$1.50 an hour in set wage increases, compared with
$1.65 under the 1976 settlement. COLA adjustments
totaled 62 cents under the 1976 contract.
In the electrical equipment industry, settlements be­
tween various unions and the General Electric Co. and
Westinghouse Electric Corp. provided for semiannual
adjustments of 1 cent an hour for each 0.2 percent
movement in the index; previously, employees received
annual adjustments of 1 cent for each 0.3 percent move­
14


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

ment in the index during the preceding 12 months, with
no credit for that portion of the rise between 7 and 9
percent.
Specified wage increases in the new contracts totaled
82.5 cents an hour, compared with about $1.10 under
the 1976 contracts, which also resulted in 50 cents in
COLA adjustments.
In the airlines industry, settlements negotiated by the
Machinists union with United Airlines, Inc., TWA, and
other companies generally reduced the movement in the
CPI required for a COLA adjustment but continued to
limit the maximum size of the adjustments. At United,
for example, the 3-year contract provided for three an­
nual adjustments of up to 13 cents an hour each, calcu­
lated at 1 cent an hour for each 0.3 point rise in the
index; the previous formula provided for three annual
adjustments of 1 cent an hour for each 0.4 point move­
ment, up to 12 cents a year, which was the amount em­
ployees actually received.
One industry that retained the same escalator clause
was meatpacking. The settlements between the United
Food and Commercial Workers and John Morrell &
Co., Wilson Foods Corp., George Hormel & Co. and
other companies provided for continuation of semiannu­
al escalator adjustments calculated at 1 cent an hour
for each 0.3 point movement in the CPI-W (1967 =
100). These firms, which have been facing problems of
plant obsolescence and intense competition from new
companies using new processing and distribution meth­
ods, also settled for the same total of set wage increases
as in the 1976 contracts— 60 cents an hour over three
years. COLA adjustments totaled $1.50 an hour in the
1976 contracts.
Two other major industries that settled in 1979 con­
tinued their practice of not using a COLA clause. In pe­
troleum refining, the Oil, Chemical and Atomic
Workers and the various companies partly countered
the problem of forecasting future price movements by
again limiting their agreements to a 2-year term. In ad­
dition, they agreed to a relatively large set wage in­
crease of 73 cents an hour at the beginning of the
agreements and agreed to reopen bargaining at mid­
term on the possibility of raising the 5-percent deferred
wage increase scheduled for that time, as well as on im­
proving certain benefits.
The prior agreements in this industry, negotiated in
1977, provided for a 9-percent initial wage increase and
a 75 cents-an-hour increase at mid-term.
Automatic COLA clauses also were not adopted in
Ladies Garment Workers settlements for 250,000 em­
ployees of outerwear manufacturers. The contracts did
continue to provide for reopening bargaining on wages
if the CPI rises a specified amount (an unspecified
amount, in some contracts) but the union has not initi­
ated such reopenings in recent years because of the gen-

-4

erally unfavorable financial condition of the industry.
These contracts provided for set wage increases of 5-, 5-,
8-, and 7-percent over the 3-year term, compared with
5-, 5-, 7-, and 6-percent during the previous contracts.
Pensions and other issues. Although wages drew the
most attention in 1979 bargaining, other issues also
were important and usually reflected union attempts to
counter inflation.
In the trucking industry, employers agreed to in­
crease their financing of pension and insurance plans by
$30 a week to maintain existing levels of benefits. The
Teamsters union was one of the leaders in the successful
effort to persuade the Council on Wage and Price Sta­
bility to exclude part of the increase in employer insur­
ance financing and all of the increase in pension
financing from counting toward guideline calculations in
cases where the additional money was needed to main­
tain existing benefits. The union claimed that if all such
costs were counted toward the value of a settlement
package that met the guidelines, there would be no
money left for wage increases and other benefits.
In the automobile industry, pensions were a particu­
larly important issue, as the Auto Workers sought to
win benefit increases to offset the reduction in purchas­
ing power since the 1973 pension agreement. Originally,
the union sought a system under which benefits would
be adjusted according to the movement of the CPI but it
later settled for a multi-step increase for current and fu­
ture retirees over the 3-year contract term. (The number
of steps was less at Chrysler, but the final benefit levels
were to match those at General Motors and Ford.)
Another important issue in this industry was the
number of paid personal holidays, which was increased
to 26 over the 3-year term, compared with 12 during
the last 2 years of the prior contract. (Chrysler employ­
ees were to receive a total of 20 such holidays under
their October accord, but the number was reduced to
three as a result of the January 6 modifications.) This
was another step toward the union’s goal of a 4-day
workweek. The increase in paid personal holidays, com­
bined with other paid time off, also tends to moderate
layoffs in the industry, which exceeded 100,000 workers
in December.
In the electrical equipment industry, financing of pen­
sions was a major issue in the 6-week strike against
Westinghouse Electric Corp. by several unions. The
company had pressed for conversion to a contributory
pension plan contending that this was necessary to
bring its labor costs into line with those at the General
Electric Co., which had a contributory plan. The com­
pany later withdrew this demand and benefit rates were
increased, but not to the same levels as at GE, where
the employee contribution was increased.
An unusual new contract provision negotiated in

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

1979 was a Ladies Garment Workers “tax” on im­
ported garments. Under the provision, intended to stem
a loss of jobs resulting from increased imports, employ­
ers will be required to pay the union an amount equal
to 1.5 percent of the cost of garments purchased
abroad.
Previously, the ILGWU had the right to seek “liqui­
dated damages” in such cases, which amounted to as
much as 25 percent of the cost. However, the union
used this penalty selectively, because it could have
wiped out employers of its own members. The ILGWU
indicated that the new tax will be applied equally, not
selectively, and that any resulting money will be used
primarily for its union label campaign.
In the rubber settlements, the Rubber Workers won
assurances (except from Goodyear) that the companies
would not interfere with union efforts to organize new
plants. The union has been experiencing difficulty in or­
ganizing the plants, particularly those in areas where
other industries usually are not organized.
Representation of workers at new plants also was an
issue in the Auto Workers negotiations with General
Motors, as the company agreed to permit UAW mem­
bers in its employ to transfer to new GM plants with
full seniority, if the new plant manufactures items that
are similar to those in plants where the UAW holds
representation rights. Previously, such transfers were
permitted only when the opening of new plants resulted
in layoffs at existing UAW plants.
In a related matter, GM agreed to be neutral in any
UAW effort to organize its plants, ending a dispute that
flared up at the start of the negotiations.
Government salaries
The California Supreme Court declared invalid a
State law that had, in effect, precluded any salary in­
creases for local government workers. The law was
enacted in 1978 to help counter the drop in revenue re­
sulting from Proposition 13, the Statewide initiative that
rolled back levels of property taxes and restricted future
increases. The law had provided for the distribution of
surplus State tax funds to affected local units only if
salary increases for their employees during the fiscal
year were held at or below the increase for State em­
ployees. State employees did not receive an increase,
which meant that these local employees also could not
receive an increase. Employee organizations had
charged that local government units had violated valid
contracts by failing to pay scheduled increases.
As a result of the ruling, hundreds of thousands of
local government workers received retroactive pay in­
creases and they were also free to bargain on current or
future increases.
State employees received a 1978 increase, after all, as
the legislature in July 1979 enacted a two-part salary in15

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Industrial Relations in 1979
crease for them— 14.5 percent effective July 1, 1979,
and 7 percent retroactive to October 1978.
At the Federal level, 1.4 million white-collar employ­
ees and 2.1 million members of the Armed Forces re­
ceived a 7-percent salary increase in October. (Federal
employees are not permitted to bargain on salaries and
benefits, but white-collar and blue-collar workers may
join unions and bargain on working conditions and oth­
er matters.) Early in the year, President Carter had in­
dicated that he would propose a 5.5-percent increase to
Congress but later decided the larger increase was
warranted because of the higher rate of inflation.
Members of Congress were automatically eligible for
the 7-percent increase, but they turned it down and put
into effect a 5.5-percent increase they had declined in
1978. Federal judges and various officials also received
the 5.5-percent increase.
Pay rates for the 530,000 trades workers are adjusted
at various times during the year based on comparisons
with comparable occupations in the private economy.
However, special legislation and a Presidential order
limit their increase to 7 percent during the fiscal year
that began October 1.

new setbacks in its efforts to organize new or expanding
mines in the West and Appalachia. The Consolidation
Coal Co. withdrew from the Bituminous Coal Operators
Association, indicating it would bargain with the UMW
on an individual basis. Also, the steel company members
of the association were pressing for a larger role in
bargaining.
In November, UMW President Arnold Miller re­
signed, after his third heart attack. The executive board
designated Miller president emeritus and selected Vice
President Sam Church to fill the remaining 2 years of
Miller’s term.
Among union mergers:
—The Retail Clerks and the Meat Cutters unions
joined to form the United Food and Commercial Work­
ers, the largest union in the AFL-CIO. William W.
Wynn, who had been president of the Retail Clerks,
was elected to head the new union.
—The Lathers union affiliated with the Carpenters,
in a move to expand job opportunities and reduce juris­
dictional disputes.
—The Auto Workers gained 50,000 members when
the Distributive Workers affiliated with the UAW.

Other union developments

Equal employment opportunity

One of the challenges facing the new leaders of the
AFL-CIO , and leaders of individual unions, was indi­
cated by BLS figures which showed that union members
comprised 26.6 percent of the nonfarm workforce in
1977, down from 28.5 percent in 1975. The number of
union members actually increased during the 2-year pe­
riod, to 22.8 million, but this was more than offset by
an 8-percent increase in nonfarm employment, to 85.8
million.
In the complex 4-year contest between the Teamsters
union and the Government over management of the
Central States Pension Fund, the trustees voted to draw
up a list of charges against Equitable Life Assurance
Society of the United States and Victor Palmieri & Co.,
the two current managers of the fund; this action came
immediately after the trustees had almost voted to fire
the firms. The list of charges was to be presented to the
Department of Labor, which had in 1977 successfully
pressed for the resignation of the trusteed then in con­
trol and for the hiring of the firms. The trustees’ Octo­
ber 1979 decision came in the midst of a continuing
series of court cases over operation of the fund, includ­
ing six cases in the Chicago Federal District Court
alone.
The United Mine Workers union continued to be be­
set by difficulties, internal and external. Its chief of staff
resigned after only 3 months of service, claiming he was
hampered by conflicts with other officials. Women coal
miners accused some union members and mine owners
of discriminatory job actions. The union encountered

The year was marked by a number of major adminis­
trative, judicial, arid legislative developments involving
efforts to erase job discrimination.
The Federal Government found the American Tele­
phone and Telegraph Co. to be operating in compliance
with the antibias provisions of a 1973 consent decree
and joined the company in persuading the Federal Dis­
trict Court in Philadelphia to let the decree lapse. The
Government’s analysis showed that AT&T had made
significant progress in a number of areas, including the
hiring and promotion of women, blacks, and Hispanics.
In February, the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission announced that it had reduced its backlog
of discrimination cases to 119,000. Eleanor Holmes
Norton, head of the Commission, which is responsible
for enforcing antidiscrimination provisions of Title VII
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in private industry and
Federal agencies, noted that when the drive to reduce
the backlog began in January 1978, there were 135,000
cases on file and that 75,000 cases had been added in
subsequent months. Norton indicated that the case re­
duction process centered on —
—Assigning new cases to investigators instead of
clerks and by scheduling conciliation meetings between
employer and employees within 30 days.
— If the parties do not accept the agency’s settlement
within 60 days after proposal, the case is referred to
commission headquarters for a decision on whether to
initiate a court action.
Norton said that as the backlog of cases is eliminat-

16

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

ed, the commission will be shifting its focus from indi­
vidual cases to situations dealing with broad patterns of
discrimination.
Sears, Roebuck and Co. charged that the Federal
Government’s various equal employment laws conflict
and were impossible to comply with and that the Gov­
ernment’s own policies have resulted in a work force
dominated by white men. The Sears action was appar­
ently prompted by the EEOC’s January decision to ter­
minate 6 years of negotiations with the retailer on its
employment practices.
In May, Federal District Judge June L. Green
dismissed the Sears claim because it was “not suffi­
ciently concrete.”
This ruling was still in the appeal process when the
EEOC filed five separate actions against Sears in which
it charged the company with discriminating against
women in recruitment, hiring, training, promotions, and
pay around the Nation, and against blacks and Hispanics in some regions.
The EEOC also filed a suit against Montgomery
Ward and Co., charging that the company’s store in
Glendale, Ariz., paid female department heads less than
male department managers with the same responsibility.
The EEOC also asserted that the company has violated
a 1976 agreement with the Department of Labor in
which it promised to equalize pay for men and women
in equal jobs in all of its 2,200 stores.
In another development, the Department of Labor
announced that Uniroyal Inc. had agreed to a $5.2 mil­
lion settlement of a sex discrimination dispute. The De­
partment had barred the company from obtaining any
new Government contracts because it had allegedly
failed to comply with a 1965 Executive Order requiring
Government contractors to cooperate in any investiga­
tions of discrimination complaints. Overall, a total of
750 past or present women employees of Uniroyal’s
Mishawaka, Ind., plant will share the $5.2 million. The
accord also restored other benefits lost as a result of the
discrimination.
The Supreme Court held that employers and unions
with no proven history of discrimination can adopt
quotas to overcome racial imbalances in “traditionally
segregated job categories.” The case was initiated by
Brian F. Weber, a white worker at a Kaiser Aluminum
and Chemical plant in Louisiana, who was denied ad­
mission to a special job training program in which half
of the places were reserved for blacks. Weber had more
seniority than some of the blacks accepted, and he
therefore contended that his exclusion amounted to dis­
crimination in violation of. the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Although the law outlaws discrimination against indi­
viduals, the court ruled that Congress had not meant to
forbid private employers from correcting racial imbal­
ances caused by societal discrimination.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Occupational safety and health
The rate of occupational illnesses and injuries in the
private sector in 1978 was essentially the same as in
1977, but the occupational fatality rate declined, ac­
cording to Bureau of Labor Statistics’ data released last
year.
The number of occupational illnesses and injuries ac­
tually increased by 6 percent in 1978, but there was a
rise in the number of workers and their hours on the
job. As a result, the incidence rate of 9.4 injuries and
illnesses per 100 full-time workers was about the same
as for 1977.
Some key results of the illness and injury portion of
the survey:
—There were 5.66 million work-related injuries in
1978, about the same as in 1977.
—The number of injuries involving lost worktime in­
creased to 2.4 million, while the number of injuries that
did not result in lost worktime increased by 66,000.
— About 38.2 million workdays were lost to work-re­
lated injuries, which amounted to 62.1 days for each
100 workers. The figures for 1977 were 35.2 million
days, or a 60.0 rate.
— Lost-time injury rates increased in 1978 in seven of
the eight industry divisions. The exception was finance,
insurance, and real estate, where the rate did not
change.
—The largest change in the injury incidence rate for
an industry division was in construction, where the rate
rose to 15.9, from 15.2 in 1977. However, the rate of
lost workdays declined to 108.1 from 109.7.
— Recognized occupational illnesses totaled 143,500
in 1978 compared with 162,000 in 1977.
—Job-related deaths declined to 4,590 in 1978, from
4,760 in 1977, a decrease of 4 percent, despite a 5-per­
cent increase in employment. In relation to hours
worked, the fatality rate fell to 0.82 per 10,000 full-time
workers, from 0.91 in 1977.
Leading causes of death:
— Over-the-road car and truck accidents accounted
for 29 percent of fatalities, and aircraft crashes
accounted for 7 percent.
—Thirteen percent of deaths resulted from falls, with
one-half occurring to construction workers.
— Nine percent of the fatalities resulted from indus­
trial vehicles and equipment accidents.
— Heart attacks accounted for 9 percent of fatalities.
—The construction industries, employing 5 percent
of all workers, accounted for 20 percent of the fatalities.
The services industries, representing 21 percent of all
workers, accounted for only 8 percent of the deaths and
nearly half of those resulted from over-the-road motor
vehicle accidents or aircraft crashes.
— Of the 4,500 fatalities, nearly 500 were illness-re17

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Industrial Relations in 1979
lated, primarily due to heart attacks.
The Government moved into a new area of occupa­
tional health and safety in October, when the Occupa­
tional Health and Safety Administration ordered the
American Cyanamid Co. to end practices at its Willow
Island, W. Va., plant that the agency claimed posed a
threat to the ability of women employees to bear chil­
dren. OSHA also fined the company $10,000 for viola­
tions of health and safety standards.
The problems at the plant emerged in 1978, when
four women disclosed that they had been voluntarily
sterilized in order to retain their jobs in the lead pig­
ment production area. The company has admitted that
it excluded women from certain work areas because ex­
posure to chemicals might harm fetuses or affect fertili­
ty, but it also said that it offered them transfers to
other jobs, possibly at lower pay.
At year-end, the company closed the plant’s lead pig­
ment department, resulting in the layoff of about 60
employees. The four women who filed the complaint
were not affected.
The Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Co­
lumbia upheld OSHA’s standard for employee exposure
to cotton dust. OSHA had published the standard in
June 1978, but it was not put into effect because of a
court test by the American Textile Institute, which con­
tended that engineering controls were too costly, that
OSHA had not performed a required cost-benefit analy­
sis, and that the agency did not have the authority to
order the transfer of certain employees to less hazard­

ous work at equal pay. Several unions also contested
the standard, contending it was too lax.
Consolidating the various challenges to the standard,
the appeals court ruled that the textile industry could
not prove that it was protecting workers from brown
lung disease through periodic physical examinations and
arrangements for job transfers. The court also said that
the use of individual respirators by workers was inade­
quate protection and even presented additional safety
and health hazards.
The cotton standard provides for graduated steps to­
ward final limits to be attained within 4 years by instal­
lation of engineering controls. The final limits are 200
micrograms of cotton dust per cubic meter of air in
yarn manufacturing, 750 micrograms in slashing and
weaving, and 500 micrograms in cotton waste process­
ing, and in warehousing. Employers are permitted to
furnish employees with respirators until the engineering
controls are installed.
Eula Bingham, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Oc­
cupational Safety and Health, said she was pleased with
the ruling because it “vindicates our regulatory ap­
proach favoring engineering controls over personal pro­
tective equipment.”
There was speculation that the ruling could influence
the same court’s pending decision on whether the lead
industry must use engineering controls to attain the
standard it had already permitted OSHA to begin
enforcing. Another standard, for benzene, was under re­
view by the Supreme Court.
□

------- FOOTNOTES
1This BLS information on the size of collective bargaining settle­
ments is of limited use in any attempts to determine the effect of
President Carter’s anti-inflation plan because the BLS procedures for
evaluating settlements differ from those of the Council on Wage and
Price Stability, which administers the plan. Unlike the BLS, the
Council:
Includes estimates of potential cost-of-living escalator adjust­
ments.
— Excludes increases in the cost of maintaining existing health
benefits in excess of 7 percent.
— Excludes increases in the cost of maintaining existing pension
benefits levels.
— Excludes the cost of legally-required social insurance programs.
One reason for the differences was that Kahn estimated future
wage escalator increases based on the assumption that the CPI would
rise 6 percent a year, which was the amount the guidelines program
specified should be used in calculating the cost of settlements.

18

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

' Its specific responsibilities were to
— Submit by Oct. 31, 1979, its recommendations for (1) changes in
the basic 7-percent pay standard, (2) the inflation assumption to use
for evaluating automatic wage escalator contract clauses, (3) the
threshold for the low-wage exemption, (4) the treatment of increments
and tandem collective bargaining relationships, and (5) the proper
standard for workers not covered by wage escalator clauses.
— Recommend possible changes in pay exception and noncom­
pliance decisions of the Council on Wage and Price Stability.
— Make other recommendations and new or revised interpretations
of the pay standard.
— Make recommendations to assure that individual decisions are
fair and consistent with the objectives of the program.
In addition, a new Price Advisory Committee of five members from
the general public was to recommend modifications of the price stan­
dard, new or revised interpretations of the price standard, and any
needed changes in the anti-inflation program.

Workers’ compensation laws
key amendments of 1979
All but three of the States increased
temporary total disability benefits;
some also sought to cut costs by investigating
medical bills, offsetting benefits by other
transfer payments, and reducing the effect
of disabilities through rehabilitation programs
L a V erne

C.

T in s l e y

The legislatures of 49 States and Puerto Rico enacted
220 amendments to workers’ compensation laws during
1979. A review of these amendments indicates that
States are continuing to improve benefits for covered
workers, while seeking to control costs through better
administration. Many States have shifted their focus
from meeting the essential recommendations of the Na­
tional Commission on State Workmen’s Compensation
Laws to dealing with other issues addressed by the
commission, including rehabilitation and administra­
tion.
All but three States and Puerto Rico increased week­
ly payments for temporary total disability. Connecticut
and Florida increased benefits across the board up to
100 percent of the State average weekly wage. (See table
1.)

Half a dozen States revised provisions for handling
medical expenses. Maine and Texas strengthened disclo­
sure requirements for health care providers, and Minne­
sota will establish criteria for excessive medical costs.
Seven States updated rehabilitation provisions for in­
jured workers. Minnesota and Montana now withhold
benefits in whole or in part for failure to participate

LaVerne C. Tinsley is a workers' compensation specialist in the Divi­
sion of State Workers' Compensation Standards, Employment Stan­
dards Administration. U.S. Department of Labor.


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

in such programs; Arkansas prohibited such with­
holding.
Florida approved a major revision of its law by
incorporating a “wage loss” system for compensating
permanent partial disability. In addition, watts tele­
phone lines were authorized Statewide to facilitate com­
munication among all parties involved in workers’
compensation matters. Michigan provided that certain
State employees, if victims of workplace assaults, will
receive supplemental benefits that, combined with work­
ers’ compensation, could equal their full salaries.
Twenty-one States were concerned with revising cov­
erage provisions. Ten legislatures approved amendments
which exempt or provide for elective coverage of sole
proprietors, partners, and corporate officers. Idaho
exempted members of volunteer ski patrols; North Car­
olina exempted members of the Civil Air Patrol and
reduced numerical exemptions from fewer than five em­
ployees to fewer than four. The remaining States
primarily expanded coverage for State and emergency
service personnel.
Among other jurisdictions that amended benefit pro­
visions, Kansas raised maximum weekly benefits from
66 2/3 percent to 72 percent of the State average week­
ly wage. Arkansas established a three-step monetary in­
crease from a weekly maximum of $87.50 to $112
(currently payable) to $126 by March of 1980. Arkan­
sas, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New
19

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Workers' Compensation Amendments of 1979

T a b l e 1.

J u r is d i c t i o n s t h a t in c r e a s e d m a x im u m w e e k ly t e m p o r a r y t o t a l d is a b ilit y b e n e f it s d u r in q 1 9 7 9 1
Jurisdiction

Alabam a.............................
Alaska ........................................
Arkansas ..........................
Colorado.....................................
Connecticut........................................
Delaware ........................................
District of C olum bia........................................
Florida ..............................................
Hawaii ..........................
Idaho ......................................
Illinois.................................
Indiana ...................................
Io w a ............................................
Kansas ..........................................
Kentucky............................................
Louisiana .................................
M aine........................................
Maryland.................................
Massachusetts .............................
Michigan......................................
Minnesota......................
Mississippi............................................
Missouri ..........................................
M ontana...................................
Nebraska .................................
Nevada .................................
New Hampshire...................................
New Jersey...................................
New Mexico ..........................
New York ......................................
North Carolina......................................
North Dakota........................................
O h io .................................................
O klahoma.............................
O regon......................................
Pennsylvania............................................
Rhode Island...................................
South Carolina ..........................................
South Dakota .................................
Tennessee .............................
Texas ..............................................
U ta h ............................................
Vermont ...................................
Virginia .............................
Washington........................
West Virginia.............................
Wisconsin ......................................
Wyoming.............................

Former maximum
$128.00
$607.85
$ 87.50
$173.60
$204.00, plus $10 for each dependent under 18 years of age not to
exceed 75 percent of employee’s wage
$154.50
$396.78
$130.00
$189.00
$109.80 to $164.70 according to number of dependents, plus 7 per­
cent of SAWW for each child up to 5
$329.82
$120.00
$265.00
$129.06
$112.00
$141.00
$231.72
$202.00
$211.37, plus $6 for each dependent; aggregate not to exceed
worker’s average weekly wage
$142.00 to $171.00, according to number of dependents
$209.00
$ 91.00
$115.00
$188.00
$155.00
$212.02
$180.00
$146.00
$172.46
$180.00
$178.00
$180.00, plus $5 for each dependent child; aggregate not to
exceed worker’s net wage after taxes and social security
$216.00
$132.00
$224.16
$213.00
$183.00, plus $6 for each dependent; aggregate not to exceed 80
percent of worker’s average weekly wage
$172.00
$155.00
$100.00
$105.00
$197.00, plus $5 for dependent spouse and each dependent child
up to 4, but not to exceed 100 percent of SAWW
$181.00, plus $5 for each dependent under 21 years of age
$187.00
$175.30
$224.00
$202.00
$224.98

1Benefit jhcreases are based on the applicable State’s average weekly wage, and for the
District of Columbia, the national average weekly wage. However, 10 States (Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, and Tennes-

York, North Dakota, Tennessee, and Washington
increased statutory amounts for both disability and
death. Offset provisions were created or revised in Flori­
da, Maine, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Utah, and
Washington. Burial allowances were increased in Neva­
da. Colorado equalized entitlement to compensation for
residents and nonresidents; and New York and Tennes­
see established the same rights for widowers as those
existing for widows.
Long-term recipients of workers’ compensation were
given increases in Nevada, North Dakota, Pennsylvania
(occupational disease cases), Utah, and West Virginia.
Following is a summary of 1979 enactments by State
pertaining to coverage and benefits, as well as rehabili­
tation, administration, and other aspects of State work­
ers’ compensation.
20


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

New maximum
$136.00
$654.30
$112.00
$222.74
$222.00, plus $10 for each dependent under'18 years of age not to
exceed 75 percent of employee’s wage
$164 71
$426.26
$195.00
$200.00
$115.80 to $173.70 according to number of dependents plus 7
percent of SAWW for each child up to 5
$342.19
$130.00
$352.00
$148.00
$121.00
$149.00
$306.23
$220.00
$227.31, plus $6 for each dependent; aggregate not to exceed
worker’s average weekly wage
$156.00 to $185.00, according to number of dependents
$226.00
$ 98.00
$125.00
$198.00
$180.00
$229.71
$195.00
$156.00
$186.38
$215.00
$194.00
$196.00, plus $5 for each dependent child; aggregate not to exceed
worker’s net wage after taxes and social security
$241.00
$141.00
$241.70
$227.00
$199.00, plus $6 for each dependent; aggregate not to exceed 80
percent of worker’s average weekly wage
$185.00
$175.00
$107.00
$119.00
$210.00, plus $5 for dependent spouse and each dependent child up
to 4, but not to exceed 100 percent of SAWW
$192.00, plus $5 for each dependent under 21 years of age
$199.00
$186.88
$237.00
$218.00
$239.59

see) and Puerto Rico prescribe statutory amounts; three States (Arizona California and Georgia) and Puerto Rico are not listed since no increases for temporary total disability were leqislated during 1979.
a

Alabama

Sole proprietors and partners are now permitted to elect
coverage for themselves. Previously, such employers could not
elect coverage for themselves for benefit purposes.
Alaska

Political subdivisions may now elect coverage for their vol­
unteer ambulance attendants and volunteer police.
Arizona

Coverage for volunteer firefighters now includes those in
both private protection squads and fire departments in
unincorporated communities.
Arkansas

For coverage purposes, the definition of employee now in­
cludes full-time sole proprietors and partners. A three-step in-

crease retroactive to March 2, 1978, will raise the maximum
weekly benefits for all disabilities and for death from $87.50
to $126.00 by March 1, 1980. The maximum awards for other
than both permanent total disability and death will also in­
crease to $56,700 on March 1, 1980. The discount rate in
computing lump sum settlements was increased from 4 to 7
percent. An employer’s obligation for additional vocational re­
habilitation expenses was limited to 60 weeks; but no employ­
ee is required to participate in a vocational rehabilitation
program without his or her consent. Employers cannot be
held responsible for unauthorized medical expenses.
A claimant’s failure to give notice within the required 60
days does not bar a claim if the employee had no knowledge
that the disability arose out of and in the course of employ­
ment. A lump sum payment of attorney fees is now permitted
even if the award is to be paid in installments.
Various rules, regulations, and procedures regarding Second
Injury Funds and appeals were established or revised. The
employer will only be liable for the specific disability resulting
from the last injury in both permanent partial and permanent
total disability claims. Any principal officer, director, stock­
holder, or partner acting in the capacity of an employer as­
sumes employers’ exemption from liability under common
law; the negligent acts of an employee cannot be imputed to
the employer.
Self-insured employers are allowed to enter into pooling
agreements with other employers in the same type of business.
When established that failure to file a claim for compensation
was induced by fraud, the claim may be filed within 1 year
from the date of discovery of the fraud.
All authority related to the filing, processing, and payment
of public employee claims has been transferred from the
Workers’ Compensation Commission to the Public Employee
Claims Division of the Arkansas Insurance Department.
California

Volunteer workers for public agencies or nonprofit organi­
zations who receive no remuneration other than meals, trans­
portation, lodging, or reimbursement for incidental expenses
are excluded from coverage, provided such persons are includ­
ed under Title II of the Domestic Volunteer Service Act of
1973.
The revolving Compensation Insurance Fund was changed
to a Public Enterprise Fund, which is exempt from certain
State provisions. References to “widow” have been changed to
“spouse” throughout the law.
Colorado

Death benefits for nonresident dependents are now the same
as for resident dependents in deaths that occurred on or after
July 1, 1979.
Under nonmedical treatment, chiropractic care must now
be paid by self-insured employers.
A penalty of $500 or 60 days imprisonment, or both, may
be assessed against any person, company, or corporation who
fails to provide or maintain insurance coverage for the term of
the contract when performing services on a farm or ranching
operation.
Connecticut

The law was redesignated as the Workers’ Compensation
Act, and references to “workmen’s” were changed to “work­
ers’” throughout the law.
Elective coverage was extended to sole proprietors and busi­
ness partners.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Benefits for both disability and death were increased from
85 to 100 percent of the State average weekly wage.
A 12-percent interest rate, formerly 6 percent, will be ap­
plied as additional compensation in cases where benefit pay­
ments are unduly delayed.
The number of compensation commissioners was increased
from seven to eight. Appellate procedures were revised with
the creation of the Compensation Review Division to hear ap­
peals, testimony, or evidence. The Division’s decision may be
appealed to Superior Court.
Delaware

A Workmen’s Compensation Commission was established
to study workers’ compensation insurance and to make rec­
ommendations for improving the law. A sum of $50,000 was
appropriated to the commissioner for administrative use.
Florida

The law was renamed the Workers’ Compensation Act, and
references to “workmen’s” were replaced by “workers’”
throughout the law.
Officers of a corporation who elect to be exempt from cover­
age are excluded from the definition of employee. The defi­
nition of independent contractor now includes musicians and
other entertainers who are not otherwise covered.
Maximum weekly benefits for both disability and death
were increased from 66 2/3 percent to 100 percent of the
State average weekly wage. The percentage of the employee’s
wage upon which benefits are based was increased from 60 to
66 2/3 percent for both temporary and permanent total dis­
ability. Payment for temporary partial disability was increased
from 60 percent to 66 2/3 percent of the difference between
preinjury and postinjury income. A wage loss approach for
payment of permanent partial disability was established, and
the scheduled payment periods for such disability eliminated.
Compensation for dependents will now be offset by the
amount of any social security benefits received. The law also
was changed to bar compensation for both temporary and
permanent total disability when unemployment compensation
is being received.
All attorney fees are now to be paid out of the claimant’s
award except under certain circumstances. Medical and hospi­
tal fees will be closely regulated, and peer review of medical
care has been established.
The reporting procedures regarding an injury were changed.
When an injury occurs, the employer is required to notify
both the Division of Workers’ Compensation and the employ­
ee, as well as the insurance carrier.
The penalty for a late payment of compensation was re­
duced from 20 to 10 percent of that payment.
Compromise and release of future medical benefits are now
prohibited. Lump sum settlements cannot be considered until
6 months after the worker has reached maximum medical im­
provement.
The full responsibility for rehabilitation of injured workers
rests with both the employer and the carrier.
The Bureau of Workmen’s Compensation has been
abolished and the Division of Workers’ Compensation created
to assume an active and forceful role in the administration of
the act. Watts lines have been set up in the State to assist the
resolution of workers’ compensation matters.
Hawaii

A corporate officer who performs voluntary services in a
corporation in which he or she is at least a 25-percent stock21

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Workers' Compensation Amendments of 1979
holder is excluded from coverage.
The State Department of Labor and Industrial Relations is
authorized to set maximum employer liability for medical care
and supplies using the Consumer Price Index for the Honolu­
lu region.
A 2-year filing limit was set for benefit claims involving asbestosis or other mineral substance with carcinogenic proper­
ties. Initial judicial review of claims was changed from the
State Supreme Court to the Appellate Court.
Idaho

Members of volunteer ski patrols were exempted from
compulsory coverage.
Illinois

Any employee receiving compensation for work-related in­
juries now must be notified of his or her rights to reha­
bilitation care and services.
By amendment, “workmen’s” was changed to “workers’”
in the title and throughout the act.
Indiana

Coverage was extended to volunteer firefighters and to sole
proprietors and partners actually engaged in a business.
The maximum weekly benefit for both total disability and
death was raised in two steps: effective July 1, 1979, it was
raised to $195; on July 1, 1980, it will increase to $210. On
the same two dates, the maximum aggregate amount first
changed from $60,000 to $65,000 and will increase to $70,000.
The maximum number of weeks for payment of temporary to­
tal disability in conjunction with permanent partial disability
was increased from 26 to 52 weeks. Replacement of prosthodontic devices is now permitted for employees with a com­
pensable mouth injury.

Joint self-insurance programs are now permitted for local
government employers through the formation of an interlocal
risk management agency.
Maine

Coverage now includes all fire personnel whether or not
they perform administrative duties.
Injured employees are now permitted to receive podiatrie
services from licensed podiatrists in Maine.
Occupational hearing loss is now measured in accordance
with the National Standards Institute (Standard S3.22, 1976)
rather than the American Standards Association (Standard
Z24.5, 1951).
The Workers’ Compensation Commission was authorized to
enforce the provisions pertaining to interest on awards. Attor­
neys are prohibited from receiving payments directly from cli­
ents. The Second Injury Fund is no longer liable for any
claim that exceeds its assets.
Workers’ “average weekly wage, earnings or salary” was
redefined to exclude any allowance given to the employee to
purchase chainsaws or skidders used on the job.
All benefits, except for scheduled permanent partial dis­
abilities and lump sum settlements, will now be offset by the
amount of any concurrently received unemployment bene­
fits.
There are new procedures to regulate the disclosure of rele­
vant information in the insurance rate filing system.
Massachusetts

The Industrial Accident Board was newly authorized to or­
der payment of medical and hospital bills, and reports
prepared by physicians who have since died are now permit­
ted at hearings before the Board.
Michigan

Iowa

Elective coverage for police and firefighters in municipalities
with populations of 8,000 or more will be permitted after De­
cember 31, 1979.
Employers are required to repair or replace artificial appli­
ances when damaged or no longer usable as a result of workrelated circumstances (other than normal wear and tear).
Kansas

The maximum weekly benefit for disability and death was
raised from 66 2/3 percent to 72 percent of the State average
weekly wage; the minimum weekly benefit increased from $7
to $25. The maximums for total benefits also increased: both
permanent total disability and death went from $50,000 to
$100,000; temporary total disability and permanent or tempo­
rary partial disability increased from $50,000 to $75,000.
Claimants are entitled to 8 percent interest on the amount
of benefits found by the workers’ compensation examiner or
director or State court to be due and unpaid.
Louisiana

Sole proprietors and partners are now permitted to waive
coverage.
The law now authorizes group self-insurance funds. Five or
more employers of the same trade or business with a mini­
mum combined net worth of $500,000 are now permitted to
pool their potential liabilities.
22


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Supplemental benefits (up to full salary) are now provided
to certain State employees injured as a result of workplace as­
saults. Carriers who pay benefits for disability or death caused
by exposure to polybrominated biphenyl will now be reim­
bursed from the Silicosis and Dust Disease Fund.
Minnesota

Many changes were made in the workers’ compensation law
this year. Major changes include the following.
Business partners who own a business or farm are now per­
mitted to elect coverage for themselves and their immediate
relatives.
Death benefits can now be awarded to either surviving
spouse, rather than to the widow only. Eligibility for these
benefits by children has been extended to full-time students up
to age 25. The 104-week limit on total disability payments has
been removed. Supplementary benefit payments are increased
from 60 to 65 percent of the State average weekly wage. A
Reopened Case Fund has been created to assume liability for
all new claims filed 7 years from the date of injury or death
or 3 years from the last payment of compensation, whichever
is later. The Commissioner of Labor and Industry must estab­
lish procedures for determining whether health care charges
are excessive. An employee who has been mentally and physi­
cally incapacitated is now allowed to file a claim for compen­
sation within 180 days of the incapacity. The responsibility for
administration of employers’ self-insurance was transferred
from the Commissioner of Labor and Industry to the Com-

missioner of Insurance.
Employers are required to provide for both podiatric and
orthodontic treatment for claimants.
A worker permanently transferred to another State is no
longer covered by the extraterritoriality provision if he or she
travels extensively outside that State.
The liability of an employee who intentionally or grossly
caused injury to another employee was limited.
Comprehensive procedures were established for rehabilita­
tion, emphasizing the need for comparable employment and
on-the-job training. Retraining to a higher status was permit­
ted when employability would be increased by doing so. The
director of rehabilitation services, appointed by the Commis­
sioner of Labor and Industry from persons in the Classified
Service, will oversee this new program.
^
Mississippi

Maximum weekly compensation for disability and death
was increased from $91 to $98; the total maximum was raised
from $40,950 to $44,100.
Missouri

Elective coverage was allowed when an employer files notice
with the Division of Workmen’s Compensation. The maxi­
mum weekly benefit for temporary partial and temporary total
disability was increased from $115 to $125, and the weekly
compensation for both permanent total disability and death
was increased from $115 to $120.
Montana

The law was redesignated the Workers’ Compensation Act,
and references to “workmen’s” were changed to “workers’”
throughout the law. The Occupational Disease Disability Act
was retitled the Occupational Disease Act. The Vocational
Rehabilitation Division has been renamed the Department of
Social Aid Rehabilitation Services.
Municipalities must now pay the difference between a law
enforcement officer’s full salary and the amount of workers’
compensation benefits.
The division is now authorized to require that a claimant
pursue a vocational rehabilitation program, if feasible and ap­
propriate, for continuation of benefits. Refusal to participate
in the program may lead to the termination of benefits.
Full medical care without time or dollar limits was provid­
ed. Under previous law, medical treatment was restricted to a
maximum of $2,500 for a nondisabling occupational disease.
Several pneumoconiosis provisions were repealed, thereby
making no practical distinction between pneumoconiosis and
other occupational diseases. A fine of not more than $500, up
from $100, may now be assessed against an employer who
fails to provide information (from books, records, and pay­
rolls) at the request of the division. Uninsured employers are
now required to pay into the Uninsured Employer’s Fund ei­
ther double the premium amount the employer would have
paid if insured by the State fund or $200, whichever is greater.
Third-party suits are no longer permitted against an employer
covered by the act. State agencies are now required to be in­
sured under the State fund. The penalty assessed against an
insurer for delayed benefit payments was increased from 10
percent to 20 percent.
A provision providing employer nonliability for work con­
tracted to an independent party was eliminated. Benefit pay­
ments are due after 15 days of an entitlement notice by the
insurer.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Nebraska

The maximum weekly benefit for both disability and death
was increased from $155 to $180.
Nevada

Coverage was extended to off-duty regular firefighters who
perform voluntary services both within the jurisdiction served
by their departments and in jurisdictions with reciprocal aid
agreements.
Benefits were increased to 35 percent above the initial benefit
amount for permanent total disabilities incurred prior to April
9, 1971, and for deaths prior to July 1, 1973. The burial ex­
pense allowance was increased from $1,200 to $2,500.
Cooperative agreements for rehabilitation services were au­
thorized for the Industrial Commission, the Rehabilitation
Division of the Department of Human Resources, and other
agencies to provide the necessary rehabilitation services for
disabled workers to return to gainful employment.
Employers are now permitted to self-insure their potential
liabilities. In addition, an administrative fund was created to
defray all costs and expenses of administering self-insurance
programs.
New Hampshire

Death benefits for dependent and totally disabled widows
or widowers will now extend for the duration of such total
disability. A totally disabled widow or widower with depen­
dent children will continue to receive supplemental compensa­
tion for their dependents according to the weekly benefit
amounts until the children are no longer entitled. Lump sum
agreements, except for medical care, may now be permitted at
the discretion of the labor commissioner.
New Jersey

Injuries to fingers and toes will no longer be compensated
unless a permanent loss of function occurs. A disfiguring inju­
ry, with scars less than three inches, will also no longer be
compensable except when involving the face.
New Mexico

The definition of “workmen” was broadened to include
public employees and salaried public officers.
New York

Coverage is extended to film inspection assistants, school
safety supervisors, and instructors of addiction employed by
school districts in a city with a population of 1 million or
more.
Death benefits for either surviving spouse were equalized.
The authority of the chairman of the Workers’ Compensa­
tion Board to approve rates for medical services charged to
employers was extended until December 31, 1980. The board
was also authorized to impose a U/2 -percent monthly interest
penalty for overdue payments of physician fees.
North Carolina

The law was retitled the Workers’ Compensation Law, and
references to “workmen’s” were changed to “workers’”
throughout the law.
The numerical exemption was reduced from five to four em­
ployees. Sole proprietors or partners are now permitted to
elect coverage; senior members of the Civil Air Patrol were
exempted.
23

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Workers' Compensation Amendments of 1979
When a totally disabled employee dies of asbestosis or sili­
cosis, the compensation will now be the unpaid portion of the
104 weeks of disability compensation plus an additional 300
weeks of benefits.
Attorney fees in third party subrogation actions now must
be approved by the Industrial Commission. Two or more em­
ployers are now permitted to pool their potential liabilities.
Employers can no longer discharge or demote an employee
for filing a compensation claim. When a medical bill remains
unpaid after 60 days, a 10-percent penalty will now be added.
The commission was also authorized to assess the costs of
proceedings against any person who has brought, prosecuted,
or defended such proceedings without reasonable grounds.
North Dakota

The maximum weekly benefit for death was increased from
$75 to $90.
Persons on the compensation rolls as of July 1, 1975, who
are continuing to receive benefits as of July 1, 1979, are now
entitled to supplementary benefits. A claim for death benefits
can now be filed up to 2 years (previously 1 year) following
the worker’s death. Court fees for cases that are being
appealed are now determined by the Appellate Court, rather
than by the trial judge. Temporary total and permanent total
disability benefits will now be offset by the amount of any so­
cial security benefits.
Ohio

Temporary total disability benefits for the first 12 weeks of
compensation will now be based on 72 percent of the employ­
ee’s last full weekly wage instead of the employee’s average
weekly wage.
A Rehabilitation Division was established in the Industrial
Commission to provide a comprehensive system designed to
rehabilitate the injured worker. In the event of a concurrent
and duplicative benefit under an employer-funded, nonoccupational benefits plan, temporary total disability benefits
will now be reduced.
The time limit for premium defaults was changed from 6 to
8 weeks. Premium rates are now set by the Industrial Com­
mission to assure the solvency of the State Insurance Fund.
Oregon

Upon election by a municipality, coverage can now be ex­
tended to all municipal volunteer personnel as well as to
subcontractors and their employees. Mentally disabled per­
sons in special educational training programs and participants
in work training programs arer now covered, except that the
trainees are not entitled to temporary total disability benefits.
Compensation for permanent disability was changed from
$85 to $100 for each degree of injury based on a fixed scale.
Where the rating is based on permanent loss of earning capac­
ity, the benefit value per degree is now $85.
The law was amended to limit an injured worker to four
changes of his or her attending physician (following the initial
choice) without approval from the director.
Self-insured employers must now have certain excess insur­
ance to cover their potential liabilities.
The State Accident Insurance Fund was made an indepen­
dent public corporation governed by five directors appointed
by the Governor.
An assessment of six cents per day will now be charged to
every subject employer for each worker employed each day or
part of a day. Permanent total disability benefits will now be
offset by the amount of social security benefits received.
24


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Rhode Island

The Workmen’s Compensation Commission was retitled the
Workers’ Compensation Commission.
Determinations for the reasonableness of disputed medical
charges will now be made by the Workers’ Compensation
Commissioner.
The time period for filing occupational disease claims w'as
extended from 24 to 36 months.
South Carolina

The amount of compensation a minor dependent may re­
ceive without the appointment of a guardian was increased
from $1,000 to $2,500.
Tennessee

Maximum weekly benefits for disability or death were in­
creased from $100 to $107, and the total maximum was raised
from $40,000 to $42,800. The $15 weekly minimum remained
unchanged. Death benefits payable to a widower are now the
same as those payable to a widow. Lump sum payments may
be commuted upon motion by any party involved in the court
proceeding.
Texas

The definition of State employee was broadened to include
persons paid from State funds and working for and receiving
supervision from a political subdivision of the State.
Dependency no longer applies to parents who abandoned or
failed to support the disabled or deceased worker during
preadult years. When no claim for death benefits has been
filed within 8 months of death, it will now be presumed that
there are no dependents entitled to benefits; thus payments
will be made into the Second Injury Fund. However, this pre­
sumption does not apply to minor beneficiaries or to bene­
ficiaries of unsound mind for whom no guardian has been
appointed. A written report must now be filed by an employer
within 8 days after an employee’s absence from work because
of a work-related injury.
The law now requires hospitals to furnish relevant records
upon request. Physicians and chiropractors were already cov­
ered by this provision.
A Workers’ Compensation Advisory Committee was
appointed by the Governor to study the law and to formulate
possible ways to improve the system.
Utah

Minimum weekly compensation was increased from $75 to
$85 for persons permanently and totally disabled and entitled
to benefits from the Special Fund. References in the law to ei­
ther “Special” or “Combined” Injury Fund were deemed to
concern the Second Injdry Fund.
Employer liability in no-dependency cases was increased
from $15,600 to $18,720, payable into the Second Injury
Fund. All death benefits formerly paid from the fund will now
be paid by the carrier. After the first 6 years of dependency,
death benefits will be subject to a 50-percent offset based on
Federal social security death benefits.
The minimum weekly benefit for an employee undergoing
rehabilitation was increased from $35 to $45.
Virginia

The 2-year limit for filing first or second stage pneumoconi­
osis claims was removed. Only in cases of pneumoconiosis or

silicosis, where x-ray evidence has demonstrated a positive di­
agnosis of the disease, will waivers from coverage be permit­
ted.
Requirements for group self-insurance were strengthened,
with new payroll reporting procedures and the adoption of
uniform rules on compliance and certification of insurance.
Other insurance changes were also made.
Washington

Corporate officers were excluded from compulsory coverage;
elective coverage is now permitted.
Permanent partial disability benefits (thus all disability ben­
efits) will now be offset by any Federal social security benefits.
A new provision also allows recovery of overpayment based
on this offset.
Weekly compensation for scheduled injuries (where benefit
amounts have been precalculated) was doubled, and total
compensation for impairment to the whole body was in­
creased from $30,000 to $60,000.
A $45,000 maximum was placed on compensation for
unscheduled permanent partial disability to the back when no
objective clinical findings are available.
The annual cost-of-living adjustment for both total disabili­

ty and death benefits for claimants on the rolls since July 1,
1971, was extended to July 1, 1980.
West Virginia

The commissioner must now establish guidelines for deter­
mining anticipated periods of disability. Eligibility require­
ments under the Disabled Workmen’s Relief Fund will now
extend coverage to persons who receive less than 33 1/3 per­
cent of the State average weekly wage. Payment of reasonable
medical expenses is now permitted without prior authorization
under certain circumstances.
A Workers’ Compensation Advisory Board consisting of 10
members was created to advise the commissioner on compen­
sation administration and make long-range plans for improve­
ments in the Disabled Workmen’s Relief Fund.
Wyoming

The presumed pay of volunteer emergency personnel was
increased from $50 per month to $100 per month. Thus, they
will now be entitled to maximum benefits for temporary total
disability.
The dollar limits on attorney fees were eliminated.
□

The cost of safety incentives
The pain and suffering of a serious disability represent a
substantial portion of the costs of an injury. It would be
desirable for the legal system to assign liability for such
losses so that the full cost of injuries is borne by the party
in the best position to prevent the accident. The dilemma,
however, is that if the awards routinely made in a workers’
compensation system were to be so generous as to include
pain and suffering there would be a strong incentive for
employees to act with less than an optimal amount of
care. . . .
There is some evidence that even the more generous
States within the current system may fail to encourage an


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

appropriate amount of careful employee behavior. Only a
system that provides the opportunity for detailed examina­
tion of the circumstances and consequences of the injury
could avoid such a distortion of incentives; but again, this
would be very costly.

— Ja m es R o ber t C heliu s
Workplace Safety and Health: The Role of Workers' Compensation
(Washington, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy
Research, 1978), p. 62.

25

The productivity trend in the
soaps and detergents industry
<

During 1958- 77, annual productivity
increased an average of 2.9 percent,
as the industry responded to a strong
demand for soap and detergent products
and was aided by improved technology
Patricia S. Wilder

Productivity in the soaps and detergents industry has
increased in line with the rise in output per employee
hour for the manufacturing sector since 1958.1
While annual output doubled, employee hours in­
creased by more than one-fourth between 1958 and
1977. The average annual increase in productivity was
2.9 percent.
The rise in productivity was associated with an annu­
al increase in output of 4.1 percent coupled with a
1.2-percent average annual increase in employee-hours.
Productivity gains have resulted primarily from
sustained high levels of capital investment for new ma­
chinery and equipment, and improvements in produc­
tion and packaging operations.
Output per employee hour has fluctuated during the
period of this study. Since 1958, annual increases in
productivity have ranged from 1.0 to 10.6 percent. De­
clines in productivity have occurred in 4 years, includ­
ing 1977. For the most recent 5-year period, 1973-77,
productivity has declined at an annual rate of 0.6 per­
cent. (See table 1.)
From 1958 to 1965, average growth in productivity
was 1.9 percent; output rose 4.6 percent, and hours ad­
vanced 2.7 percent annually. During this period, the in­
dustry experienced a general expansion. The number of
establishments manufacturing soaps and detergents in­
creased from 608 in 1958 to 704 in 1963.
Patricia S. Wilder is an economist in the Division of Industry Produc­
tivity Studies, Bureau of Labor Statistics.

26

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

From 1965 to 1974, productivity grew much faster,
averaging 4.3 percent each year. The acceleration was in
sharp contrast to the productivity movements of other
industries in the economy. More than two-thirds of the
industries for which productivity measures are available
showed slackening productivity growth since 1966. Pro­
ductivity growth in the soaps and detergents industry
during 1965-74 reflected average annual increases of
4.9 percent in output and 0.6 percent in employeehours. The slower growth in employee-hours was asso­
ciated with an overall decline in the number of estab­
lishments— from 704 in 1963 to 642 by 1972.
In 1975, a recession year, productivity fell 7.1
percent. Output recorded its largest decline of 9.4 per­
cent, and employee-hours declined 2.4 percent. In 1976,
productivity growth resumed with a 3.0 percent gain
with both output (5.8 percent) and hours (2.8 percent)
increasing over the depressed levels of the preceding
year. In 1977, however, output growth slowed to 2.2
percent, while employee hours increased 2.8 percent.
This resulted in a 0.6-percent decline in productivity.
Output doubles
Productivity gains in the soaps and detergents indus­
try have been closely linked to output expansion, which
doubled between 1958 and 1977. Some significant fac­
tors affecting this growth are expanded use of home
laundry equipment and dishwashing appliances, popula­
tion growth, and successful advertising and sales pro­
motions.2

Table 1. Productivity and related indexes for the soaps
and detergents industry, 1958-77
[1967 = 100]
Output per employee-hour
Year

All
employees

1958 . . .
1959 . . .
1960 . . .

Production
workers

Nonproduction
workers

Employee-hours
Output

All
employees

Production
workers

Nonproduction
workers

77.7
84.4
81.7

78.3
85.4
81.5

76.3
82.2
82.0

64.7
71.8
71.9

83.3
85.1
88.0

82.6
84.1
88.2

84.8
87.3
87.7

1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970

...
...
...
...
...
.. .
...
...
.. .
...

82.6
83.9
90.7
90.7
88.1
94.2
100.0
101.1
101.1
105.7

81.7
81.7
87.5
88.3
87.0
94.0
100.0
102.4
104.1
110.4

84.2
89.7
98.8
96.5
90.7
94.6
100.0
98.2
95.0
96.3

75.7
78.8
85.2
88.7
88.5
93.8
100.0
106.0
109.9
115.3

91.7
93.9
93.9
97.8
100.4
99.6
100.0
104.8
108.7
109.1

92.6
96.5
97.4
100.4
101.7
99.8
100.0
103.5
105.6
104.4

89.9
87.8
86.2
91.9
97.6
99.2
100.0
107.9
115.7
119.7

1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977

.
.
.
.
.
.
.

108.6
120.0
127.5
132.7
123.3
127.0
126.2

114.8
125.1
134.4
139.6
129.0
135.0
135.6

96.5
110.1
114.2
119.3
112.1
112.0
109.1

111.7
125.9
135.1
137.9
125.0
132.3
135.2

102.9
104.9
106.0
103.9
101.4
104.2
107.1

97.3
100.6
100.5
98.8
96.9
98.0
99.7

115.7
114.3
118.3
115.6
111.5
118.1
123.9

.
.
.
.
.
.
.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Average annual rates of change (in percent)
1958-77
1973-77

2.9
-0 .6

3.4
-0 .2

1.9
-1 .5

4.1
-0 .4

1.2
0.2

0.7
-0 .2

2.1
1.1

The growth in output has also been influenced by the
availability of a wide variety of soap and detergent
products which can handle different types of cleaning
problems. Among synthetic detergent products are
light-duty, mild, sudsing detergents mainly used for
dishwashing by hand; all-purpose and heavy-duty laun­
dry detergents, which can be used for a number of
tasks; presoak products; and automatic dishwashing de­
tergents. Laundry soaps are also available as flakes and
blown granules. The predominantly used soap product
is the refined bar of toilet soap. As shoppers are aware,
these bars are available in a variety of sizes, colors, and
scents, some containing additives such as cold creams
and deodorants. The industry is very competitive and
has been able to gain public acceptance of new products
through advertising, and by dispensing free samples in
large numbers when new products are introduced.3
The growth in output has also been influenced by the
interactions among the household laundry equipment,
textile, and detergent industries. The development of
permanent press garments in the mid-1960’s by the
textile industry was followed by reformulations in deter­
gent products. Because oily soils are more difficult to
remove from synthetic fibers, their increased use in
clothing required improved detergent products. Also,
because higher wash temperatures may cause oily soils
in some synthetics to become “set,” lower wash temper­
atures are often recommended for wash and wear gar­
ments.4 The detergent industry developed improved
products that would perform adequately at lower wash

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

temperatures. The household laundry equipment indus­
try followed the development of permanent press gar­
ments within a few months by the introduction of
properly matched cycles in washers and dryers to han­
dle this new concept in clothing.5 At present, many au­
tomatic washers include permanent press cycles and
various combinations of wash and rinse temperatures.
The increase in the sales of home laundering equip­
ment, as well as the increase in wash and wear fabrics,
favorably affected the demand for soap and detergent
products. The output of the household laundry equip­
ment industry is estimated to have increased nearly 70
percent between 1958 and 1976. In 1975, more than 4
million home washing machines were sold, increasing
market penetration to 70 percent, from 53 percent in
I960.6
Employment shows moderate rise
Employment in the soaps and detergents industry,
currently at 40,000, has increased moderately since
1958, when employment was at 32,000. This change is
equivalent to an average increase of 1.1 percent each
year. The growth in employee hours— an average annu­
al rate of 1.2 percent— reflected a very small increase in
average hours per employee.
Labor turnover in the industry has been comparative­
ly low, providing a stable and experienced work force.
Since 1958, accessions have averaged 2.5 per 100 em­
ployees annually, compared with 3.6 for all manufactur­
ing. Separation rates have been 2.4 per 100 employees,
compared with 4.1 for all manufacturing. Lower layoff
and quit rates occurred in the industry than for all
manufacturing almost every year. Average hourly earn­
ings for production workers in the soaps and detergents
industry have risen steadily. Hourly earnings averaged
$7.81 in 1977, compared with the manufacturing aver­
age of $5.68.
The proportion of nonproduction workers in the in­
dustry is somewhat higher than is the case in other
manufacturing industries— 37 percent of total employ­
ment in 1977, compared with 28 percent for all manu­
facturing. The higher proportion reflects the larger
number of professional and technical, clerical, and sales
personnel employed.
Although data on the occupational composition of
employees in the industry are not available, some in­
sights can be obtained from the broader aggregation,
soaps and cosmetics.7 In 1976, an estimated 6 percent of
all workers employed in soaps and cosmetics were chem­
ical and industrial engineers, chemists, and chemical
technicians. Sales and clerical personnel accounted for
26 percent of total employment. The industry also em­
ploys a large number of semi-skilled workers, such as
packers, wrappers, examiners, assemblers, and mixers
who accounted for 32 percent of the work force in 1976.
27

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Productivity in Soaps and Detergents Industry
Larger plants dominate output
Most of the soaps and detergents industry’s output is
produced by large establishments. By 1972, more than
80 percent of the value of shipments was accounted for
by units having 100 employees or more. These units
represented only 9 percent of the industry’s establish­
ments because most of the industry’s establishments are
small. In 1972, 69 percent of the 642 manufacturing es­
tablishments had fewer than 20 employees.
Prior to the introduction of synthetic detergents, the
soaps and detergents industry tended to concentrate
near the sources of its principal raw materials. In more
recent years, with increased detergent usage, more em­
phasis is given to locations near distribution centers
when new sites are considered. Although production es­
tablishments are located throughout the Nation, about
half of the industry’s production originates in the North
Central region of the United States.
Increases in labor productivity are frequently related
to increases in the stock of capital. Over the period of
this study, new capital expenditures per employee in the
soaps and detergents industry increased at an average
annual rate of 10 percent, compared with 7.8 percent
for all manufacturing. Moreover, the levels were sub­
stantially above the average for all manufacturing in al­
most every year. By 1976, capital expenditures per
employee were 82 percent higher than the manufactur­
ing average ($4,191, compared with $2,300). About
three-fourths of the expenditures have been for new ma­
chinery and equipment, the same as for all manufactur­
ing.
Technology changes
Soap has always been made by combining the basic
ingredients, fat and alkali. The early American commer­
cial soapmakers made soap outdoors in large iron ket­
tles over an open fire, according to a uniform formula.
The kettle method of soapmaking was used until 1940
when a major improvement was achieved in soap pro­
duction technology. A continuous process was perfected
which reduced soapmaking time from about a week to
less than a day.8 Today, the continuous process is dom­
inant, although the “kettle” process is still used in some
establishments.
Soap reacts with the minerals in hard water to form
lime soap, which sometimes appears as a white scum in
the wash water. Synthetic detergents, however, do not
react this way. The term detergent usually refers to a
product, which for heavy-duty laundry use, generally
contains an organic surface active agent (surfactant), an
inorganic builder, and various other ingredients. Also,
“detergent” is sometimes used to denote the organic
surfactant.9
28


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

German scientists are credited with developing the
first synthetic detergents during World War I.10 Syn­
thetic detergents were introduced into the United States
during the early 1930’s. The first synthetic detergents
performed well in hard water; however, their cleaning
ability was limited in laundry usage. In the 1940’s, the
discovery and development of phosphates, primarily so­
dium tripolyphosphate, led to the first “built” synthetic
detergents which not only performed well in hard wa­
ter, but provided the cleaning power necessary for laun­
dry use.11 By 1958, soap for many centuries the chief
cleansing agent for household laundry and dishwashing
use, had been largely replaced by synthetic detergents.
Detergents reformulated. Developments over the past 15
to 20 years have resulted in many changes in product
composition. Because of environmental concerns, deter­
gent products have been and are still being reformu­
lated. One of the first changes in detergent composition
occurred in 1964-65 involving the replacement of the
organic surfactant with a type which degrades rapidly
in the environment.12 Specifically, “hard” branchedchain alkylbenzenesulfonate (ABS) was replaced by
“soft” biodegradable linear alkylbenzenesulfonate
(LAS). LAS is still a major detergent ingredient.
By the late 1960’s, the focus of environmental con­
cern shifted to phosphate levels in detergent products
because of the controversy over the effect of phosphates
upon rivers, streams, fish, and other wildlife. Legislation
restricting phosphate levels in detergents was intro­
duced, including a total ban on phosphate in detergents
in several States. To maintain detergent performance
with reduced phosphate levels, surfactant levels are gen­
erally increased. Also, the use of surfactants, which are
even less sensitive to water hardness than LAS, helps to
maintain cleaning performance. For this reason, surfac­
tants based on long-chain alcohols have become more
popular.
These detergent formulation changes which occurred
in the mid- and .late 1960’s coincided with years in
which productivity grew substantially less than the in­
dustry long-term average. Also, exceptionally large an­
nual increases in nonproduction workers occurred
which suggests that the industry, in response to the en­
vironmental concerns, expanded its research efforts into
the development of environmentally more acceptable
products.
Although sodium tripolyphosphate is still the leading
detergent builder, new builders are beginning to appear
and are currently used as phosphate substitutes. These
include sodium carbonate, sodium silicate, and various
surfactant blends. Other possible phosphate replace­
ments are being developed and tested, but none of these
materials has proved to be a total replacement on a
one-to-one basis.

Production processes improved. By 1958, virtually all of
the basic equipment currently used in soap and deter­
gent making had been developed. Most of the improve­
ments which became available later were technological
refinements of the basic equipment and production pro­
cesses. However, some notable improvements have been
introduced.
One of the major processes in the manufacture of
synthetic surfactants is sulfonation. In this process, a
nonsurface-active hydrocarbon (alkylbenzene, for in­
stance) is converted into surface-active alkylbenzenesulfonic acid, and subsequently neutralized to a salt.
Oleum is the sulfonating agent.14 In the mid-1950’s, an
innovation was developed which permitted the industry
to convert batch sulfonation into a continuous process.
With the continuous oleum process, a high-quality, uni­
form product could be obtained which met the impor­
tant production criteria, principally light color and low
free oil (unconverted hydrocarbon) in the final sulfona­
tion product. Time saving is another advantage; the
continuous sulfonation process is completed in a matter
of minutes, whereas the batch process requires 6 to 10
hours.15
In the mid-1960’s, a further improvement was intro­
duced in the continuous sulfonation process involving a
change from oleum to sulfur trioxide (S03) gas, mixed
with air, as the sulfonating agent. The industry-wide
trend towards the use of continuous S 0 3 has occurred
mainly because former sulfonating agents, such as ole­
um, have higher chemical costs, and present disposal
problems of spent sulfuric acid. Also, some of the newer
types of raw materials mentioned earlier cannot be pro­
cessed efficiently except with S 03. This process provides
a high-quality product by minimizing product degrada­
tion due to the short reaction time, reducing costs, and
realizing labor savings in the handling of the acid dis­
posal product.16
Continuous sulfonation processes with automatic con­
trols minimize labor requirements. An entire continuous
sulfonation plant can be operated with one operator,
rather than the two or three operators needed in the
batch and semi-continuous plants.17
Packaging operations in the industry have long used
automatic equipment. However, some technological
modifications have been introduced. For example, ma­
chines have been developed to handle larger powder
packs and at the same time are capable of erecting car­
tons, and filling and closing them at higher speeds. For
liquids, machines have also been introduced that can
achieve higher filling speeds.
High-speed soap bar production. Changes have also been
made in soap bar finishing operations.18 Although con­
tinuous soap production lines have been in operation
for many years, the need for faster production rates and

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

the development of more complex shapes of bar soaps
spurred improvements over the past 15 years. Extensive
changes have occurred in the design of the equipment
and the line configurations.
New high-speed lines for production of simple or uni­
form type bar soap formulas have broken the tradition­
al line speed barrier of 150-200 bars per minute. With
the high-speed lines, 200-300 soap bars can be pro­
duced each minute. Modern specialty lines are available
which provide flexible processing capability. A variety
of toilet bar formulations such as synthetic detergent
bars, soap-synthetic bars, and translucent soaps can
now be produced at reasonable speeds. New high-speed
stamping machines have also been developed which can
produce up to 400 bars per minute either banded or
bandless. In addition, refrigerated stamping dies have
become standard in the industry. They serve to improve
product appearance, to lessen die-fouling, and to im­
prove production rates.
New developments have also been made in the ma­
chinery that is widely used to package bar soaps. These
developments complement the development of the high­
speed finishing lines and have been directed primarily
toward wrappers, cartoners, and bar soap transfer units.
This new equipment has the capability of attaining
higher speeds and has the flexibility of handling various
shapes of bar soap.19 In the past, bar soap transfer units
were limited to maximum speeds of 200 bars a minute.
In the last 4 to 5 years, the speed has been increased.
Wrappers, cartoners, and bar soap transfer units are be­
ing introduced that are capable of average production
speeds of up to 300 bars a minute for the mass-pro­
duced soaps.
Computer technology has made possible the central­
ized instrumentation of the production processes,
although the industry has always been highly mecha­
nized. Computers are increasingly being used for jobs
such as inventory control, flow and measurement of raw
materials, formula calculations, and in mixing opera­
tions to assure uniformity of soap and detergent mixes.
Marketing analysis can more easily be accomplished
with computer-based information systems. The use of
computer processing provides information that can be
used to better allocate the time required for many activ­
ities, resulting in improved utilization of labor.
Shortrun changes in productivity in the soaps and de­
tergents industry will continue to be affected by changes
in demand. Over the longrun, the high levels of capital
investment per employee should help to keep industry
productivity gains in line with the average for all manu­
facturing.
Substantial demand for virtually all of the products
produced by the industry should continue into the im­
mediate future. The output of dishwasher detergents
should especially show growth as the utilization of
29

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Productivity in Soaps and Detergents Industry
existing dishwashing machines is increased, and the
ownership of home dishwashers is expanded. The num­
ber of washing machines in U.S. households is also
expected to increase, thus generating additional growth
for the soaps and detergents industry.
--------- FOOTNOTES---------' The soap and other detergents industry comprises establishments
primarily engaged in manufacturing soap, synthetic organic deter­
gents, inorganic alkaline detergents, or any combination thereof, and
refined glycerine from vegetable and animal fats and oils. The indus­
try is designated as number 2841 in the Office of Management and
Budget’s Standard Industrial Classification Manual (SIC), 1972 edition.
Data prior to 1958 are not comparable. All average annual rates of
change are based on the linear least squares trends of the logarithms
of the index numbers. Extensions of the indexes will appear in the an­
nual BLS Bulletin, Productivity Indexes for Selected Industries. A tech­
nical note describing the methods used to develop the indexes is
available from the Division of Industry Productivity Studies.
2 U.S. Industrial Outlook, various issues.
in d u stria l Outlook, 1970, p. 181.
4 Dieter H. Von Hennig, “The Role of Detergent Alcohols in the
Soap and Detergents Industry, A Bicentennial Update,” Shell Chemi­
cal Company, at Chemical Industry Association, Inc. Workshop
Meeting, Absecon, New Jersey, June 14, 1976.
5 Richard C. Davis, “Washer-detergent-textile Interactions,” Hydro­
carbon Processing, March 1975, pp. 90-92.
6 Richard B. Carnes, “Laundry and cleaning services pressed to
post productivity gains,” Monthly Labor Review, February 1978; and
“ 1976 Statistical and Marketing Report,” Merchandising, March 1976,
pp. 38-42.
7Bureau of Labor Statistics, unpublished data for 1970-85, Nation­
al Industry Occupational Matrix.

8“About Soap,” Procter and Gamble Service Bulletin, Procter and
Gamble, Cincinnati, Ohio.
9 Based on information provided by Dr. Arno Cahn, Development
Director, Household Products, Lever Brothers Co.
10“Some Facts About Procter and Gamble Detergents,” Procter and
Gamble Information Bulletin.
" Anne L. Lyng, “Detergents in Review,” Detergents— in Depth, a
symposium sponsored by The Soap and Detergent Association, Wash­
ington, D.C., Mar. 28-29, 1974, pp. 2 -7 .
12T. E. Brenner, “Soaps and Detergents: North American Trends,”
The Soap and Detergent Association, in Proceedings — World Confer­
ence on Soaps and Detergents, Oct. 9 -1 5 , 1977, Montreux, Switzer­
land, pp. 5 -8 . Reprinted in Journal o f the American Oil Chemists'
Society, January 1978. Also see, O. Carl Kerfoot and H. R. Flammer,
“Synthetic Detergents: Basics,” Hydrocarbon Processing, March 1975,
pp. 74-78.
13 Brenner, “Soaps and Detergents.”
14 Based on information provided by Dr. Arno Cahn, Development
Director, Household Products, Lever Brothers Co.
15 Oleum Sulfonation Process Equipment, The Chemithon Corp., Se­
attle, Washington, 1968. Also conversation with respresentative of
The Chemithon Corporation.
16Sulphur Trioxide Detergent Process Equipment, The Chemithon
Corp. Ibid.
17 Oleum Sulfonation Process Equipm ent and S ulphu r Trioxide Deter­
gent Process Equipment. Ibid.
18 A. B. Herrick, “Bar Soap Finishing— New Trends in Soap Pro­
cessing Line Design and Layouts,” Armour-Dial Company, in
Proceedings— World Conference on Soaps and Detergents, Oct. 9 15, 1977, Montreux, Switzerland. Reprinted in Journal of the Ameri­
can Oil Chemists' Society, January 1978, pp. 147-50.
19 L. Spitz, “Bar Soap Packaging,” ACMA S.p.A., in Proceedings —
World Conference on Soaps and Detergents, Oct. 9 -1 5 , 1977,
Montreux, Switzerland. Reprinted in Journal of the American Oil
Chemists' Society, January 1978, pp. 151-55.

APPENDIX: Measurement techniques and limitations

Indexes of output per employee-hour measure chang­
es in the relation between the output of an industry and
employee hours expended on that output. An index of
output per employee hour is derived by dividing an in­
dex of output by an index of industry employee hours.
The preferred output index for manufacturing indus­
tries would be obtained from data on quantities of the
various goods produced by the industry, each weighted
(multiplied) by the employee-hours required to produce
one unit of each good in some specified base period.
Thus, those goods which require more labor time to
produce are given more importance in the index.
In the absence of physical quantity data, the output
index for the soaps and detergents industry was con­
structed by a deflated value technique. The value of

30


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

shipments of the various product classes were adjusted
for price changes by appropriate Producer Price Indexes
to derive real output measures. These, in turn, were
combined with employee-hour weights to derive the
overall output measure. These procedures result in a fin­
al output index that is conceptually close to the pre­
ferred output measure.
The indexes of output per employee-hour relate total
output to one input— labor time. The indexes do not
measure the specific contribution of labor, capital, or
any other single factor. Rather, they reflect the joint ef­
fect of factors such as changes in technology, capital in­
vestment, capacity utilization, plant design and layout,
skill and effort of the work force, managerial ability,
and labor-management relations.

Estimating the user cost
of owner-occupied housing
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has continued
its examination of alternative ways
to measure homeowner costs
in the Consumer Price Index
R obert G

il l in g h a m

For several years, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has
been studying alternative methods of measuring the
costs of owner-occupied housing in the Consumer Price
Index (CPI). During the recently-completed revision of
the CPI, Bureau staff proposed'that the housing compo­
nent of the CPI— for both renters and homeowners—
measure the cost of consuming the flow of shelter serv­
ices provided by a house. This approach, which is com­
parable to that incorporated in the national accounts,
focuses on consumption and abstracts from the invest­
ment aspects of home purchase decisions. Unfortunate­
ly, it is impossible to observe directly the market value
of the shelter services consumed by homeowners. For
this reason, it is necessary to develop indirect measure­
ment techniques. The Bureau has been actively studying
two alternative approaches— rental equivalence and
user cost.
These alternatives, while conceptually equivalent,
have substantially different operational implications.
The first involves collecting rental values for houses
which are rented but which have characteristics similar
to owner-occupied housing and using these rents as a
proxy for homeownership costs. The second involves
building up the user cost of shelter services from its
components—interest costs, taxes, maintenance, etc.
The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that sever­
al of the conditions which characterize housing markets

Robert Gillingham is chief, Division of Price and Index Number Re­
search, Bureau of Labor Statistics.


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

make the development of an operational user cost meth­
odology extremely complex. This conclusion implies
that the rental equivalence approach has a substantial
operational advantage as a measure of shelter costs for
homeowners.
Theoretical framework
To begin with, we take as given the overall conceptu­
al framework for the Consumer Price Index which we
have discussed elsewhere.1 As such, we start from the
proposition that the consumer’s welfare is determined
by the flow of consumption services received, where the
services can be (1) directly provided, (2) obtained
coincidentally with the consumption of a nondurable
good (in which case the distinction between a good and
a service is unnecessary), or (3) obtained from the use
of a durable good owned by the consumer. In each
case, satisfaction is derived from the act of consump­
tion; ownership of a source of consumption serv­
ices—a durable good—produces no additional sat­
isfaction. In other words, the purchase of a durable
good is an “investment,” designed to provide consump­
tion services over a future time span.
Within this framework, we want the CPI to measure
over time the cost of the market basket of services
consumed in the base period. For the services provided
by directly-purchased services and nondurable goods,
this implies observing market prices and transaction lev­
els in the base period, as well as the subsequent time
path of market prices. However, for the services provid­
ed by durable goods owned by consumers, the implicit
31

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Estimating Homeowners’ Costs
price of the services must be estimated, because market
transactions do not take place each time the service is
consumed.
The remainder of this article will analyze the estima­
tion problem involved in the case of shelter services
provided by owner-occupied homes. We will start by
defining user cost in the simplest case—in a world of
certainty without taxes, and with perfectly competitive
markets—and proceed to outline the conceptual and
empirical complications which arise when these assump­
tions are dropped.
In a world with perfect rental and resale markets and
no uncertainty, the user cost of a house in a given peri­
od can be shown to be the following:
(1) ct = rtPt — A, + Zt
where r is the (single) rate of interest in period t, P is
the average price of the house in period t, A is equal to
the change in the average price over the period and Z
represents all other cost components.2 In other words,
the user cost is defined as the opportunity cost of hold­
ing the house, r*P + Z, less the increase in the house’s
value. In equilibrium, the rental price of the house, R,
will be equal to the user cost, and, since we have as­
sumed frictions away, the rent received by a landlord
will equal the rent paid by a tenant. Thus, in a perfect
world the following obtains
(2) RV = Ct = Rj
where the superscripts L and T denote landlord and
tenant, respectively.
Under the conditions we have assumed, measurement
of the value of the flow of shelter services from a house
becomes a trivial matter. It can be measured with infor­
mation from either rental or resale and money markets
and it does not matter whether the information refers to
buyers’ or sellers’ prices. Problems arise, however, when
we attempt to measure the cost of shelter for homeowners in a more complicated setting, in which the ex­
act form of the user cost function is more difficult to
define and the equalities defined above need not hold.
To lay out this problem more clearly, we will drop
the assumption of perfect certainty, thereby allowing for
a structure of differing asset yields. We will also relax
the assumption of perfect markets to allow for the pos­
sibility that the rent received by a homeowner may be
less than the rent paid by a tenant, the difference repre­
senting, for instance, the value of a management func­
tion. Although we no longer assume perfect rental
markets, we do assume that there is some price at
which each homeowner can rent shelter services
equivalent to those provided by his own home and
some strictly positive price at which another consumer
would be willing to rent his house. Under these condi­

32


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

tions, the user cost measure can be redefined as
(3) Ct — retE, + rmtMt — A, + Zt
where M and E are mortgage and equity amounts
which sum to the average price of housing (P), rm is the
mortgage interest rate, and re is the opportunity cost of
equity capital.3
The relationship between user cost, defined in this
manner, and the alternative rent measures defined above
is now ambiguous and depends critically on the manner
in which the opportunity cost of equity capital is
defined. Certainly, the rent paid by a tenant (RT) must
be greater than or equal to that received by a landlord
(RL), but depending on the manner in which one
chooses to define and estimate the opportunity cost of
equity capital (re), the relationship between each of the
rent measures and user cost (C) is uncertain.
The variables included in the redefined user cost func­
tion are all conceptually and operationally straightfor­
ward with one crucial exception— the opportunity cost
of equity capital. Unfortunately, estimates of user cost
are also sensitive to alternative definitions of this vari­
able. Several somewhat “natural” alternatives for de­
fining the opportunity cost of equity capital (re) have
been suggested elsewhere.4 In our 1973 study, it was
suggested that re be estimated as an internal rate of re­
turn defined by the identity
(4) RL + A, = re(E, + rmtMt + Zt
where R^ is an estimate of the market rental which an
owner could receive for his house. Alternatively, one
might argue that the appropriate internal rate of return
be defined by substituting RTfor RLin equation (4). In
either case the resulting estimate of user cost, which we
will call Cr, reduces to an implicit rent, and the follow­
ing relationship holds:
(5) R \ < Crt < R j
The suggestion to use an internal rate of return on
housing to estimate user cost is based on the assump­
tion that this rate best describes the alternative rate of
return an owner/investor could receive on another in­
vestment with similar liquidity and risk characteristics.
Several analysts have suggested that alternative rates
of return which consumers either receive or pay— such
as the rate of interest on consumer debt, savings ac­
counts, mortgages and bonds— be used to construct the
user cost function.5With this approach, depending upon
the particular rates of return included, the resulting user
cost estimate, which we will denote Cu, need not be
bracketed by the two rent variables (RLand RT).
The problem of selecting an appropriate estimate of
the opportunity cost of equity capital (re) reduces to a
fundamental question concerning the appropriate treat-

ment of liquidity and risk parameters in the user cost
function: do we want to estimate the opportunity cost
of equity capital using rates of return on alternative in­
vestments with similar liquidity and risk parameters?
We see no reason not to estimate the cost of equity cap­
ital using rates of return on alternative investments
with, in some sense, similar characteristics, provided
such investment opportunities indeed exist for the
homeowner. Furthermore, without accepting this basis
for selecting an appropriate cost of equity capital, it is
impossible to derive a single user cost of housing and,
depending on the variables used to estimate user cost,
the latter can fall outside the rent bounds previously de­
fined, both in the short and long run.
It is this latter fact which adds greater weight to the
argument that the internal rate of return is the appro­
priate measure of the opportunity cost of equity capital.
It is plausible to contend that a user cost measure is a
conceptually viable estimate of the value of the flow of
shelter services only if it is bracketed by rent received
by landlords (RL) and that paid by tenants (RT). It can­
not be less than RL because a homeowner always
forgoes this amount when he lives in his own house,
and it cannot be greater that RT because a homeowner
always has the alternative of obtaining equivalent hous­
ing services at this price. For these reasons, it can be ar­
gued that the user cost function denoted by Cu is a
viable estimate of the value of shelter services only if it
is bounded by RLand RT, and this condition will obtain
in general if and only if an appropriately defined inter­
nal rate is used to estimate the opportunity cost of equi­
ty capital.
The most important conclusion to be drawn from the
foregoing analysis is that unless we are able to incorpo­
rate implicit valuations of the flow of shelter services
into the analysis— through the definition of RL, RT,
and/or re—it is impossible to derive a measure of the
user cost of housing which will be reasonably represen­
tative of the cost experience of owner/occupants. To
put this conclusion another way, if we maintain that
rental opportunities for owner-occupied houses do not
exist, and that the rate of return of some set of financial
assets is an appropriate opportunity cost of equity, then
there is no reason to be surprised if our estimates of
user cost exhibit wide fluctuations and include negative
values— this would be an accurate reflection of user
cost under the set of conditions just described. Howev­
er, if, as in the analysis above, we are not willing to
maintain that there are no potential rental market op­
portunities for owner-occupied houses, and are willing
to accept the rate of return on housing investment as an
acceptable opportunity cost of equity, then it is neces­
sary to develop user cost estimates which are consistent
with these propositions.


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Empirical evidence
The foregoing discussion emphasizes the importance
of explicit or implicit rental market information in
obtaining conceptually sound user cost estimates. It
might be asked, however, whether in practice use of al­
ternative estimates of the opportunity cost of equity to
homeowners might yield reasonable approximations to
a user cost index which incorporates rental market in­
formation. During the recent revision of the CPI, BLS
staff members experimented with alternative user cost
formulations in an attempt to develop a function which
would adequately represent, at a minimum, the trend in
user cost without exhibiting short-term movements
which are inconsistent with the framework outlined
above. Using the general user cost equation, defined
above as
(6) Ct = retEt + rmt — At + Zt,
we experimented with alternative estimates of the vari­
ous components— particularly the opportunity cost of
equity capital (re) and the change in the average price
of houses (A)—in an attempt to develop a user cost
function which would provide a reasonable estimate of
the trend in shelter cost. The basic difficulty faced F
that the opportunity cost of equity capital and appi. ation components in the above equation are historically
volatile and, ceteris paribus, correlated. Although the
measurement of house price levels, and thus apprecia­
tion, is difficult, we were able to construct reasonable
estimates of current appreciation which do, in fact, ac­
curately reflect the historical volatility of this series.
Without using information from rental or housing in­
vestment markets, however, we were unable to capture
the presumably correlated variation in the opportunity
cost of equity capital (re). In other words, we were un­
able to estimate a user cost measure which exhibits rea­
sonable short-term movements when current apprec­
iation rates are included in the measure.
As a result of this empirical anomaly, our experi­
ments were focused on developing a user cost measure
which would provide a \easonable estimate of the trend
movement in user cost without exhibiting the unrealistic
short-term fluctuations which characterize a user cost
measure which includes current appreciation rates. To
do this we used (1) a moving average of past apprecia­
tion rates to estimate the trend movement in apprecia­
tion, and (2) an index of either current or a movingaverage of mortgage interest rates to estimate the trend
movement in the opportunity cost of equity capital.6 It
might be hoped that a user cost measure which incorpo­
rates these trend measures for both appreciation and the
opportunity cost of equity would provide a more rea­
sonable trend estimate for the user cost of housing. Fur-

33

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Estimating Homeowners'Costs
thermore, an index constructed in this fashion could be
constrained to reduce unrealistic short-term volatility,
characteristic of several of the alternative measures con­
sidered, which would cause severe problems in both the
use and interpretation of the index.
Tables 1 and 2 summarize, very briefly, the basic
findings of our analysis. These tables are based on four
user cost simulations which incorporated five alternative
estimates for the appreciation rate and two alternative
specifications for both the opportunity cost of equity
capital and the mortgage interest rate (re and rm). In
the first table, which uses the current mortgage interest
rate to approximate opportunity cost, the impact of al­
ternative estimates of appreciation are displayed. In the
index in column 1, appreciation is estimated by apply­
ing current appreciation rates to current (constant qual­
ity) house prices. For the indexes in columns 2 through
4 one-, three- and five-year unweighted average appreci­
ation rates are applied to current house prices, while in
column 5, a 15-year weighted average of appreciation
rates is incorporated.7 Comparison of these indexes am­
ply demonstrates the extreme impact of appreciation on
the user cost measure. Even when the five-year average
of appreciation is used, the index exhibits an extreme
and unlikely dip in 1971-72, a dip which is only par-

Table 1. Estimated user cost indexes,1December 1964December 1975
Appreciation rate averaged o v e r. . .
Period

December
December
December
December
December
December
December
December
December
December
December
December

1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975

Current
Period

1
year

3
years

5
years

15
years2

100.0
57.9
53.1
39.3
-13.5
49.4
62.1
130.7
155.9
54.5
-131.3
152.1

100.0
132.7
117.5
151.1
92.7
63.6
55.6
130.3
194.1
164.1
-13.5
98.0

100.0
103.5
121.5
134.6
128.5
119.5
85.9
76.2
119.1
175.9
144.9
90.9

100.0
105.2
115.3
118.6
130.6
134.8
125.0
106.3
104.8
131.4
137.7
143.0

100.0
102.0
115.2
115.1
122.7
128.1
129.7
120.1
129.8
157.0
162.6
148.5

1Current mortgage interest rates used for both the opportunity cost of equity capital (re)
and the mortgage interest rate (rm).
215 year weighted average used Koyck distributed lag weights (X = .05).

Table 2. Estimated user cost indexes, December 1964December 1975
Period

December
December
December
December
December
December
December
December
December
December
December
December

1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975

r e = current
r m = current

r e = current
r m = 5 year
average

r e = 5 year
average
r m = current

r e = 5 year
average
r m = 5 year
average

100.0
102.0
115.2
115.1
122.7
128.1
129.7
120.1
129.8
157.0
162.6
148.5

100.0
101.3
110.7
111.5
115.7
118.1
119.0
117.9
129.7
149.9
149.4
138.0

100.0
101.0
108.4
109.7
112.3
113.2
113.7
116.9
129.6
146.4
142.9
132.8

100.0
100.3
104.0
106.2
105.5
103.5
103.3
114.8
129.5
139.4
129.9
122.5

1All indexes incorporate 15-year weighted average appreciation rates. Mortgage interest
rates, either averaged or current, are used for both the opportunity cost of equity capital
(re) and the mortgage interest rate (rm).

daily dampened when appreciation rates are averaged
over 15 years.
In table 2, which incorporates the 15 year weighted
average appreciation rate for all indexes, four alternative
combinations of current and average interest rates are
used to represent the opportunity cost of equity capital
and the mortgage interest rate. Once again, the choice
of the interest rate to represent re and rm has a substan­
tial impact on the index and, especially in the case of re,
without recourse to information from rental markets,
the choice is essentially arbitrary.
The estimated user cost indexes presented in tables 1
and 2 demonstrate the sensitivity of the indexes to alter­
native assumptions about individual user cost compo­
nents. Perhaps more importantly, they provide
empirical support for the contention that it is impossi­
ble to construct a valid user cost measure which is con­
sistent with the information provided by rent markets
without either direct or, through direct measurement of
the opportunity cost of equity capital, indirect use of
that information. In other words, our results imply that,
either directly or indirectly, a rental equivalence mea­
sure is a necessary input into the construction of a usercost measure. Consequently, the rental equivalence ap­
proach provides a simpler, more direct measure of the
cost of shelter services for homeowners.
□

FO O T N O T E S

ACKNOWLEDGMENT: The author would like to thank Kenneth
Dalton, W. John Layng, Robert Poliak, Dale Smith, and Jack E.
Triplett for helpful discussions.
1See Robert Gillingham, “A Conceptual Framework for the Re­
vised Consumer Price Index,” Proceedings, Business and Economic
Statistics Section, American Statistical Association, pp. 246-252.
2See Dale Jorgenson, “The Theory of Investment Behavior,” in R.
Ferber, ed., Determinants of Investment Behavior (New York, Na­
tional Bureau of Economic Research, 1967), pp. 129-55, for a discus­
sion of the theoretical foundations of equation (1).
34


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

3
In measuring the (presumably current) user cost of owneroccupied housing, one might question whether current or historical
mortgage interest rates are the appropriate rate with which to mea­
sure mortgage costs. The framework developed in this paper makes it
clear that this issue is not important. Because the services of a house
have an (implicit) market value, this value, along with whatever mort­
gage rate is chosen, will determine the appropriate return on equity as
a residual. Thus, ceteris paribus, higher (one might read “more cur­
rent” though not necessarily) mortgage interest rates result in lower
equity returns and vice versa. The choice of mortgage rate can be

governed by matters of convenience and whether one wants to distin­
guish equity return differences that stem from financing differences
from other equity return differences.

ponent of the CPI,” BLS study (mimeograph); Peter Steiner, “Con­
sumer Durables in an Index of Consumer Prices,” The Price Statistics
of the Federal Government (New York, National Bureau of Economic
Research, General Series, No. 73, 1961), Staff Paper No. 6.
4
See Robert Gillingham, “Measurement in the Consumer Price In­
See McFadyen and Hobart, Muth, Smith, and Steiner, in the
dex of the Cost of Shelter to Homeowners,” BLS study (mimeo­
works cited.
graph); Stuart McFadyen and Robert Hobart, “An Alternative
As discussed in footnote 3, the question of which mortgage inter­
Measurement of Housing Costs and the Consumer Price Index,” Ca­
est rate to use is, at least in theory, unimportant. It is the choice of an
nadian Journal of Economics XI, 1978, pp. 105-12; Richard Muth,
estimate for the equity rate of return which is crucial.
“On the Measurement of Shelter Costs for Homeowners in the
Consumer Price Index,” BLS study (mimeograph); Dale Smith, “The
The 15-year weighted averaged used Koyck distributed lag weights
Flow of Services Approach to Estimating the Homeownership Com­
(A = .05).

Global shopping center
We face major changes in the w orld’s econom y. In eco­
nom ic policies and theories, we still act as if we lived in an
“international” econom y, in which separate nations are the
units, dealing with one another primarily through interna­
tional trade and fundam entally as different from one an­
other in their econom y as they are different in language or
law s or cultural tradition. But im perceptibly there has
emerged a world econom y in which com m on inform ation
generates the sam e econom ic appetites, aspirations, and de­
m an d s— cutting across national boundaries and languages
and largely disregarding political ideologies as well. The


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

world has becom e, in other words, one m arket, one global
shopping center. Yet this world econom y alm ost entirely
lacks econom ic institutions; the only — though im portant —
exception is the m ultinational corporation. A nd we are to ­
tally without econom ic policy and econom ic theory for a
world econom y.
— P eter F. D r u c k e r
The Age o f Discontinuity
(New York, N.Y., Harper & Row, Publishers,
Incorporated, 1968, 1969)

35

A Review Essay

Beyond Keynes: European unions
formulate new economic program
Elements of the prescription put forth
by economists of five union groups include
consensus-based decisionmaking, investment
planning, price monitoring, and an incomes
policy to abate Western European stagflation
Everett

M.

K a ssa l o w

A search is underway for a new kind of synthesis be­
tween the “old” market capitalism and a planned econ­
omy. The onset of stagflation since the 1974-75 re­
cession has produced an almost continuous debate
among economists seeking to halt inflation and to re­
store healthy economic growth. By and large, this de­
bate has been dominated by two sets of prescriptions.
One of these derives from what might be described as a
modernized version of neoclassical economics, which
has stressed reliance on the workings of the market,
supply and demand, to restore a new price equilibrium.
The second prescription, stemming from those who
might be termed the moderate Keynesians, does not re­
ject, in principle, government fiscal intervention to
maintain full employment but seems reconciled to ac­
cepting relatively high levels of unemployment for at
least several years, while market forces gradually restore
an acceptable price level.
In the United States, a much smaller group, selfstyled post-Keynesians, argues that major institutional
changes have occurred in modern economic life that call
for more positive, interventionist new policies and pro­
grams to restore full employment and to bring inflation
Everett M. Kassalow is the senior specialist in labor at the Library of
Congress.
36


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

under control. Most of these post-Keynesians reject the
possibility that the market system is sufficiently compet­
itive to restore either sustained full employment or
sustained lower price levels.1
In Europe, a group of trade union economists has put
forward an outline for a new economic program which
is squarely in the tradition of Keynes but which recog­
nizes that he, too, wrote in an era when heavy reliance
on the market system may have seemed more plausible.
The outline originated in a charge of the European
Trade Union Confederation2 to a working group of Eu­
ropean union economists in November 1977 to explore
“short- and medium-term economic problems.” This
group included representatives of five European trade
union federations— the Swedish Landsorganisationen i
Sverige (LO), the Netherlands’ Federatie Nederlandse
Vakbeweging (FNV), the British Trades Union Congress
(TUC), the German Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund
(DGB), and the French Confederation Française
Démocratique de Travail (CFDT)—and a staff member
of the recently established European Trade Union Con­
federation.
The group was chaired by Clas-Eric Odhner, chief
of the Research Department of the Swedish Confedera­
tion. That department played a key role in initiating
Sweden’s full-employment and active labor market poli-

cies and the unions’ wage solidarity program in the
fifties and sixties. The study group’s common outline
has been issued as a report of the European Trade
Union Institute.3
Assuming an active role
The report is intended to be a “discussion paper,”
not a policy statement. Yet in analyzing the current
high levels of unemployment and prices and in setting
forth a program to overcome both, it may foreshadow a
new departure for most of European labor.4 With a few
notable exceptions, European trade unions rarely have
taken a major initiative in formulating comprehensive
analyses and programs for their economies. The lead in
this area generally has been conceded to their “brother”
socialist parties, with socialist trade unions usually pro­
viding financial and organizing electoral support on be­
half of these programs. One notable exception has been
Sweden, where the Federation of Trade Unions (LO)
has, in the post-World-War-II era, tended to provide
the analytical and programatic lead in the economic
sphere for the country’s Social Democratic party.5
The long period of almost uninterrupted economic
expansion between 1950 and 1973 made this accom­
modation between the socialist parties and socialist
trade union movements a success. An economic philoso­
phy based on a practical marriage between an ex­
panding welfare state and Keynesian policies, which
stresses effective demand management for full employ­
ment, provided a setting in which living standards rose
dramatically and unemployment was kept to consistent­
ly low levels. If inflation was at times a troublesome
problem, it was nonetheless confined to what seemed to
be tolerable levels, even in some Scandinavian countries
where it crept as high as 6 percent in some years.
This era of sustained expansion came to an end with
the severe recession of 1974-75. Since these years, most
of Western Europe has been troubled with the same
combination of continued high unemployment (high, at
least, in comparison with the preceding two decades)
and inflation more severe than boom peaks of the pre­
ceding era. In short, almost every Western European6
country has been plagued by what has come to be
known in the United States as stagflation, simultaneous
high unemployment and inflation and low or no eco­
nomic growth.
Theoretical warfare
The report states that the economic crisis in industri­
alized democratic nations (although it concentrates on
Western Europe, the report refers frequently to the
United States) in recent years also has been a “crisis for
economic theory.” Neoclassical theory has become in­
creasingly popular, as the criticism of Keynes’ theory,
which was so popular in the decades after the war,

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

mounts. Particularly prominent has been the monetarist
school, which contends that the amount of money is­
sued decides everything in economic development. Yet,
according to the report, economic policies guided by
such neoclassical ideas, “have plunged the industrialized
world into a . . . spiral of unemployment, inflation, and
stagnation.” Perhaps the most obvious weakness of neo­
classical theory (and its monetarist variation), argue the
trade union drafters, is that it is premised on the exis­
tence of a “classic, competitive pricing mechanism,” in
a word, the “Market.” The reality of today’s world is
more one of “independent price determination of com­
panies and groups of companies dominating their mar­
kets. This applies both nationally and internationally.”7
Corporate power. Contrary to the assumptions of
conventional economics, these companies do not en­
counter high degrees of elasticity in the demand for
their products. So, increasingly, these companies base
their pricing policies on costs, with little regard for de­
mand factors. Even most small firms producing finished
products “belong to trade organizations which operate
together [in fixing prices] in export markets.”
The report links the pricing policies of transnational
corporations, and their impact on national pricing lev­
els. Its explanation is not entirely clear or successful,
but space prevents going into this as well as some other
“international” aspects of this report. With the greater
dependence of their countries on foreign trade and in­
vestment than is the case of the U.S. economy, Europe­
an economists tend to be more sensitive to the domestic
impact on prices of these corporations’ policies.
The current “depression has been so deep and persis­
tent,” in part “because governments have been too
weak politically to take decisive counter measures,” and
“partly because many based their policies on a misun­
derstanding of how their economies now work.” As a
prime example of outmoded proposals to deal with the
recent stagflation, the report cites the 1977 McCracken
Report of the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD).8
The McCracken group, it is alleged, has ignored the
enormous power of great national and transnational
corporations. Its report urges OECD governments to
“refuse to accommodate” demand management to in­
flationary behavior by employers or trade unions which
must “learn from their mistakes.” This request fails to
understand, charges the union report, that these rela­
tively sheltered groups will not “bear the conse­
quences,” that many companies “are able to increase
their prices with relatively small effects on sales . . . ”
Even when employers give way to higher wages “under
union pressure,” they “can always compensate them­
selves by means of higher prices” in the face of low
elasticities of demand. Companies in weaker positions
37

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • European Unions' New Economic Program
and their employees “bear the brunt of reduced overall
demand.” According to the trade union drafters, if the
price system worked in the “idealized way envisaged”
by the McCracken group, “the problems they pretend
to solve could not by definition arise.”9
Suppression of demand, then, would not mitigate in­
flation, inasmuch as powerful corporations take advan­
tage of the less than full elastic demand for their prod­
ucts and mark up their prices to offset any loss in profit
margins. “The distrust of workers and their unions in
the ability of governments” to control inflation merely
by trying to suppress general demand leads them to
seek to offset the rising costs of living by negotiating
“wage increases with inflationary consequences . . .”
Similarly, their trust declines in government’s ability to
create jobs as general demand is restricted, and the
unions thereupon struggle “to keep production and
companies alive that should in fact be restructured or
even abandoned.” The general result is chronic stagna­
tion.10
Selective intervention. The report states that the continu­
ing high inflation rates of the 1970’s are not “an
unfortunate accumulation of unfavorable events (a la
McCracken) . . . ” Rather, they reflect great changes in
the power of corporations in the economy. Therefore,
“the free competition assumption is no longer a valid”
basis for economic policy. While the group believes in
“accepting market mechanisms when they function rea­
sonably well . . . when there is no realistic possibility of
this happening—and this increasingly is the case—
there is no alternative to a government price policy and
to price monitoring which should be internationally co­
ordinated.”11
This type of selective (as opposed to general monetary
or fiscal) intervention in the economy— setting particu­
lar price and investment levels for industries or key cor­
porations—is something of a radical departure, in
peacetime, for most Western economies; but, the report
argues, with the liberal-competitive system no longer a
reality, a new kind of consensus approach must be
substituted. There is a growing necessity for “selective
measures . . . to be substituted for general measures . . .
in reality the market either does not function, or its ef­
fects are politically and socially unacceptable.” 12
Sharing decisions and responsibility
The report cites “the growing demand for participa­
tion not only in political but also in economic life and
decisionmaking.” This participation should lead to “a
better integrated and more balanced society, where re­
sponsibility will be more widely shared”.13“Trade unions
and their members are . . . offering to share responsibility
for decisions, and it will be to their own peril, and to
that of future society if employers turn this offer
38


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

aside.” 14 The union economists’ heavy emphasis upon
“participation” in top-level company decisions is, in
part, tribute to the great influence on Europe’s unions
in recent years of the German Federation of Trade
Unions and its advocacy of codetermination in German
industrial life. Success in extending participation “will
greatly improve the prospects for reaching consensus
solutions to distributional conflicts.”
The economists recognize that forms of participation
in the control of the decisions of companies necessarily
vary from country to country but caution that “in order
not to make further European integration too difficult”
and in order not “to complicate negotiations [for partic­
ipation in decisionmaking] with” transnational corpora­
tions, “there is need to try to ensure a certain
homogeneity . . .” 15
In keeping with their retention of much of Keynesian
theory, the group emphasizes that investment “determine[s] the nature of economic growth.” The report
states that “workers and society as a whole, and not
just management, must be involved” in investment deci­
sions. For employers to gain acceptance of the neces­
sary “level of profits required for investments and to
give companies a sound financial basis, workers will in­
creasingly demand a say in investments and a fairer
share of the income they generate.” To realize the “nec­
essary consensus required to reconcile technological and
industrial dynamism with an employment-oriented in­
vestment policy,” workers must have a say in invest­
ment decisions.16
This emphasis upon a consensus to insure adequate
and correct investment decisions is a recurring theme of
the report. The group argues that there is a need “to
disconnect saving-investment decisions from the strug­
gle over income distribution, by giving workers collec­
tively a share in, and a responsibility for, both savings
and investments.” 17 Otherwise, the eternal bargaining
struggle over the relative shares of wages versus profits
can hinder a smooth flow of savings into investment
and weaken prospects for economic growth.
The report here clearly supports something similar to
the Swedish union proposal for workers’ sharing in cor­
porate profits, savings, and investment.18 However, the
report also stresses the consensual value and necessity
for enterprise growth inherent in such a proposal.
“Disconnecting income and wealth distribution is not
only motivation for a workers’ partnership in the econo­
mies . . . ” the report notes that Keynes never bothered
about “the motivation for working,” as he “wrote
against a background of hard work simply being un­
avoidable for most people in order not to starve . . .,”
and this harsh competitive ethic may have been useful
in the decades before today’s levels of technology and
productivity had been attained. Today, “productivity is
only partly dependent on technology” and “to a much

greater extent than is often recognized it also depends
on labour relations and the degree of consensus
achieved inside a company and in society at large.” The
old work ethic, built on fear and greed, must increas­
ingly give way to “the creative and contributive interest
that workers can have in their jobs as such” and to
their “wish to contribute to participate more generally
in a society characterized by cooperation, solidarity and
responsibility.” 19 This is one aspect of the “consensusbased” economic arrangements proposed in the report.
With the call for a participatory investment process
and a monitoring system to control prices, the report
does not flinch from the next logical step— the necessity
for an incomes policy as part of the new economic pro­
gram. In the new economic order, the trade unions
“would in a negotiated consensus policy have to accept
overall wage increases that were compatible with the
growth of real resources and with democratically deter­
mined rates of real investment . . . ” Such wage in­
creases would have to be handled in a way that they
would “not start chain reactions going beyond what
was compatible with stability— though without creating
rigidities which would prevent necessary long-run adap­
tations.” Wages should be “adapted to average growth
of real resources in the economy, since wages based on
sector or company productivity will cause too many
tensions and complementary claims.” This incomes sys­
tem, along with participatory investment and price­
monitoring, is a “trade union way out” of the chain re­

actions of past wage pressures.20
The report reaffirms trade union support for econom­
ic growth and full employment and indeed argues that
the prescription it presents is a way out of current and
prospective stagnation. Such growth, however, “is not
an end in itself but should have qualitative as well as
quantitative aspects . . . ” The emphasis upon qualita­
tive growth includes a call for “the protection of the en­
vironment,” and, while it rejects going “back to some
kind of pre-industrial society, as some romantics seem
to want” the group insists that the “resource problem”
must be carefully considered, as “decisions on technolo­
gy and investment priorities” are made. It is also
suggested that there will probably be “slower growth”
than in the decade before 1974.21
trade union discussion document with
an outline for a prospective new economic growth pro­
gram comes in a period when there is a general groping
for economic policies to cope with recent stagnation.
Curiously enough, even in the face of severe economic
difficulties, European socialist labor forces suggest no
significant turn to traditional socialist ideas in the form
of socialization or nationalization of the means of pro­
duction. Rather, they support an effort to find a new
kind of plan that incorporates “old” and “new” ideas.22
In its emphasis on the need for a new and wider social
consensus, especially between unions and employers, the
report is likely to evoke considerable echo.
□
T h is E u r o p e a n

FOOTNOTES
1See, for example, the first issues of the recently issued Journal of
Post-Keynesian Economics, Vol. I, No. 1, Fall 1978, and No. 2, Winter
1978-79. There is no unity among the so-called post-Keynesians, but
one important group has collectively published A Guide to PostKeynesian Economics in the form of a series of articles in Challenge
Magazine, 1978-79. This series will shortly be issued as a volume un­
der the editorship of Professor Alfred S. Eichner, State University of
New York— Purchase. A useful summary statement of some of the
major precepts of this group of post-Keynesians can be found in
Eichner’s statement to the Special Study on Economic Change of the
Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, May 9, 1979
(mimeographed— to be published in the JEC’s hearings later). A
more technical survey of the post-Keynesian theories is to be found in
the survey prepared by Alfred S. Eichner and J. A. Kregel, “An Es­
say on Post-Keynesian Theory: A New Paradigm in Economics,”
Journal o f Economic Literature, Vol. XIII, No. 4, Dec. 1975.
2The ETUC groups almost all the national union federations of
Western Europe. It has a close working relationship with the Europe­
an Economic Community.
3This institute was established in June 1978, by agreement between
the European Trade Union Confederation and the Commission of the
European Economic Community. The Institute will be financed prin­
cipally by a 6-year contribution from the EEC, with the first year’s
budget set at around $615,000. The members of the ETUC executive
body are also directors of this Institute, but the latter has its own
staff, under the direction of Gunter Kopke, formerly a staff official of
the German Federation of Trade Unions (DGB), and also a former
general-secretary of the European Metal Workers’ Federation. The In­
stitute is to “promote better training and information for workers and


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

their organizations,” and these are intended to contribute to the de­
velopment of “an awareness of the European dimension and to im­
prove living and working conditions in the Community.” This survey
of the ETUI is largely taken from a Press-Release of the EEC, dated
June 6, 1978, Brussels.
4 See European Trade Union Institute, Keynes Plus a Participatory
Economy (ETUI-Brussels, 1979).
5See the important LO documents: Trade Unions and Full Employ­
ment, Report to the LO Congress, Stockholm, 1952; Economic Expan­
sion and Structural Change, edited and translated by T. L. Johnson
(London, Allen and Urwin, 1963), and the pamphlet by R. Meidner
(then research director of LO) and B. Ohman, Fifteen Years of Wage
Policy (Stockholm, 1972).
6A few of the smaller countries, governed usually by social demo­
cratic parties and backed by strong trade union movements, have
been able to avoid any great increase in unemployment. I refer to
Austria and Norway. Sweden has seemed to avoid any official unem­
ployment rates, but this has been accomplished by a great increase in
government training and work programs, subsidies for private produc­
tion, inventory building, and so forth— all a kind of disguised unem­
ployment. Germany and Japan have done somewhat better than other
democratic industrialized countries, but even their unemployment
rates have been high in comparison with the recent past.
7Keynes Plus, p. 1.
*Ibid., pp. ii and iii. This Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development report is often referred to by the name of the chair­
man of its international drafting group, Paul McCracken, former
chairman of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers, and currently
39

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • European Unions' New Economic Program
professor of economics at the University of Michigan. The full title of
the OECD report is, Towards Full Employment and Price Stability,
Paris, 1977.
Ibid., pp. iii and 36.
1 Ibid., p. 2.
" Ibid., p. iv. I have already noted above that the analysis of inter­
national aspects of stagflation and measures to cope with it are less ef­
fectively treated in this report. This call for international coordination
remains a vague concept in the report.
'■Ib id ., p. 50. The authors of the report recognize there are great
administrative difficulties for governments, in undertaking selective in­
tervention. They call for greater attention from government to help
overcome inadequate administration characteristics of the past (pp. 52
-53).
' The report also refers to the spillover effects and possibilities of
the growth of participation into many social aspects of modern life,
but I concentrate in this review on the economic aspects.
4Keynes Plus, p. ii.
15Ibid., p. 20.
Ibid., p. iv.
17Ibid., p. 56.
"See Rudolph Meidner, Employee Investment Funds, An Approach
to Capital Formation (London, George Allen and Urwin, 1978) and
the same author’s recent update, “Employee Investment Funds and

Capital Formation A Topical Issue in Swedish Politics,” Working Life
in Sweden, No. 6, June (New York, Swedish Information Service,
1978).
" Keynes Plus, pp. 57-55.
" Ibid., p. 66. Collective bargaining agreements typically cover twothirds to 90 percent of all workers in West European countries, much
more than in the United States.

21Ibid., p. 67. In part, too, growth may be slower because of the in­
creasing shift of resources to the service sector, in most economies — a
sector in which productivity “cannot really be measured.” A unified,
negotiated, general incomes policy “having the broad support of
union members” is additionally essential to cope with the “strains on
the system” which slower growth may bring. {Ibid.)
In a recent article, one critic of European social democracy charg­
es that the present day dilemmas of European social democracy “stem
from its inherently flawed attempt to resolve the unresolvable, to con­
struct a political program that is acceptable to both capital and la­
bor.” This effort was “valiantly and surprisingly successful” in the
decades after World War II, but social democracy must become a
genuine alternative “for capitalism in decline . . . for the era when so­
cial democracy could offer a harmonious vision of capitalist develop­
ment is clearly past.” Alan Wolfe, “Has Social Democracy a Future?”
Comparative Politics, Vol. 11, October 1978, pp. 123-24. This new
ETUI document would nonetheless appear to be part of a continuing
search for an alternative of mixed, consensus-based economic order.

Labor force growth patterns
The evolution of the U nited States into a postindustrial
econom y in the past quarter century has been accom panied
by dramatic increases in the size of the labor force. The
m ythology of a leisure society is giving way to the reality
of a tw o-sex nonfam ily work society.
1. W hile the w orking-age population of A m erica in­
creased by 46.3 percent from 1950 to 1976, the labor
force increased by 52.3 percent.
2. This differential emerged despite the sharp declines in
the labor force participation rates of men over the age of
65, since early retirement has becom e increasingly com ­
m on. Indeed, the male com ponent of the labor force did
not keep pace with population growth, increasing by
only 28.6 percent from 1950 to 1976.
3. In contrast, the rapid expansion of the female labor
force (108.9 percent over the past tw enty-six years) ap­
pears as one of the more striking trendlines of recent his­
tory. The labor force participation rate of wom en
increased from 33.9 percent in 1950 to 47.2 percent in
1976.

40


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

The im plications of this phenom enon by itself are m yri­
ad, not the least of which is reflected in the substantial in­
crease in unem ploym ent throughout the 1970’s. M oreover,
given the changing age structure of Am erica and the rapid
accession of the baby boom residuals into the labor force
— as well as the unknown dim ension of illegal im m igration
— the Am erican econom y may be severely strained to pro­
vide full em ploym ent in the very short-term future. M ore­
over, the com petition presently facing our m inority-group
citizenry in this context cannot be m inim ized. But other re­
percussions are amplified as they manifest them selves w ith­
in the family unit.

— G eo r g e St e r n l ie b

and

Ja m e s W. H u g h e s

Current Population Trends in the United States
(New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers-The
State University of New Jersey, The
Center for Urban Policy Research, 1978), p. 49

Communications
New directions for
income transfer programs
T imothy M. Smeeding

and

Irwin G arfinkel

Most Americans would agree that it is the responsibility
of government to ensure a certain minimum level of liv­
ing. Government can meet this responsibility in two
ways: by providing minimum standards of income,
goods, and services only for those whose incomes fall
below a minimum level or by providing minimum stand­
ards for everyone, regardless of income.
The income-support system of the United States does
both. Aid to Families with Dependent Children
(AFDC), supplemental security income, food stamps,
and medicaid are restricted to those with low incomes
— they are “income-tested.” Public education, social se­
curity, and unemployment compensation are available
to people regardless of income— they are “non-incometested.”
Programs that are not income-tested dwarf those that
are, both in total size and in the number of people they
lift out of poverty. Yet, until recently, most policy ana­
lysts assumed that income testing offered the most equi­
table and efficient method of transferring income to the
poor. Now, research, sparked by the study of economic
and social behavioral response to transfers, is leading
some scholars seriously to question the superiority of
income-tested transfers. Many others are already con­
vinced that welfare policy should move away from in­
come testing and toward a more universal non-incometested approach.
Despite their differences, the supporters of each ap­
proach agree that recent income-support policy has
been characterized by piecemeal changes without any
serious, general consideration given to the kind of sys­
tem that is to be achieved over the long run. The debate
over income testing and the research it generates pre­
sent an opportunity and a framework to focus systemat­
ically on the issues facing future income-support policies
Timothy M. Smeeding is assistant professor of economics, University
of Utah, and visiting project associate at the Institute for Research on
Poverty, and Irwin Garfinkel is director of the Institute.


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

and also on several specific reform proposals that have
immediate policy relevance. (For example, social securi­
ty, child support, and national health insurance).
The Institute for Research on Poverty held a confer­
ence last spring on future directions—income or non­
income-tested— for reform of the income-support sys­
tem.1 Many of the issues discussed at that conference
and other questions which have been raised in this con­
text are summarized here.
Definition and scope of the system
The terms “income-tested” and “means-tested” signi­
fy that inability to pay for basic goods and services is
necessary to qualify for a transfer. They imply, further,
that transfer benefits decline as income rises. The result
is that program beneficiaries face higher implicit tax
rates (benefit reduction rates) on their income than do
the rest of the population, for programs that confine
benefits to the poor must impose a benefit reduction
rate on beneficiaries that is higher than the tax rate re­
quired to finance it. In contrast, a “non-income-tested”
program is one in which neither eligibility nor benefits
depend on inability to pay. Benefits are provided to all
regardless of income. Although income-tested programs
by their nature lead to regressive tax rates in the taxtransfer system, non-income-tested programs do not as­
sure against regressivity. Programs which provide bene­
fits to rich and poor alike can be financed in principle
by an equally regressive tax structure. Moreover, non­
income-tested social insurance programs like old age,
disability, and unemployment insurance impose high
benefit reduction rates on earnings, and therefore, have
some of the regressive features of income testing.
In determining the effects of both types of programs,
we may further classify them as categorical— programs
in which eligibility is limited to certain groups, such as
the aged— or noncategorical.2 Benefits under either type
of program may be paid in cash or in-kind. For in­
stance, a negative income tax (such as former President
Nixon’s family assistance plan) is considered a categori­
cal, income-tested cash transfer; a credit income tax
(such as Senator McGovern’s 1972 demogrant plan) is a
noncategorical, non-income-tested cash transfer. Anoth­
er useful differentiation is between programs that fall
into the category of social insurance and those that do
41

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Communications
not. No social insurance programs are income-tested.
But there are some non-income-tested programs which
are not social insurance programs. For instance, free
public education does not provide security against loss
of income due to death, old age, or inability to work—
the usual definition of social insurance—yet it is univer­
sally provided to all U.S. children, regardless of the in­
come of their families.
The income-support system has come a long way
since the debate over public education in the early part
of the 19th century. Even then, the essential question
was whether “free” public education should be provided
only to the poor or to everyone. The 1935 Social Securi­
ty Act instituted two types of programs: (1) an unem­
ployment insurance system (UI), and a Federal social
insurance system including old age insurance (OAI),
later expanded to include survivors (SI) in 1938, and
dependents (DI) in 1956, and finally, universal health
insurance (medicare) for the elderly in 1965; and (2) a
State specific welfare system for the aged, blind, and
disabled (nationalized in 1974 as supplemental security
income, or SSI), and for dependent children (AFDC),
who in 1935 were mainly living with widows. In the
1930’s, it was envisioned that the welfare system would
remain rather small and unimportant, only catching
those few who fell through the cracks of the social in­
surance system.
However, by the 1960’s, welfare programs, far from
withering away, had actually grown somewhat. More­
over, since the declaration of a “war on poverty” in
1965, legislative action has created a major and seem­
ingly permanent role for income-tested transfer pro­
grams. Medicaid was born in that era and it has
become our largest single welfare program; AFDC ex­
penditures multiplied as divorce or parental desertion
became increasingly common; and two types of aid to
the “working poor” were first offered, in the form of an
earned-income tax credit and food stamps. As the ade­
quacy of benefits offered under welfare programs in­
creased and coverage was expanded, more and more
people were encompassed by the system.
Today, income-support payments from all sources av­
erage more than 20 percent of total household income,
or about $200 billion. As a result, the incidence of pov­
erty, as officially measured, has declined from about 22
percent in 1959 to less than 12 percent today. If in-kind
transfer benefits are added to the cash incomes used to
officially measure poverty, the incidence has fallen fur­
ther, to about 7 percent. However, a serious poverty
problem still remains, particularly for women heading
families and racial minorities. About one-third of the
families headed by black women, one-seventh of those
headed by white women, and one-tenth of those headed
by black men remain poor. Most importantly, the re­
duction in poverty did not occur because social pro­
42


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

grams provided a “hand up” for the poor to earn their
way out of poverty. Increased transfer payments
accounted for most of the progress against poverty, not
increased reliance on earned income. Yet, most would
agree that reliance on earned income is, in the long run,
the most desirable answer to persisting poverty among
those expected to work (that is, able-bodied adults, par­
ticularly those in two-parent families).
The income-support system includes more than 40
programs, covering 1 of every 4 Americans. Both the
income-tested and non-income tested systems are clearly
categorical. The welfare transfer system is dominated by
in-kind benefits, while the social insurance transfer sys­
tem is much larger, with payments mainly in cash. Cur­
rently, social insurance removes many more people from
poverty than income-tested transfers, despite the fact
that a larger share of income-tested expenditures is dis­
tributed to the poor.
Most Americans are dissatisfied with the transfer sys­
tem. Incentives to better oneself through earnings are
low, administrative costs, errors, and fraud are high,
and the programs themselves are not well integrated.
Increasing numbers of families are headed by divorced,
deserted, or unmarried mothers. The amount of child
support they receive from their absent spouses is trivial.
As a result, increasing numbers of these families receive
benefits from the aid to families with dependent chil­
dren. Expenditures for medicare and medicaid are grow­
ing at an alarming rate. Less than half of those eligible
participate in the Supplemental Security Income and
fG^d stamp programs. Because of differences in State el­
igibility standards and the lack of coordination among
programs, many of the poor participate in several pro­
grams, while one-fifth receive no transfers at all.
Thus, reform in the welfare is beset with quandaries.
Should the adequacy (and cost) of the system be in­
creased or should costs (and adequacy) be reduced?
How much emphasis should be put on work? And most
importantly for the income-testing issue: should benefits
be extended only to low-income families or to all fami­
lies?
Issues in the income-testing debate
Work disincentive. Foremost among the issues is the
effect of the current income-support system on work ef­
fort; and much of the discussion about that effect cen­
ters on tax rates. There are two types of tax rates: the
explicit tax rate on taxpayers who finance the transfer
and the implicit tax rates (benefit reduction rates) on
transfer beneficiaries. An important finding from both
experimental and cross-sectional studies3of labor supply
is that work effort is adversely affected by marginal tax
rates on earned income, whether coming from tax or
from transfer programs. Moreover, groups currently
aided most by the income-support system— the elderly,

disabled, single-parent families, the poor, and the unem­
ployed— were substantially more responsive to tax rates
than married men who were neither old nor poor.
Given these conclusions on the impacts of tax rates,
the high effective rates incorporated into the Nation’s
income support system take on new significance. The
average benefit reduction rate in the Aid to Families
with Dependent Children program is 40 percent.4 Be­
cause AFDC beneficiaries also receive food stamps with
a 25-percent tax rate, and sometimes live in public
housing, where rent subsidies decrease as earrings in­
crease, their cumulative benefit reduction rate is often
nearly 70 percent. Moreover, medicaid pushes the tax
rate over 100 percent for many of those whose earnings
reach the point where they have to leave the welfare
rolls, because loss of cash assistance often means going
from no cost to full cost medical care. In other pro­
grams the story is the same. Thus, those groups whose
work effort is most responsive to high tax rates con­
front higher combined marginal tax rates than anyone
else in the economy. Indeed, the current system of in­
come transfers penalizes the poor for working.

lation, found that reduced tax rates on beneficiaries in­
creased their labor supply. However, this effect was
counter-balanced by the reduction in labor supply of
persons who became program beneficiaries when the
lowered tax rates increased the breakeven level of in­
come. These studies failed to account for the response
of higher-income taxpayers to the increased tax rates re­
quired to finance the policy change. If tax rates on the
poor are reduced, taxes and tax rates on others must be
increased if net revenues are to remain constant. The
new results suggest that the reductions in income from
increased taxes on higher-income taxpayers stimulate an
increase in their families’ labor supply. These labor sup­
ply increases, together with increases of transfer bene­
ficiaries, may actually exceed the decreases in labor sup­
ply of new beneficiaries and, hence, increase total
output. Future research on the labor supply response to
various income-support systems, particularly research
on the labor supply response of higher income married
women, will shed more light on whether it is more eco­
nomically efficient to have higher tax rates on the poor
or on the rich.

Economic efficiency. A closely related issue is the effect
of welfare on net output and productivity. Income-test­
ing advocates assert that income-tested programs are
more efficient than non-income-tested programs. Until
recently, there has been no research on the economic ef­
fects of income testing. While non-income-tested pro­
grams raise tax rates on upper income families more
than do income-tested programs, they lower them on
lower income families. The effects of income testing on
economic efficiency, therefore, depend upon an analysis
of whether it is more efficient to have higher tax rates
on low- or on high-income families.
The pattern of high tax rates on groups with high
propensities to substitute leisure for earnings contrib­
utes to the existing pattern of low work effort for these
groups. And it runs counter to one of the most widely
accepted principles of public finance theory—tax the in­
elastic factor. Because higher-income groups have less
elastic labor supply schedules, it is possible that in­
creases in output (that is, greater overall productivity),
could be achieved and revenues held constant if tax
rates were lowered for those with low earnings and
raised through some form of credit income tax for those
with high earnings.
This conclusion is supported by tentative results from
the Seattle-Denver income maintenance experiment and
other research,5 which indicate that expanding the in­
come-transfer system by simultaneously reducing tax
rates in transfer programs and raising them in the posi­
tive tax system could lead to an increase in the gross
national product. Earlier studies, based on estimates of
the labor supply response of only the low-income popu­

Administrative efficiency. The tax-transfer system places
high costs on program participants, is expensive to ad­
minister, is rife with error on the part of administrators
and open to fraud both on the part of transfer bene­
ficiaries and service providers. Because the system at­
tempts to tailor benefits or taxes to each individual’s
unique need or ability to pay, it fosters an erosion of the
tax base in both transfer programs and the personal in­
come tax. As a result of this erosion, marginal tax rates
have been increased to maintain revenue levels, and wel­
fare applications and tax returns have become more com­
plex. Moreover, there is considerable deadweight loss
involved in utilizing resources to avoid high tax burdens.
Proponents of a universal system point out that if in­
come testing were removed, it would be necessary to
frequently determine family status, needs, and the tim­
ing of transfer benefits for individual families. Hence,
moving toward a comprehensive tax base (a move en­
dorsed by many income-testing advocates as well) and
relying on refundable personal income tax credits, cou­
pled with a proportionate tax rate, are steps that would
minimize administrative costs and incentives to alter or
misrepresent incomes.6


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Target efficiency. Target efficiency is the proportion of
total benefits of a program which go to the poor. Pro­
ponents of income-tested transfers argue that for a giv­
en budget, income-tested programs deliver a larger
percentage of benefits to the poor and are, therefore,
more beneficial to the poor than non-income-tested pro­
grams. If the budgets available for income-tested and
non-income-tested transfers are equal, income-tested
43

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Communications
programs are better for the poor. Suppose that a $5 bil­
lion surplus became available for transfer expenditures,
but that larger expenditures were not politically feasible.
In this circumstance, poverty is reduced most by using
an income test. To forgo its use is to spread the com­
paratively small sum of $5 billion over such a large
number of people (more than 215 million) that benefits
would amount to less than $25 per person per year, and
would make no dent in poverty. If the same $5 billion
were expended on an income-tested program, so that
only those with incomes below the poverty line bene­
fited, the poverty gap would be cut by nearly half.
If the budgets are not equal, income-tested programs
may be worse for the poor. Indeed, if the minimum
payments rather than the budgets are equal, the poor
are better off under non-income-tested programs. While
income-testing advocates, on target efficiency grounds,
have implicitly assumed that budgets are equal, advo­
cates of non-income-tested programs argue that the
wider a program spreads its benefits, the more political
support it gains. Thus, non-income-tested programs
provide more aid to the poor because they provide net
benefits to more of the population. Current non-incometested expenditures dwarf income-tested expenditures,
but this does not mean that budgets for non-incometested programs will become sufficiently larger than the
budgets for the income-tested programs.
On a different level, proponents of a non-income-test­
ed system argue that target efficiency is not really an
efficiency measure at all but, if anything, an equity
measure. A program whose impact is highly “target ef­
ficient” may be a system that is most economically inef­
ficient because for a given budget, the more target ef­
ficient the program, the higher the benefit reduction rate
and, thus, the higher the tax rate and work disincentive
for beneficiaries.7

$240 per year more than poor elderly persons who have
made no contributions to the system at all. But should
future policy efforts be directed toward expanding SSI,
or toward revamping social security and better integrat­
ing it with SSI to provide a non-income-tested mini­
mum income to all elderly people? Recent research on
this issue has concluded that one cannot predict a priori
which groups in the elderly population will benefit from
income testing.9If guarantees are held constant, incometested programs provide less income for the poor, and
more for the rich, than do non-income-tested programs.
But if earnings-replacement rates for the upper-income
elderly and costs to the younger population are held
constant, income-tested programs bring about higher in­
comes for the poor.

While most agree that wholesale substitution of a
non-income-tested universal transfer system is not, at
present, feasible, the income-testing debate is highly rel­
evant for several current public policy debates, includ­
ing aid to the elderly and female heads of households
and the adoption of a national health insurance pro­
gram.8

Single-parent families. Researchers have argued that
preferential treatment of the single-parent family by the
tax-transfer system, whether or not it occurs within an
income-tested framework, is desirable on equity grounds
because single-parent families have less earnings capaci­
ty than two-parent families.10 But preferential treatment
creates incentives for family dissolution (real or
feigned). In this context, the income-testing issue can be
translated into the question of whether to continue to
aid single-parent families or switch to a social child-sup­
port program which reinforces the financial responsibili­
ties of both parents, whatever their income level, but
which guarantees a universal, minimum level of child
payments—either publicly or parentally supported—
for all single-parent families with children.
A non-income-tested, social child-support program
that would, in effect, eliminate AFDC might work as
follows: all single adults caring for one or more children
would be eligible for a public child-support payment
that would depend only on the number of children for
whom care is being provided, and not on the income of
the single parent. The benefit by the government would
equal either some minimum amount or the amount paid
by the absent spouse— whichever is larger. The pay­
ments would be financed by a tax on absent spouses
equal to some proportion of their income for each child
not living with them. If the tax paid by the absent
spouse fell below the minimum payment, the shortfall
would be financed from general revenues.

The elderly. The major benefit programs for the elderly
are OASDI (not income-tested, but related to past earn­
ings) and SSI (for those whose social security payments
and other income are insufficient to lift them above the
poverty level). However, these two programs need to be
better integrated than at present. For instance, a sub­
stantial number of low-income OASDI recipients who
have contributed to the Social Security system for many
years, and who are also eligible for SSI, receive only

Health care. The national health insurance debate has
also been subject to the income-testing issue.11 Propo­
nents argue that if a national program is to provide ad­
equate health care for all at reasonable cost, it must
reallocate health care services away from richer subur­
ban families and toward poorer central city and rural
residents. The current medicaid program, which limits
the maximum charge for a given health care service,
does not foster equal access. Because of these limits,

The choices before us

44


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

many physicians do not participate in medicaid. Hence,
a two-class medical care system which stigmatizes the
poor has emerged. A national health insurance plan
which extends medicaid to all low-income families
would continue to separate the poor from the rest of
the population. But a plan with universal coverage for
all under one system would lead to more equal access

and greater horizontal equity in care between high- and
low-income families.
The choice between income-tested and non-incometested policies in these and in other areas is not merely
a methodological or an administrative choice. Decisions
in this area will affect the future course of social policy
in the United States.
□

FOOTNOTES
' The theme of the 2-day conference was, “Should future reform of
our income support system move in the direction of more or less in­
come testing?” This article is based on papers presented at the confer­
ence and also on Felicity Skidmore and I. Garfinkel, “The Issues at
the Conference,” Focus, Summer 1979. The papers will be published
in their entirety in a forthcoming volume of the proceedings.
2The term “categorical” refers specifically to programs which limit
eligibility to certain types of people. Programs which provide benefits
to all, but give different amounts of benefits to different categories of
people (aged, single parents, children) are still “noncategorical,” in
our terminology.
3See I. Garfinkel and S. Masters, Estimating the Labor Supply Ef­
fects o f Income Maintenance Alternatives (New York, Academic Press,
1978) and G. Cain and H. Watts, eds., Income Maintenance and La­
bor Supply (New York, Academic Press, 1973).
4 R. Hutchens, “Changes in AFDC Tax Rates: 1961-1971,” Jour­
nal o f Human Resources, Winter 1978, pp. 60-74.
5 D. Betson, D. Greenberg, and R. Kasten, “An Analysis of the
Economic Efficiency and Distributional Effects of Alternative Pro­
gram Structures: NIT vs. CIT,” paper presented at the conference and
M. Keeley, P. Robins, R. Spiegelman, and R. West, “The Estimation
of Labor Supply Models Using Experimental Data,” American Eco­


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

nomic Review, December 1978, pp. 873-87.
6 J. Kesselman, “Taxpayer Behavior and Administrative Principles
of a Credit Income Tax,” paper presented at the conference and J.
Kesselman and I. Garfinkel, “Professor Friedman, Meet Lady RhysWilliams: NIT vs. CIT,” Journal o f Public Economics, Vol. 10, 1978,
pp. 179-216.
7 Betson and others, “Economic Efficiency” and E. Sadka and I.
Garfinkel, “The Welfare Economics of the Two Types of Programs,”
papers presented at the conference.
8The income-testing question is also relevant for other additional
policy issues, such as tax reform, public education, publicly supported
day care, and, of course, welfare reform.
9 D. Berry, I. Garfinkel, and R. Munts, “Income Testing in Income
Support Programs for the Aged,” paper presented at the conference.
10 H. Watts, G. Jakubson, and F. Skidmore, “Single-Parent House­
holds under Alternative Transfer and Tax Systems,” paper presented
at the conference and S. Danziger, I. Garfinkel and R. Haveman,
“Poverty, Welfare, and Earnings: A New Approach,” Challenge, Sep­
tember/October, 1979.
11 S. Long and J. Palmer, “Universal versus Income-Tested National
Health Insurance,” paper presented at the conference and comments
on this paper by K. Davis and B. Wolfe.

45

Productivity
Reports
Productivity declines continue
into third quarter 1979
Lawrence J. F ulco

The productivity decline of the first half of 1979 contin­
ued into the third quarter, showing small reductions
from second quarter levels in the private business and
nonfarm business sectors. This was the longest period
of decline since the recession of 1973-74, when produc­
tivity declined for seven successive quarters.
Manufacturing productivity, which declined in the
first quarter and increased in the second, grew even
faster in the third quarter, although the gain was con­
fined to nondurables. Among nonfinancial corporations,
productivity increased for the first time this year, show­
ing an 0.7-percent gain in the third quarter.
Three consecutive quarters of productivity decline in
the private business sectors make it virtually certain
that productivity will show a drop for 1979, only the
second time this has occurred since 1947 when the se­
ries begins.
Chart 1 shows changes in productivity, unit labor
cost, and hourly compensation in the private business,
nonfarm business, manufacturing, and nonfinancial cor­
porate sectors since 1967.
The declines in productivity this year reflected dif­
ferent patterns of growth in output and hours. In the
third quarter, output growth resumed in the private busi­
ness and nonfarm business sectors, although the declines
of the second quarter were not recouped. However, man­
ufacturing output changed little because of offsetting
movements in the durable and nondurable industries.
Hours of all persons engaged in the private business
sector (production and supervisory employees, propri­
etors and partners, and unpaid family workers) in­
creased in the third quarter, after a small decline during
the second period. Employment growth also accelerat­
ed. In the third quarter, about 79.6 million persons
were engaged in private business, the most comprehen­
sive sector for which quarterly productivity measures
are prepared.
Lawrence J. Fulco is an economist in the Division of Productivity Re­
search, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
46


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

In contrast, manufacturing hours and employment
declined in the third quarter in both durables and
nondurables. The drop in nondurable employment and
hours, coupled with the increase in sector output, re­
sulted in the large productivity increase. About 21.3
million persons were employed in manufacturing in the
third quarter; about two-fifths of them were in non­
durables.
The biggest productivity increase occurred in the
nondurable manufacturing sector. An 8.7-percent gain
in the third quarter reflected an increase in output of
4.3 percent and a decline in hours of 4.1 percent. This
was the largest productivity gain in 4 years and contrib­
uted to the first decline in unit labor cost since 1975.
The following tabulation show the annual rate of
change in productivity, output, and hours for four ma­
jor sectors in the economy in the third quarter of 1979:
Sector
Private business
Nonfarm business
Manufacturing
Durable
Nondurable
Nonfinancial
corporations

Productivity

Output

Hours

-0.7
-0.7
3.3
-0.2
8.7

1.7
1.9
0.3
-2.3
4.3

2.5
2.6
-2.9
-2.2
-4.1

0.7

1.6

0.9

Compensation, labor cost, and profits
After rising sharply in the first two quarters, hourly
compensation decelerated in the third quarter in the pri­
vate business and manufacturing sectors. The reduction
in the rate of increase of labor compensation combined
with the slight decline in productivity and resulted in
the smallest increase in unit labor cost this year. (Unit
labor cost— labor compensation per unit of output—in­
creases with gains in hourly compensation, and declines
with productivity gains.) Unit labor cost rose least in
manufacturing, where for nondurables, it actually
showed a small decline.
Increases in the seasonally-adjusted Consumer Price
Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) overbalanced
gains in hourly compensation in the third quarter, and
real hourly compensation declined again. In the private
business sector, real hourly compensation was lower
than it had been since the second quarter of 1976, re­
flecting the more rapid advance of the CPI-U.

Chart 1. Productivity and related measures in four major sectors in the economy, 1967-79

Ratio scale (1967 = 100)
260

1967 68

69

70

71

72

73

74

75 76

77

78 79

1967 68

69

70

71

72

73

74

75

77

78 79

1967 68

69

70

71

72

73

74

75

76

77

78

79

260

76

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Eco­
nomic Analysis prepares quarterly profit measures for
the nonfinancial corporate sector.1 This sector accounts
for about 75 percent of private business output and 68
percent of labor input hours and includes all corpora­
tions doing business in the United States, except banks,
stock and commodity brokers, and finance and insur­
ance agencies. In 1978, profits2 were about $128 billion.
Output was $1,247 billion (in current dollars), of which
employee compensation accounted for $835 billion and
nonlabor payments—depreciation, net interest, and in­
direct business taxes— were $412 billion.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Profits in the nonfinancial corporate sector increased
at a 5.1-percent annual rate from 1959 to 1978, some­
what faster than sector output, which grew 4.6 percent
per year over the period. Thus, profits per unit of out­
put increased 0.6 percent at the same time. This rela­
tively modest rate of increase over the entire time-span
includes subperiods of markedly different performance,
as can be seen in table 1.
Unit labor costs grew faster than unit profits over the
1959-78 period, averaging 4.0 percent each year. These
costs showed little movement prior to 1965, increased
4.5 percent per year between 1976 and 1973, and 7.3
47

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Productivity Reports
Table 1. Average annual rates of change1in productivity,
costs, and profits in the nonfinancial corporate sector
Measure
Productivity
Hourly compensation
Implicit price deflator2
Unit labor cost
Unit nonlabor payments
Unit profits
Output
Profits
Unit nonlabor cost

1959-78

1959-65

1965-73

1973-78

2.1
6.1
3.7
4.0
3.2
0.6
4.6
5.1
4.6

3.7
3.6
0.5
-0.1
1.6
3.6
6.2
9.9
0.3

1.8
6.4
3.6
4.5
2.1
-4.1
4.2
0.0
5.9

1.4
8.8
7.6
7.3
8.2
11.8
3.0
15.1
7.0

1Least-squares trend rate fitted to the logarithms of the indexes of the data.
2The implicit price deflator is current-dollar gross product originating in the sector divided
by constant-dollar output. Current-dollar product is equal to labor compensation, profit, and
nonlabor cost (mainly indirect taxes, depreciation, and interest).

percent between 1973 and 1978; however, in the most
recent period, unit profits grew faster—averaging 15.1
percent each year.
It should be noted that profits represent a much
smaller part of value added in the nonfinancial corpo­

rate sector than compensation. In 1978, unit pro­
fits were roughly one-seventh unit labor costs in abso­
lute terms, in spite of the faster rate of increase of unit
profits during the preceding 5 years.
In recent quarters, profits have declined steadily.
Unit profits dropped during the first three quarters of
1979, declining 7 percent from the fourth quarter 1978
level.
□
--------- F O O T N O T E S ---------' The basic data underlying the estimates of corporate profits are
the annual tabulations of corporate income tax returns compiled by
the Internal Revenue Service. These data are sufficiently complete and
reliable to overcome many of the difficulties which are inherent in the
estimation of profits. Filing of detailed returns is mandatory, and the
returns are prepared with the knowledge that they are likely to be
audited. For additional information, see “Readings in concepts and
methods of national income statistics,” Supplement to Survey o f C ur­
rent Business, 1976, p. 71.
Corporate profits with inventory valuation and capital consump­
tion adjustments in nonfinancial domestic industries.

A note on communications
The Monthly Labor Review welcomes communications
that supplement, challenge, or expand on research pub­
lished in its pages. To be considered for publication, com­
munications should be factual and analytical, not pole-

mical in tone. Communications should be addressed to the
Editor-in-Chief, Monthly Labor Review, Bureau of Labor
Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, D.C.
20212.

S

48


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

a

Research
Summaries
Collective bargaining
in the health care industry
L u c r e t ia D e w ey T a n n e r ,
H a r r ie t G o l d b e r g W
and

A

l ic e

L. A

e in s t e in ,

hm uty

Prior to 1974, employees of health care facilities were
excluded from coverage of the National Labor Rela­
tions Act, which establishes a national policy aimed at
“encouraging the practices and procedures of collective
bargaining. . . . ” Thé National Labor Relations Board
asserted jurisdiction over proprietary hospitals and
nursing homes, but the nonprofit hospitals were exempt
until the Act was amended on August 25, 1974. The
amendments, Public Law 93-360, provided that private
nonprofit hospital workers be granted the same rights
and privileges legislated for most other workers 39
years earlier.
Characteristics of bargaining in the industry
During the first 2Vi years following the amend­
ments, at least 44 national and international unions
negotiated collective bargaining agreements in the pri­
vate health care industry.1 Three organizations domi­
nated representation, accounting for 3 of 5 negotiated
contracts: the Service Employees International Union
(AFL-CIO), the earliest to begin organizing in the
health care industry and now the largest in industry
membership; the National Union of Hospital and
Health Care Employees (District 1199), a division of
the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union
(AFL-CIO), which began representing pharmacists in
New York City and now is the second largest union
in the industry; and the American Nurses Association,
a professional organization which took on collective
Lucretia Dewey Tanner is chief of the Division of Private Sector Man­
ufacturing, Office of Pay Monitoring, Council on Wage and Price Sta­
bility, Harriet Goldberg Weinstein is a labor economist with the
division, and Alice L. Ahmuty is a labor economist with the Congres­
sional Research Service. This summary is adapted from their study,
Impact of the 1974 Health Care Amendments to the NLRA on Collec­
tive Bargaining in the Health Care Industry, published in 1979 by the
U S. Department of Labor’s Labor Management Services Administra­
tion and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

bargaining functions for registered nurses.
Data from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation
Service (FMCS) show that during the 1974-76 period,
there were 2,585 collective bargaining situations in the
private health care industry, involving 414,000 workers,
or one-quarter of the 1.7 million employees of health
care institutions. Most workers (85 percent) were
employed in hospitals; the remainder were in nursing
homes or were involved in other health care activities.
About one-third of the agreements were first con­
tracts covering 61,000 workers. These initial contracts,
however, covered far fewer workers per unit than
preexisting agreements, perhaps reflecting the fact that
the larger more easily organized units had already
signed agreements. Both in terms of existing union or­
ganization and new efforts, California, New York, and
Michigan ranked as the top three.
Shorter term agreements are more common in the
health care industry than in other industries. Contracts
for 1 or 2 years were most frequent; 3-year agreements
accounted for only one-quarter of all contracts, com­
pared with more than one-half in other industries.
Wages clearly were the top issue in health care
bargaining, as they were in other industries; however,
some differences were apparent. Duration of contract,
union security problems, and working conditions, for
example, appeared to be more important issues in
health care than in other industries. Grievance proce­
dures, arbitration, and hours of work also appeared
more frequently.
FMCS mediators were more actively involved in
health care bargaining situations as a percent of total
notices than in other bargaining situations. In the ma­
jority of negotiations, however, the parties progressed
towards a final settlement without the immediate threat
of a strike, and may not require active mediation. When
mediation did take place, nearly 50 percent more meet­
ings were required to resolve a strike.
Provisions of the amendments
The amended law provided for some special proce­
dures designed to promote early bargaining and avoid
strikes in the health care institutions. These procedures
include: (1) advance notice to the FMCS of plans to
modify or terminate a contract, (2) mandatory media­
tion, (3) a 10-day intent-to-strike notice to the institu49

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Research Summaries
tion and to the FMCS, and (4) a special factfinding or
Board of Inquiry (BOI) procedure to be used in cases of
threatened or actual strikes.
In contract renewal or reopener bargaining, the party
desiring to terminate or modify an existing contract is
required to notify the other party of such intent at least
90 days prior to the expiration date, compared with the
60-day notification period established for other indus­
tries. In health care cases, FMCS must receive a written
notice 60 days prior to the intent to terminate or modi­
fy the existing contract, instead of the 30-day notice re­
quirement in other industries. In initial contract sit­
uations following certification of recognition, the labor
organization requiring mediation assistance is required
to give at least 30 days’ written notice to FMCS that a
dispute exists. Before a strike can occur in the health
care industry, the union must give a 10-day intent-tostrike notice, in writing, to the institution and FMCS
specifying the exact date and time the stoppage is to oc­
cur.
The BOI is designed to provide factfinding in an at­
tempt to avoid strikes. Appointment of a BOI is at the
discretion of the director of the FMCS if “a threatened
or actual strike or lockout affecting a health care insti­
tution will, if permitted to occur or continue, substan­
tially interrupt the delivery of health care in the locality
concerned.” The BOI is appointed for a 15-day term,

during which the “findings of fact” and nonbinding rec­
ommendations are issued. Such appointment takes place
no later than 30 days prior to expiration date of the
contract, or within 30 days of receipt of the 60-day no­
tice to the FMCS. In the case of initial contracts, the
BOI, if convened, must be appointed within 10 days of
receipt of the intent-to-strike notice.
BOI study findings
Extent of BOI involvement. For the first few months af­
ter enactment of the amendments (until November
1978), decisions to appoint a Board of Inquiry were
based on a strict interpretation of the law, that is wheth­
er a strike or lockout would “substantially interrupt the
delivery of health care in the locality concerned.” It was
found, however, that the establishment of a Board did
not necessarily facilitate collective bargaining; many of
the Board’s reports recommended that the parties start
bargaining—in some cases the parties had not even met
prior to the appointment of the Board. After a few
months, the FMCS determined that an additional factor
should be considered prior to the appointment of a
board—if the impact of a potential work stoppage was
found to be substantial on the community as established
by law, then a second factor, the impact on the bar­
gaining process should be assessed.
To accommodate other provisions spelled out in the

Study update
While this survey of collective bargaining in health care
institutions under the National Labor Relations Act
amendments covers the first 2 -Y i years, nearly 3 years have
elapsed since the research was concluded in December
1976 and the publication of the results. Data from the
Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) indi­
cate that from December 1976 to August 1979, the rate of
board of inquiry appointments has actually declined, both
those formerly appointed under the NLRA procedures and
those agreed to by the parties in a “stipulation” apart from

the explicit requirements of the act. This decline was ob­
served between the two time periods— August 1974
through December 1976, and the most current comparable
period, January 1977 to August 1979.
In the first period, 120 factfinding boards were
appointed (91 under the formal procedures and 29 infor­
mally). During the intervening years, only an additional 80
boards were appointed. Each year since the first year, the
numbers of appointments have been fewer.
A slower rate of appointments was noted in the original
study and was predictable, as both the FMCS and the
parties gained greater bargaining experience and began us­
ing the process only when such factfinding would be use­
ful. Additionally, current data show that those FMCS
regions in which factfinders were more frequently
appointed initially continue to make appointments in ap­
proximately the same proportion in the more recent period.

50


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

One finding of the study was the desire of labor and
management negotiators to have a preference in the selec­
tion of the factfinding board appointee. In July 1979,
FMCS announced changes in its administrative rules to
permit more input from the parties. Negotiators are
allowed to jointly submit a list of proposed names to
serve as a board member with the right to defer to a sepa­
rate factfinding or arbitration procedure for resolving dis­
putes.
Have the amendments reduced work stoppages? Unlike
the decline in the number of factfinding board appoint­
ments, the incidence of strikes (in absolute numbers) in­
creased during the most current period (129 in the first
period versus 179 in the second). When viewed against the
total collective bargaining activity since 1976, however, the
strike rate has actually declined. From August 1974
through December 1976, a total of 2,585 bargaining situa­
tions was recorded by FMCS. From the start of 1977 to
August 1979, an additional 4,705 sets of negotiations were
held, an increase of 190 percent. Bargaining in the health
care industry is more frequent and contracts of 2 year du­
rations are common. This increase in collective bargaining
activity is related to renegotiated contracts as well as the
addition of new bargaining situations. Thus, when the total
number of strikes to total collective bargaining situations
in each of the two periods are compared, the rate of strike
activity has actually dropped since 1976.

amendment, FMCS developed the concept of a stipula­
tion agreement as an option to the Board of Inquiry. In
cases where it is too early in the bargaining process to
interpose a third-party neutral to assist in defining is­
sues, the parties may agree, in writing, to permit the
agency to appoint a factfinder at some later specified
time. Then, after 30 days of bargaining have passed,
FMCS reviews the state of negotiations and determines
whether a factfinder is warranted.
During the first 2-Vz year period, 120 boards were
appointed (25 in the first 4 months), 29 of the total un­
der the stipulation procedures. A monthly‘average of
90.5 health care bargaining cases were closed by the
FMCS in 1975 (compared with 108.6 in 1976), while
the monthly average number of Boards declined from
4.3 in 1975 to 3.7 in 1976. At the same time, health
care disputes became more numerous and the appoint­
ment of Boards became more selective; thus, the per­
centage of Boards to total collective bargaining
situations declined. More restricted use of factfinding
following an initial period of heavy usage is not unique
to the health care industry. Similar declines have been
observed in the use of factfinding under the National
Emergency Disputes of the National Labor Relations
Act and the Railway Labor Act.
Generally, the number of contract renewal disputes
resulting in Board appointments exceeded those for ini­
tial contracts: 64 percent were appointed in contract re­
newal cases, 7 percent were in reopener agreements, and
the remaining were in first contracts. Seventy percent of
the Boards were appointed for situations involving hos­
pitals; 17.5 percent dealt with nursing homes disputes,
and 10.8 percent involved other facilities, such as clinics
and health maintenance organizations. In 37 percent of
the Board cases, the mediators believed that one or
both of the parties had delayed bargaining in anticipa­
tion of a factfinding board. More union than manage­
ment negotiators wanted the Board of Inquiry, while
more management than union chief negotiators believed
that the other had delayed bargaining in anticipation of
a Board of Inquiry.
Although the Service Employees International Union
negotiated the largest percent of health care contracts
(32.4 percent), it ranked third in its involvement in
Boards of Inquiry (15.9 percent). District 1199 was in­
volved in 45.8 percent of the boards, but only 16 percent
of the negotiations; the various State nurses associations
were parties in 19.2 percent of the Board of Inquiry situ­
ations and 15.9 percent of the health care negotiations.
Individuals selected to serve on Boards of Inquiry
were chosen on the basis of their competency in fact­
finding, arbitration, and mediation skills, as well as ex­
perience in the health care field. Another primary criter­
ia in the selection process was availability, because the
Board must be appointed quickly, and its members

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

must contact the parties, arrange for a meeting, and
write recommendations all within 15 days. In all but 10
Boards, a single individual had been appointed, rather
than a multiperson panel.
Despite criticism voiced by health care administrators
and leaders of major unions that individuals selected to
serve on Boards of Inquiry were uninformed about
problems of the industry or issues raised at the
bargaining table, three-fourths of the chief negotiators
queried said that the persons assigned to the Board
were qualified and knowledgeable in labor relations.
Nevertheless, when further asked as to the preference of
having a choice—in conjunction with the other party—
on the selection of the factfinder, 70 percent of the man­
agement and 57 percent of the labor negotiators favored
such an option.
Approximately two-thirds of the management negoti­
ating committees were headed by outside legal counsel,
while almost half of the union bargaining teams were
headed by either the union business agent or interna­
tional representative. Mediators noted that, although
they encountered a number of inexperienced negotiators
when the amendments first became effective, this occurs
less frequently now. Many mediators commented on the
unusually large bargaining committees in health care,
compared with other industries.
The reports. Board of Inquiry reports ranged from a de­
tailed discussion of all outstanding issues to simply “We
met, we bargained, we settled.” Forty percent of the re­
ports contained no recommendations, due primarily to
the initial 6-month period following enactment of the
legislation when appointments were based on a strict in­
terpretation of the impact on the delivery of health care
without consideration to the state of bargaining. The
mediators indicated that when the parties had met and
negotiated before the Board convened, it was more like­
ly to issue recommendations on how to resolve the re­
maining items in dispute.
Both the mediators and the individuals on the Boards
felt that in approximately 2 of 5 situations, no effective
negotiations had taken place prior to the board appoint­
ment. Again, this situation was most evident during the
first 4 months after amendments became operative.
In almost three-fourths of the factfinding cases, the
mediator was able to use the Board of Inquiry recom­
mendations as the basis for further negotiations. In 14
percent of the situations, no additional mediation ses­
sions were held, and in 13 percent, the parties accepted
the factfinder’s recommendations in total. Labor and
management negotiators shared similar views on the
value of the Board of Inquiry procedures; about 60 per­
cent of both groups found the procedures useful. When
asked to evaluate the usefulness of the recommenda­
tions, a slightly higher percentage of management than
51

<

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Research Summaries
labor representatives found them helpful.
Ninety percent of the disputes that were settled prior
to the convening of the Board occurred in the first year,
and no reports were issued in these cases. Instances of
the parties reaching agreement either prior to or during
the Board’s term were restricted to Boards appointed
under the statute, rather than those appointed after a
stipulation agreement had been reached.
During the congressional hearings on the amend­
ments, eight factors were identified to be considered by
the Board of Inquiry in making recommendations: (1)
area wage levels, (2) adequate provisions for job securi­
ty and fringe benefits, (3) cost of living, (4) career ad­
vancement, (5) equal employment opportunity, (6) equal
pay, (7) provision for resolution of grievances without
strikes, and (8) job training and skills.2
Individuals who served on a Board were asked which
of these or other factors they considered in issuing rec­
ommendations. Most factfinders limited their consider­
ations to economic issues and believed that these were
the issues most often raised by the parties themselves.
The specific recommendations offered in the reports and
the comments of the negotiators, mediators, and fact­
finders indicated that issues in health care disputes
were not very different from those in other sectors. In
first-contract bargaining, issues involving union security
and dues checkoff were frequently found. Other vari­
ances were related more to the relative degree of impor­
tance of issues, such as scheduling and patient care, al­
though many of these factors have counterparts in other
industries running 24-hour operations.
Recommendations for change. Most (80 percent) of
those involved in health care negotiations would like to
see changes in the amendments. The dissatisfaction with
the current amendments centers on the Board of Inqui­
ry procedures; suggestions for revamping focus on the
timing problems experienced by the participants.
Members of factfinding boards were almost unani­
mous in their displeasure with the 15-day maximum
term for the Board. Generally, they felt that the Board
should be convened close to the expiration date. Solu­
tions to the timing of a Board most often endorsed by
the mediators and chief negotiators included factfinders
appointments at the discretion of the mediator at any
time and at the request of either party.
Impact on strikes
One of the most important concerns motivating the
enactment of the 1974 amendments was the desire to
eliminate strikes, particularly those involving recogni­
tion. A review of the 2-Vi years following the enactment
of the legislation indicates that the strike rate in the
health care industry is similar to that in the economy as
a whole, with a stoppage occurring in about 4 or 5 per­
52


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

cent of all bargaining situations. Of 2,585 health care
bargaining situations between August 25, 1974 and De­
cember 31, 1976, 129 strikes occurred. Another similari­
ty is the duration of strikes, about 27 days both in all
bargaining and in health care situations, although there
appear to be longer and more bitter strikes in nursing
homes. In a number of nursing home strikes, no collec­
tive bargaining ever occurs nor is a contract signed, and
the union walks away after gaining recognition.
Unlike the practice in other industries, picket lines
are infrequently honored by other organized units, mak­
ing strikes by small units less effective. This “nonsupportive activity” occurred prior to 1974 as well and
before the required 10-day strike notice.
Despite the similarities between bargaining in health
and other industries, there is an important and distinct
difference. In the health care industry, about one-third
of all bargaining involves initial contracts, a proportion
substantially higher than in other industries. Viewed un­
der this circumstance, it might be concluded that the
strike rate is actually better than in the economy as a
whole, because few, if any, other industries are undergo­
ing the rapid rate of new bargaining.
Mediators found the 10-day strike notice useful in
promoting negotiations, especially in initial contracts.
Labor unions, in contrast, found the notice cumbersome
and confusing, but most importantly also felt that it
provided management time to hire replacements and
prepare for a strike. While the number of 10-day strike
notices issued is not known, in 65 percent of all Board
situations, a strike notice had been given, but a strike
occurred in only 13 percent.
Influence of the National Labor Relations Board
Since the 1974 amendments were enacted, the Na­
tional Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has decided a se­
ries of key issues which influenced collective bargaining
in the health care industry. Two major decisions were
the resolution of unit determination issues and denial of
bargaining rights for interns and residents.
In extending bargaining rights to nonprofit hospital
workers, Congress cautioned the NLRB to give ‘‘due
consideration . . . to preventing proliferation of bar­
gaining units in the health care industry.”3 After much
deliberation, the NLRB determined that five units
would be appropriate in hospital settings: (1) all regis­
tered nurses “if they are sought and they so desire” to
be represented, (2) all other professionals, (3) technical
employees, excluding service and maintenance person­
nel, (4) clerical employees in business offices, and (5)
service and maintenance personnel, including nonoffice
clerical workers. A sixth unit was added in 1977 to in­
clude physicians, excluding interns and residents.4
However, the clearly defined units have not solved

election determination problems and have posed a
threat to craft type unions which have represented
health care workers.5
Another group whose survival has been threatened is
the American Nurses Association and its State affiliates
which act as the bargaining representatives. Current de­
velopments, including the challenge of the organiza­
tion’s status as a bargaining representative because of
alleged supervisor domination, may result in internal
change within the organization, strong takeover challen­
ges by other labor organizations, or the splintering of
established nurses’ groups into independent unions.
While the NLRB amended its five basic unit determi­
nation decisions to include physicians, it explicitly treat­
ed interns and residents as students and not as
employees covered by the amended National Labor Re­
lations Act. In March 1976, the NLRB reasoned that
housestaff physicians were enrolled in a program
designed as a prerequisite for licensing examinations
and certification in medical specialties not for the pur­
pose of earning a living.6 The question of whether in­
terns and residents may engage in bargaining has
generated considerable litigation and the introduction of
bills to amend the 1974 amendments.7
□
--------- FOOTNOTES---------1Because the 1974 amendments extended coverage of the National
Labor Relations Act to the private health care industry, organizations
of workers in public facilities and the role of the American Federation
of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME, A FL-CIO )
and other organizations representing health care workers in the public
and Federal sector are not discussed in this report.
2See Congressional Record, July 11, 1979.
3Legislative History of the Coverage o f Nonprofit Hospitals Under the
National Labor Relations Act, 1974, Public Law 93-360, S. 3203 (U.S.
Congress, Subcommittee on Labor, 93d Congress, 2d Sess., 1974, Re­
port No. 93-760), pp. 12 and 274.
4 A series of NLRB decisions form the basis for the unit determina­
tion rulings. See Mercy Hospital of Sacramento, 217 NLRB No. 765
(1975); Barnent Memorial Hospital Center, 217 NLRB No. 775 (1975);
St. Catherine's Hospital o f Dominican Sisters o f Kenosha, Wisconsin,
Inc., 217 NLRB No. 787 (1975); Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, 217
NLRB No. 797 (1975); Newington Children's Hospital, 217 NLRB
No. 793 (1975); and Ohio Valley Hospital Assn., 230 NLRB No. 84
(1977).
5 For example, when the NLRB rejected a separate unit for statio­
nery engineers in the 1975 Shriner’s Hospital case (Shriner's Hospital
for Cripple Children, 217 NLRB 806 [1975]), four hospitals in Kansas
City filed petitions to decertify the International Union of Operating
Engineers, which had represented this occupation for 20 years. While
the union was successful in defeating the decertification, it amended
its bylaws to expand its jurisdiction in order to continue representing
health care workers. Four years later, the NLRB reversed its position
and held that a community of interest does exist among the mainte­
nance employees and power plant operators and that a separate unit
is appropriate (Riverside Methodist Hospital o f Lynwood, 78 NLRB
No. 1048 [1979]).
6Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, 223 NLRB No. 251 (1975); reconsid­
eration denied, 224 NLRB No. 626 (1976).
7 More recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Co­
lumbia Circuit held that the NLRB’s 4-toG ruling in the Cedars Sinai


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Medical Center case was incorrect and that the legislative intent had
been to extend the benefits of the NLRB to housestaff physicians.
National House Staff Association et al vs. Murphy (C.A.D.C. No. 7 8 1209, Apr. 2, 1979). Again in 1979, Congress considered amending
legislation to permit interns and residents the right to bargain as em­
ployees; however, the measure failed to enlist the needed support.

Measuring the social costs
of instability in construction
R oger L. Bowlby, Sidney L. Carroll ,
R ichard Evans

an d

Governmental interest in stabilization of the U.S. con­
struction industry dates back more than 50 years. The
Hoover Commission of 1924 found that “Bad weather
is not the principal cause of seasonal idleness. Customs
which became fixed when builders had not yet learned
to cope with adverse weather conditions have not yet
been changed to meet improvements in building materi­
als, the development of new equipment, and innova­
tions in management methods.” 1 A more recent study
noted that “From its low point in February to its peak
in August, contract construction . . . adds enough
workers to staff the entire motor vehicle manufacturing
industry.”2
The authors recently participated in a study of the
social costs of instability in the construction industry.3
This report is drawn from that work, which was moti­
vated by a desire to measure the potential benefits from
stabilization.
The cost estimate assumed that the technology was
available to reduce, but not eliminate fluctuations in
construction activity. The nature of this technology or
the reasons why it has not already been applied were
not considered. Similarly, changes in government policy
or other variables that would lead to stabilization were
not considered. The cost of instability in 1977 was esti­
mated by assuming that stabilization was accomplished
some time before 1977, so that any windfall gains or
adjustment costs of a one-time nature had already been
realized.
Manufacturing was used as the standard of employ­
ment stability. However, the fragmented organization of
construction, the custom nature of its output, and its
exposure to weather make it unlikely that construction
could attain the stability of manufacturing, even with
new technology. Therefore, a position half-way between
the present instability of construction and the stability

Roger L. Bowlby is professor of economics and Sidney L. Carroll is
associate professor of economics at the University of Tennessee; Rich­
ard Evans is assistant professor of economics at Memphis State Uni­
versity.
53

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Research Summaries
attained by manufacturing represented a reasonable
goal. The estimates generally assumed that such a posi­
tion was reached before 1977 and maintained during
that year.
As reported in the full study, the potential savings
from stabilization construction during 1977 was esti­
mated at $5.7 billion. This total was the result of the
estimated potential savings for the following specific
areas:
Area of potential savings

Millions
of dollars

T otal.....................................................
Lower unemployment benefit costs....................
Lower depreciation charges on invested capital . .
Lower inventory carrying costs by supplier firms
Lower wage rates and higher annual incomes . . .
Fewer accidents.................................................
Shorter apprenticeship and fewer dropouts.........

$5,674.1
562.0
175.8
281.4
3,877.0
570.0
207.9

Underlying these estimates are the following assump­
tions. With .more intensive utilization of resources, the
construction industry could produce the same volume
of output with smaller inputs of labor and capital, thus
freeing up resources for productive use by other indus­
trial sectors. The value of the additional goods and ser­
vices produced represents the social costs. Subsidiary
gains could be realized if the remaining labor resources
experience less disutility per unit of time worked or a
higher degree of satisfaction per unit of real income, or
if any resources become more productive per unit of ef­
fort. The dollar estimates are limited to the proximate
effects of stabilization and to accounting categories in­
cluded in the gross national product.
The turnover effect
The direct savings from lower labor turnover are per­
haps the clearest savings, and so the costs of excess
labor employed in construction are the most obvious.
The industry provided more than 3.4 million full-time
jobs in 1970; because of turnover, however, it employed
more than 6 million persons during the year.4 At one
extreme the workers represented by this difference may
have sought (or waited for) construction employment
during the entire year, representing a total loss to soci­
ety. At the other extreme, it is logically possible that no
social cost was incurred by this turnover, if the
displaced workers preferred school attendance, leisure,
or other forms of nonparticipation to employment dur­
ing their nonworking periods, or if they found jobs in
other industries without frictional loss. The truth proba­
bly lies somewhere between these extremes.
Though an imperfect measure, insured unemployment
benefits paid out provide the best available measure of
the social loss. Though the strength of their attachment
to the construction industry is uncertain, workers last
employed in construction and drawing unemployment
54


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

benefits are neither employed in other industries nor out
of the labor force. If they are looking for jobs in other
industries, their labor is still lost to society, and their
separation from the construction industry is the proxi­
mate cause of their unemployment.
Table 1 shows insured employment and unemploy­
ment in contract construction by month during 1977.
For each month, the hypothetical unemployment rate is
the mean of the actual rates for manufacturing and con­
struction. Hypothetical unemployment was calculated
so as to produce this rate with actual employment
unchanged. The reduction in insured unemployment
represents labor that could be released from construc­
tion and made available to the rest of the economy.
With stabilization completed prior to 1977, the absorp­
tion of these displaced construction workers by the rest
of the economy also had been completed before 1977.
Thus, the unemployment rate experienced by the re­
leased workers would be equal to the insured unem­
ployment rate for workers outside construction, ranging
from a low of 3.2 percent in November to a high of 4.7
percent in February. For each month, the gain to soci­
ety from construction stabilization is the unemployment
decrease in construction minus the unemployment in­
crease in the rest of the economy.
If these weeks of unemployment are converted into
dollars at the rate of the average unemployment benefit
(which ranged from $75.92 in July to $81.54 in Decem­
ber), approximately $493 million of “avoidable” benefits
were drawn by construction workers during 1977. In
addition, it was estimated that the administrative costs
associated with these transfer payments was $69 mil­
lion.5 Thus, the potential cash savings from a reduction
in insured unemployment through moderate stabiliza­
tion in construction during 1977 was estimated at $562
million.
As part of a more speculative analysis of foregone
earnings, these unemployment benefits were used as a
partial measurement of the total cost of unemployment
to society— the waste of unrecoverable productive la­
bor. (This cost was not included in the $5.7 billion of
potential savings.) Because unemployment benefits sel­
dom exceed half of lost wages, and typically have been
significantly less, workers themselves absorb a signi­
ficant amount of the social cost. With the social value
of the lost labor as twice the unemployment benefits
paid, the social cost of the 6,222,000 work weeks lost
during 1977 was estimated at $1,035 million. This rep­
resents the value of the socially useful goods and ser­
vices that could have been produced by the labor
released by a more stable construction industry, offering
the same number of working weeks to a smaller number
of individuals with lower turnover rates. This estimate
does not include the labor loss not compensated by un­
employment benefits, although uninsured joblessness

Table 1. Employment and unemployment in contract
construction by month, 1977
________________

Insured
employment

Insured
unemployment

Hypothetical
unemployment
(after
stabilization)

3,225,000
3,152,000
3,270,000
3,451,000
3,608,000
3,675,000
3,655,000
3,693,000
3,712,000
3,732,000
3,686,000
3,499,000

703,200
768,300
646,200
466,200
305,200
263,900
254,100
227,400
199,500
217,200
252,000
406,100

437,700
462,600
395,900
308,300
214,000
199,500
208,600
188,300
162,700
171,800
194,000
271,500

1977 Actual
Month

January . . .
February ..
March . . . .
A p ril...........
M a y ...........
June .........
J u ly ...........
August . . . .
September .
October . . .
November .
December .

Unemployment rates
Actual

17.9
19.6
16.5
11.9
7.8
6.7
6.5
5.8
5.1
5.5
6.4
10.4

Hypothetical

12.0
12.8
10.8
8.2
5.6
5.2
5.4
4.8
4.2
4.4.
5.0
7.2

represents a social loss as certainly as does insured un­
employment.
More productive capital
Though capital does not draw unemployment bene­
fits, the same sort of potential social benefits would flow
from more intensive utilization of a smaller quantity of
physical capital. It was assumed that the capital inputs
to the productive process in contract construction could
be reduced by 2.5 percent through regularization of ac­
tivity. This is somewhat less than the 3.1 percent reduc­
tion in the labor force implied by the data in table 1. In
both cases, it was assumed that resources stand avoid­
ably idle for such reasons as a customary building sea­
son, an arbitrary fiscal year, or lack of long-term
planning, perhaps the result of a deficiency in informa­
tion. What is demonstrably true in the case of labor can
be presumed true in the case of nonhuman resources.
John W. Kendrick has estimated the capital em­
ployed in the construction industry at $39 billion in
1973.6 Based on the 3.5 percent per year long-run
growth trend, the 1977 capital stock was estimated at
$45 billion. A 2.5 percent reduction in capital, if carried
out entirely in 1977, would have yielded more than $1
billion of savings to the industry, and freed this amount
of capital for deployment in other industries. Society
could have benefited from higher production without
loss of any construction output. However, if stabiliza­
tion was completed before 1977, then this one-time po­
tential gain can be ignored.
There would still be two potential gains to be
counted for 1977: the 3.5 percent increase in capital re­
quired for long-term growth would be $43 million dol­
lars less by reason of the lower base (the one-time
reduction which took place before 1977); there also
would be lower depreciation charges during 1977 on the
decreased capital stock. Allowing straight-line deprecia­
tion at 6 percent, and assuming that depreciation de­
pends only upon time and will not be accelerated by
more intensive use of the smaller stock of capital, there

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

were potential savings of $66 million from this source in
1977.
The effect on suppliers
Vendor firms that supply inputs such as bricks and
mortar to the construction industry experience measur­
ably higher costs because of irregular purchases by the
construction industry. These become costs to society be­
cause the supplier firms, like the construction industry
itself, must use extra resources that are denied to society
and cannot be used to produce other goods and serv­
ices. For computational purposes, it was assumed that
vendor firms operate at a steady rate throughout the
year altering their inventories to suit the erratic de­
mands of the construction industry. In the real world,
of course, some of these firms will close, so some of the
costs will be embodied in idle labor and capital. Costs
of these idle factors of production should approximate
the estimated inventory carrying costs.
Carrying inventories involves a real cost to society in
losses from fire, theft, casualty, and deterioration as
well as from expenditures of land, labor, and capital
that are made in order to minimize these losses. The an­
nual costs for a widely fluctuating inventory were esti­
mated at 20 percent of the average inventory value,
partly because the land and capital requirements are a
function of the maximum inventory.
To establish the base on which to apply this percent­
age rate, it was assumed that the timing of purchases by
the construction industry coincides with the monthly
total of value put in place. Thus, the amplitude of sea­
sonal variation in purchases was estimated as the dif­
ference between the high and low months. Because the
high and low months are about 6 months apart, half of
this amplitude represents the mean excess inventory at­
tributable to the instability of the construction industry.
The purchases of the construction industry from sup­
plier firms were estimated by an input-output model,
with separate estimates for five construction sectors.7
Based on these data, the construction industry made
$58 billion of direct purchases from supplier firms in or­
der to put $100 billion of value in place. The difference
between monthly purchases at the August peak and
February trough amounted to $1.8 billion. In an aver­
age month during 1977, the vendor firms maintained
approximately $900 million of excess inventories over
and above the inventory that would have been required
to supply a stable industry, and the excess costs to sup­
pliers were $180 million during the year. There are no
offsetting gains to others, and so this figure represents
the social cost. It must be emphasized that inventory
carrying charges were used as a proxy for these social
costs, much of which came in layoffs or other manifes­
tations of seasonality not estimated directly. The result,
therefore, may overestimate the costs to vendor firms,
55

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Research Summaries
who may find it cheaper to operate seasonally them­
selves, and shut down during the slack season in prefer­
ence to maintaining inventories. In this case, of course,
the supplier firms avoid the cost by passing it on to
their workers, or to other taxpayers who pay transfer
payments to the unemployed workers. The social cost
remains.
Reduced wage differential
Economic theory suggests that labor markets are
characterized by “equalizing” wage differentials that op­
erate to make jobs equally attractive by offsetting
non wage attributes of less desirable jobs.8 Construction
industry wages are high, therefore, partly to compensate
workers for the irregularity of employment. Stabiliza­
tion of construction industry employment has the po­
tential to benefit both labor and management by
increasing the yearly hours of work per worker, making
it possible to simultaneously lower wage rates and in­
crease annual income. This would occur automatically
in a perfectly competitive market; as the risk of layoff
falls, the equalizing differential is reduced and all the
benefits of stabilization accrue to employers in the form
of lower wage rates. In a market perfectly controlled by
workers, the differential might be maintained, so that all
benefits accrue to workers as higher annual income.
Collective bargaining may produce a compromise result,
as the give and take between labor and management
leads to a sharing of the benefits of stabilization.
The collective bargaining experience of the Tennessee
Valley Authority involves separate union contracts for
construction workers, even though most of these work­
ers have the same job titles as some noncon­
struction workers. Over 20 years, however, a stable
wage differential developed in favor of construction
workers, confirming the essential validity of the theory
predicting such a result. It was assumed that this wage
differential was typical of such differentials in the Unit­
ed States.
The wage differentials were computed for each occu­
pational group on the Tennessee Valley Authority
payroll and were weighted by the national importance
of each occupation based on census data. If exactly half
of the wage differential was eliminated through stabili­
zation,9 it was estimated that total wage costs could be
reduced by approximately 8.4 percent. Translated to the
total U.S. construction payroll, the potential savings for
1977 would have been $3,877 million.

grams should proceed more smoothly with fewer drop­
outs, representing $207 million in potential savings. In
addition, job skills should remain sharper with more
regular use, and accident rates ought to decline.
The potential decline of accidents can be estimated
from available data on job tenure10 and accidents occur­
ring for workers in each job tenure group.11 It is well
established that accident frequency is much higher for
workers with the shortest length of service in their cur­
rent job.12 If stabilization lowers labor turnover, the
mixture of employees would move more toward senior
employees with relatively low accident rates.
The median construction worker has spent less than
half the time on his present job as has the median fac­
tory worker. If stabilization changes the seniority distri­
bution of construction workers to a point halfway
between the construction and manufacturing distribu­
tions, and if the rate of compensable accidents remains
constant across seniority classes, the number of com­
pensable accidents in contract construction would be
reduced by 8 percent.13 The cost of workers’ compensa­
tion in 1977 for the construction industry was estimated
at $1.5 billion,14 so the cost of the extra accidents at­
tributable to short-term seniority in construction
amounts to $114 million, counting only the cost of
workers’ compensation benefits. The real cost to society,
of course, is not only the transfer payments to an in­
jured worker, but the loss of labor, damage to machin­
ery or materials, lost time by uncompensated fellow
workers and supervisors, and the like. The total cost of
an accident has been cited as five times the workers’
compensation cost.15 Thus, the social cost of these
avoidable accidents for 1977 totals $570 million.
T h e COSTS s u m m a r i z e d here are illustrative of the
order of magnitude of lost national output attributable
to instability in construction. The estimated total social
costs/potential savings were $5.7 billion for 1977. By
the very nature of the issue, much of the cost was dif­
ficult to reduce to dollar terms, and there is room for
argument about the size of the dollar total. What seems
certain, however, is that the social benefits would justify
stabilization efforts if they were feasible from an engi­
neering standpoint and involved the expenditure of even
hundreds of millions of dollars.
□
--------- FOOTNOTES----------

Reduced accident rates

1The President’s Conference on Unemployment, Seasonal Operation
in the Construction Industries: The Facts & Remedies (New York,
McGraw-Hill, 1924).

Another potential gain from stabilization would oc­
cur if productivity increases as a result of the more in­
tensive—more days per year—use of resources. There
are a number of reasons to believe that such may be the
case. Training on the job through apprenticeship pro­

2 Robert J. Myers and Sol Swerdloff, “Seasonality and Construc­
tion,” Monthly Labor Review, September 1967, p. 2. Calculations for
1977 indicate that this statement was still valid, and that employment
in furniture and fixtures could be added to motor vehicle employment
to more accurately match the change in construction employment.
3See Social Costs o f Instability in Construction: A Preliminary Report,

56


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Office of Construction Industry Services, U.S. Department of Labor,
April 1979.
4 D. Quinn Mills, Industrial Relations and Manpower in Con­
struction (Cambridge, Mass., M.I.T. Press, 1972), p. 4.
5Unemployed construction workers probably qualify for other
transfer programs such as food stamps which involve administrative
costs.
6John W. Kendrick, The National Wealth o f the United States by
Major Sector and Industry, Washington: The Conference Board,
March 1976. According to Kendrick: “Wealth, or its synonym ‘capi­
tal’, is generally defined as income— and/or output-producing capaci­
ty for the current and future years . . . [I]n this study . . . we are con­
fining the measures of wealth to the conventional tangible, nonhuman
categories of domestic structures, equipment, inventory stocks . . .”
(p. 10).
7Specifically, we used tapes from the 1973 BLS Economic Growth
Model on the assumption that the direct requirement coefficients were
stable from 1973 to 1977. The sectors are residential, nonresidential
building, public utilities, highways, and other construction.
8Adam Smith developed this theory quite thoroughly in Book I of
the Wealth o f Nations. It has an extensive literature, and it is treated
in most elementary economics texts.
’ It was assumed that some of the existing differential compensated
for more difficult working conditions or a greater degree of skill or
versatility required in construction, or both.
10 Howard Hayghe, Job Tenure o f Workers, January 1973, Special

Labor Force Report 172, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
" Norman Root and Michael Hoefer, “The first work-injury data
available from new BLS study,” Monthly Labor Review, January 1979,
pp. 76-80.
12One of the earliest demonstrations of this relationship was in a
1918 study by Lucian Choney and Hugh Hanna, published as report
number 234 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Other studies reaching
the same conclusion include E. L. Humke, “First Month Found Most
Dangerous,” Personnel Journal, Vol. 14, 1936; H. M. Vernon, “Pre­
vention of Accidents,” British Journal o f Industrial Medicine, Vol. 2,
No. 1, 1945; A. M. Adestein, “Accident Proneness: A Criticism of the
Concept Based on Analysis of Shunter’s Accidents,” Journal of the
Royal Statistical Society, Series A, Volume 115, 1952; and R. H. Van
Zelst, “Effect of Age and Experience on Accident Rates,” Journal of
Applied Psychology, Vol. 38, 1954.
13 Computation of this figure is more fully detailed in Social Costs of
Instability in Construction: A Preliminary Report, Section II-E.
14Costs for the United States are estimated at $14 billion by the So­
cial Security Administration, and BLS Bulletin 1830, Occupational In­
juries and Illnesses by Industry, 1972, places the number of lost
workdays in contract construction at 10.67 percent of the total for the
United States.
15This figure is given and justified by H. W. Heinrich, Industrial
Accident Prevention, A Scientific Approach, 3d edition (New York,
McGraw-Hill, 1950), p. 50. Heinrich states that the cost is probably
higher in construction.

Youth in the work world
No country is satisfied that its youth know enough
about the work world, and young people frequently concur
in this judgement, acknowledging that they make impor­
tant educational and occupational decisions on impulse or
by chance. As significant as the gaps in knowledge are the
false and overglamorized images implanted by the media
and the erroneous or limited ideas conveyed by peers, par­
ents, and relatives. While no segment of the youth popula­
tion is free of these distortions, it is generally agreed that
young people from low socioeconomic or disadvantaged
backgrounds and minority populations have the greatest
deficiencies of information and the least opportunity to ob­
tain reliable information through informal sources. To say
this does not refute the related finding that these groups
also may have the most meager opportunities and the least
inclination to seek and use objective, broad, long-range in­
formation.
The negative consequences of faulty or incomplete infor­
mation are repeatedly cited. During the preparatory
education-training period, excessive enrollments in certain


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

courses, changes of courses, and dropping out reflect poor
or insufficient information. Later on, difficulty in making
decisions, unemployment, failure to enter the labor force,
geographical immobility, employment below capacity, fre­
quent job changing, loss of income, and other adverse
experiences are attributed to inadequate information. Anxi­
ety, fear, indifference, uncertainty, poor performance,
irresponsibility, and dissatisfaction before and after enter­
ing work are additional dimensions. Berating the attitudinal and informational deficiencies of youth, employers
compound the problem by a reluctance to hire or train
young workers and a readiness to dismiss them.

— B e a t r ic e G. R e u b e n s
Bridges to Work: International
Comparisons o f Transition Services
(Montclair, N.J., Allanheld, Osmun
& Co., Publishers, Inc., 1977), p. 51.

I

57

Conventions
Meany farewell, bid to Auto Workers,
Teamsters mark AFL-CIO convention
Eugene H. Becker

George Meany, president of the American Federation of
Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations for 24
years, said goodby to the “house of labor” he helped to
found in a keynote address to the 13th biennial conven­
tion of the A FL-C IO in Washington, D.C. And true to
form he assured all critics that the labor movement is
“alive and well” and, adding in a pugnacious note,
“ready to do battle with any foe who would destroy it.”
But the retiring Meany, also warned the 895 dele­
gates to the convention, November 15-20, to beware of
simply defending the status quo, while exhorting them
to “constantly look to the future” for fresh leadership
and ideas. Perhaps anticipating that Lane Kirkland, his
successor, would invite some of the major independent
unions back into the fold, Meany said there are “plenty
of rooms in the house of labor,” enough to house all or­
ganizations of workers. Later in the convention this
theme was to be more forcefully picked up by Kirkland.
(On January 10, Meany died at the age of 85.)
Kirkland elected president
The convention elected a new team of leaders, headed
by former secretary-treasurer Kirkland as president and
Thomas R. Donahue, former executive assistant to
Meany, as secretary-treasurer. The ascendancy of two
staff assistants (Kirkland held Donahue’s job from 1960
to 1969) to the two top jobs was itself a break with tra­
dition. They were elected, however, with a unanimity
which was as much a tradition for the A FL-C IO as it
was an expression of one last bow to the wishes of
George Meany. Kirkland had long been touted as heir
apparent to George Meany and in September when
Meany formally announced his retirement, the mantle
of leadership passed easily to his protege Kirkland deEugene H. Becker is an economist in the Division of Industrial Rela­
tions, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
58


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

spite some nascent grumbling and a reported bid for the
presidential post by Operating Engineers President J. C.
Turner. However, Meany made known to Turner his in­
tention to nominate Kirkland at the convention, a fact
of political life Turner accepted.1
Donahue joined the staff of the A FL-C IO in 1973,
after serving as a vice president with the Service Em­
ployees International Union. His election as secretarytreasurer was unanimous. Martin J. Ward, president of
the Plumbers Union, had earlier expressed an interest in
the secretary-treasurer’s job, but when Kirkland en­
dorsed Donahue, Ward bowed out.
The only other elections involved members of the
A FL -C IO ’s executive council. Following its usual prac­
tice, the council appointed a nominating committee just
prior to the opening of the convention to recommend
names for four vacancies on the council. The four new
executive council members, elected unanimously, along
with the 29 others are: Presidents John DeConcini of
the Bakery, Confectionary, and Tobacco Workers;
Wayne Glenn of the International Paperworkers Union;
Robert Goss of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers;
and Daniel Maroney of the Amalgamated Transit
Union. In the years since the 1977 convention, the
council also added two other members, Fred Kroll,
president of the Railway Clerks who filled a vacancy
created by the death of Hal C. Davis of the Musicians
in 1977, and John J. O’Donnell, president of the Air
Line Pilots, who filled a vacancy created by the resigna­
tion of Joseph Tonelli of the Paperworkers in 1978.
In his acceptance speech, Kirkland suggested that the
Federation would welcome those unions presently out­
side of it. Without mentioning names, he seemed to be
referring to two unions in particular— the Teamsters,
and the United Auto Workers— whose present mem­
bership is about 20 percent that of the AFL-CIO.
George Meany’s policy on readmission was to consider
it if it were requested. Kirkland issued an invitation in
these terms: “All sinners belong in church; all citizens
owe fealty to their country . . . and all true unions be­
long in the American Federation of Labor and Con­
gress of Industrial Organizations.” Saying that he has
too high a regard for the leaders outside the fold to be­
lieve that they can “really be governed by petty person-

al or pecuniary considerations, or ancient and tedious
grudges,” the Federation is thriving despite “the ab­
sence of their contribution to the common weal.” He
reminded them, too, that “their pride and pelf do not
equal what they are missing . . . because everything out­
side the A FL-C IO is really Hoboken.”
Douglas Fraser, president of the Auto Workers,
took exception to Kirkland’s remarks, saying, “the un­
fortunate choice of words was a setback.”2 Teamster
President Frank E. Fitzsimmons was more guarded,
however, commenting, “The larger question of our
reaffiliation is not immediately answerable. I can only
say that we do not look upon the . . . question light­
ly.”3
Carter joins in salute to Meany
George Meany had been the only president of the
A FL-C IO since the merger of the two labor organiza­
tions in 1955. His influence in the American social and
political arena has been great, spanning three-score
years of activism. He has been counted among labor’s
most effective leaders.
All convention speakers, delegates as well as guests,
noted Meany’s accomplishments and contributions and
bade him farewell. He was extolled in speech and some
pageantry, not without sentiment and nostalgia and the
assurance that the principles which the A FL-C IO had
followed for 24 years would be preserved and advanced
under a new leadership. In his acceptance speech, Kirk­
land summed up this idea with a single phrase, “Full
ahead, steady as she goes.”
President Jimmy Carter, the Secretaries of Labor, and
Health, Education and Welfare, the minority and ma­
jority leaders of the House and Senate, and many oth­
ers paid tribute to Meany’s contributions to the
betterment of working men and women across the Na­
tion. However, leading all others in this paean was
Lane Kirkland when he rose in support of resolution
265 which, among other things, gave Meany, as presi­
dent emeritus, a salary for life equal to that of the presi­
dent and honored him for his devotion to the labor
movement over the years. (The Federation’s constitu­
tion specifies 60 percent.)
Kirkland said the “life work of this one valiant man
would do honor to a dozen men, if divided among
their histories.” And again using the vocabulary of the
maritime industry in which he served, he went on to
say that the salient features of Meany’s record “en­
lighten and point like a lubber’s line of a compass to
the principles we must not let go of if we are to keep
the faith.”
Mergers transform A F L -C IO
Significant social and economic changes since the
founding convention of the A FL-C IO in 1955 have

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

had an impact on the nature and structure of the Feder­
ation. Changes occurring in the workplace, for example,
are quite important to organized labor, because as tech­
nology moves in, the structure and nature of the work
changes. Production-related workers in factories and
plants are being replaced by clerical, administrative, and
professional and technical employees at all levels of the
economy. This means the old-line AFL and CIO craft
and industrial unions that provided virtually all of the
membership base of the labor movement 24 years ago
may be “slow growth” organizations in the future.
However, this is only one area of visible change since
the merger.
A part of the groundwork for the merged A FL-CIO
was laid in 1953 with the negotiation of a no-raiding
agreement between the AFL and CIO. Subsequently,
this agreement was embodied in the Federation’s consti­
tution. Member unions organizing in the same jurisdic­
tion are encouraged to merge, and although merger is
not to be dictated, Meany made a point of calling for it
at all subsequent conventions. To date, there have been
about 50 mergers, the largest and one of the most re­
cent occurring in June between the Retail Clerks and
the Meat Cutters to form the United Food and Com­
mercial Workers with a combined membership of about
1.2 million. As a result of these actions, the number of
A FL-C IO affiliates dropped from 138 in 1955 to 103 in
1979.
The structure of the A FL-C IO has also changed in
the past quarter century. At its birth, the executive
council had 27 members in addition to the president
and secretary-treasurer, and since then has increased to
33. Furthermore, the number of trade and industrial de­
partments has grown. Three new departments have
been added since 1955: Food and Beverage Trade De­
partment; Department for Professional Employees; and
the Public Employee Department. Their formation re­
flects the increased attention organized labor is giving
to groups considered “not organizable” in the past and
reflects, as well, the changing nature of the work force.
Among the targets for organizing drives listed by Mea­
ny in 1955 were teachers, white-collar workers, and
government employees. Among the last group, member­
ship in A FL-C IO affiliates has increased almost four­
fold since 1956, from about 700,000 to almost 2.5
million in 1978.
High on the agenda of the A FL-C IO at its founding
was the issue of civil rights. It was then couched in
terms of encouraging “all workers without regard to
race, creed, color, national origin, or ancestry to share
in the full benefits of union organization.”4 In a 1973
constitutional amendment, sex was added to the list.
An additional and continuing emphasis is being placed
on affirmative action and equal employment opportuni­
ty programs “designed to open opportunities in the
59

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Conventions
workplace that were previously closed to minorities and
women.”5 Singled out in this respect was a major civil
rights resolution, “Equal Pay for Work of Comparable
Value.” This resolution noted the continuing growth in
the differentials between men’s and women’s wages and
the undervaluation of the work that women have histor­
ically performed. The resolution urged efforts to correct
these inequalities.
Kirkland used the occasion of this resolution to in­
form the delegates of an allied action taken by the exec­
utive council that would explore ways and means by
which the “great contribution and role of women and
minorities might be better reflected in that highly visible
and important” body, that is, the executive council. The
council agreed to establish a special committee to deter­
mine how women, blacks, and Hispanics might become
members of the executive council. What the outcome
will be is yet unclear because the council has generally
been a white male preserve, limited to the presidents of
affiliated unions. However, the only constitutional re­
quirement for membership on the council is election to
the A FL-C IO as vice president, and this is open to any
member of an affiliated union.6
Obstacles to organizing
Organizing the unorganized was of as much concern
at the 1979 convention as it was in 1955, though the
emphasis was different. At the founding convention the
resolution on the subject established the goal of doub­
ling union membership in the years to come as well as
revising the Taft-Hartley Act, which has long been
looked upon by labor as an important cause of orga­
nizing reverses. Neither goal has been met; in those
areas the A FL-C IO has suffered numerous setbacks.
The 1979 convention called for a strengthening of
existing organizing programs, and the development and
expansion of new programs. One resolution decried the
increasing effectiveness of anti-union consultants, de­
scribed by the executive council as “a new growth indus­
try of union-busting ‘labor-management consultants’—
lawyers, psychologists, and other specialists— who de­
pend for their livelihood on defeating or frustrating
workers who seek to form unions and bargain collective­
ly . . . through every legal and often illegal means
. . . .” The resolution called on affiliates to report activi­
ties of anti-union consultants to the Federation’s
Department of Organizing and Field Services. It also
called for legislation to deny consultants the use of tax
exempt public and private colleges as a forum to pro­
mote “programs teaching employers how to violate the
Nation’s labor relations laws, which recognize workers’
rights to organize and to bargain collectively.”
While the 1955 goal of doubling membership in the
A FL-C IO may have been optimistic, the Federation has
managed to increase its membership base, but only mar­
60


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

ginally. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ biennial survey
of union membership for 1956 showed a total A FL CIO membership of 16.8 million. The 1978 survey re­
ported a preliminary figure of about 17 million. Howev­
er, the 1978 data exclude the Teamsters, expelled from
the A FL-C IO in 1957 under the ethical practices provi­
sions of the Federation’s constitution, and the Auto
Workers which withdrew in 1968. These two unions re­
ported a total membership of 3.4 million in 1978 and 2.7
million in 1956. Adjusting the 1956 A FL-C IO member­
ship figures to exclude the Teamsters and the Auto
Workers provides a more realistic idea of organizing
gains since 1956.7
As a further assist to effective organizing, the dele­
gates pledged anew their founding convention resolve to
repeal Section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartly Act, which gives
precedence to State laws concerning union security
which are more restrictive than those of the Federal
Act. Recalling that the Senate in 1978 was not able to
muster sufficient votes to cut off a filibuster on the pro­
posed labor law reform bill, which among other things
would have repealed the offending Section, Senator
Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., treated the delegates to a
lesson in “the new math:” To invoke cloture, he said,
60 votes are needed, not a simple majority of 51. He
then suggested that if organized labor “ . . . can’t get 60
votes to invoke cloture, you won’t be able to pass the
legislation.” The delegates adopted a resolution on la­
bor law reform calling for legislation “narrow enough
to be put to a vote and yet broad enough to be worthy
of our support and passage.”
Safeguarding collective bargaining laws
Beyond the usual resolution in favor of free collective
bargaining and higher wages and fringe benefits, the
founding convention had little to offer in the way of pre­
scriptive advice. As has long been a tradition, the Feder­
ation assumes no direct responsibilities in this area
which is of more direct concern to the individual unions.
Nevertheless, the A FL-C IO does attempt to safeguard
or improve the framework of laws or administrative ac­
tions under which collective bargaining functions.
In this regard the convention voiced its strong opposi­
tion to President Carter’s program of wage guidelines
announced in October 1978 as frustrating collective
bargaining. At the same time, the delegates gave guard­
ed approval to the “national accord” recently reached
between the Administration and the AFL-CIO.
The accord for the first time established for labor “an
acknowledged central role in the development of nation­
al and social economic policy.”8 It conditions labor’s
participation in a voluntary anti-inflation program on a
“more equitable low-wage exemption, a system for hear­
ing appeals and broader participation in the develop­
ment of wage standards . . .”9

However, because the A FL-C IO has equal represen­
tation on the Pay Advisory Committee (established by
the “national accord”) which provides public participa­
tion and advice to the Council on Wage and Price Sta­
bility, it can now influence collective bargaining policy.
The Pay Advisory Committee has as its responsibility
to recommend changes in the basic 7 percent pay stan­
dard, the inflation assumption to use for evaluating au­
tomatic wage escalator contract clauses, the treatment
of allied collective bargaining relationships, and the
proper standard for workers not covered by wage esca­
lator clauses.10
The “national accord,” nevertheless, is not seen as a
first step toward a program of mandatory wage and
price controls. A clue regarding the potential difficulties
in fully implementing the accord is found in a statement
contained in a resolution on the national economy:
“An overall anti-inflation program must be developed
that is comprehensive, effective, and fair. If there is to be
sacrifice, it must be shared according to the ability of
groups in society to shoulder the sacrifice. If there is a
need for a mandatory program of controls with the pen­
alties for non-compliance, it should be a specifically legis­
lated program of across-the-board controls, covering
every source of income including profits, dividends, rents,
interest rates, executive compensation, professional fees,
as well as wages and prices.”
Action on the floor
Underlying the harmony at the convention was the
fact that all substantive policy decisions had been
agreed to by various committees before the delegates
voted as a whole. With only a few exceptions, the 309
resolutions were unanimously adopted without debate,
or returned to executive council for further consider­
ation.
The Musicians union led by Victor W. Fuentealba,
had objected to the across-the-board 3-cent increase in
monthly per capita dues and suggested, instead, a 2-tier
tax structure to aid certain unions, the Musicians
among them. The dues increase, from 16 to 19 cents,
was recommended by the executive council just prior to
the opening of the convention.11 Claiming that the Mu­
sicians were faced with a unique set of problems— 75
percent of their members are either unemployed or
work part time at their jobs, that the National Labor
Relations Board has ruled that musicians working in
hotels, lounges, nightclubs, or catering houses, are not
considered employees and thus are prohibited from
picketing because of the lack of an employer-employee
relationship, and that the union itself is over $1 million
in debt— the union asked to be exempted from the
across-the-board dues increase. Fuentealba indicated
that if the convention did not concur “there soon may
be another empty room in that house.”
Kirkland took this as a direct threat to disaffiliate

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

and dug for precedent into the Federation’s history
books to reiterate A FL-C IO policy. Citing a similar
threat in 1912, faced by Samuel Gompers, he noted that
Gompers’ solution was to enjoin the executive council
of the AFL from “taking any action whatsoever on the
request of the brothers until such threat is withdrawn.”
A similar threat was made in 1961 and George Meany,
citing the 1912 incident, said it was still the policy of
the A FL-C IO not to bow to threats. To a round of ap­
plause from the delegates, Kirkland said “I again state
that that is the continuing policy of the A FL-C IO .”
When finally the issue came to a voice vote, the conven­
tion rejected the Musicians’ resolution for a 2-tier tax
structure.
Displeased with the direction of many Carter Admin­
istration programs dealing with unemployment, in­
flation, recession, and taxes, the delegates approved a
comprehensive resolution on the subject. Stating that
the economy is saddled with the “twin evils of recession
and continued high inflation,” the resolution called for
halting the downturn of the economy so that it “may
reach its full potential of full employment, production,
and real income.” It went on to list a number of specific
measures needed to meet the problems of recession and
inflation, including a Federal stimulus to expand the
economy and cut unemployment, tax reform, and the
adoption or acceleration of government programs
designed to provide jobs for the Nation’s unemployed.
Fearing that the Administration proposals to cut
back certain social security benefits in 1979 were a “tri­
al balloon for what may be a larger effort” in 1980, the
Report of the Executive Council said the program must
be kept on a sound financial basis and that there is a
need to strengthen its basic protections. The Report
urged Congress to adopt a number of improvements to
the program: Adjust benefits biannually instead of once
a year; provide an occupational definition of disability
for workers age 55 or over because these workers have
little chance to obtain employment in an occupation, es­
pecially during periods of high unemployment; permit
early retirement at age 60 but “with less than the full
actuarial reduction in benefits;” and reevaluate benefit
problems associated with women. The Report also went
on record as opposing universal social security coverage
for Federal, State, and local workers unless their pres­
ent pension benefits are not reduced, the identity of
those plans is not lost, and there is no diminution in
the opportunity of government employees to improve
their retirement systems in the future.
Picking up a page from the 1977 convention, the del­
egates again adopted resolutions to develop alternative
energy sources, conserve energy, and protect the envi­
ronment. But because of the changes in the energy sup­
ply situation since 1977 and record profits of many
large oil companies, there was an equally strong call for
61

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Conventions
the nationalization of the oil industry and the adoption
of a windfall profits tax of 85 percent. The delegates
also called for the establishment of a single governmen­
tal agency to determine the amount of oil to be
imported, to negotiate its price directly with the OPEC
cartel, and to allocate it throughout the United States.
Alternative energy sources should not be limited to coal
and nuclear energy, the delegates urged. They should
also include a host of renewable resources such as wind,
solar, tidal, and geothermal energy, and various new
areas of potential energy including waste matter, oil

shale, tar sands, and synthetic fuels. The nonreturnable
bottle industry again got convention support. Fearing
that any government legislation designed to restrict or
prohibit the use of nonreturnable containers could cost
as many as 60,000 jobs, the delegates advised a hands
off policy in this regard. They also supported the 5-year
accelerated Federal grants-in-aid program under the
Clean Water Act to state and local governments. This
act, designed to eliminate the national backlog of water
and sewer projects, in addition to improving the Na­
tion’s water quality, would also create many jobs.

FOOTNOTES
1“Turner Says He Won’t Run Against Kirkland For Chief of A F L CIO,” The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 18, 1979, p. 27.
2 “Kirkland Leaves Meany Shadow,”
25, 1979.

The New York Times,

Nov.

3 “Kirkland Takes Reigns, Urges Key Unions to Join,” by Warren
Brown, The Washington Post, Nov. 20, 1979, p. A -2 .
’ Joseph W. Bloch, “Founding Convention of the A F L -C IO ,”

Monthly Labor Review, February 1956, pp. 141-149.
5Report of the AFL-CIO Executive Council, 1979, p.

194.

6 See A F L -C IO Constitution, Art. V, Sec. 2.
7Various newpaper accounts report current A F L -C IO membership
as 13.6 million. This figure is based on per capita tax reports to the

62


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

A F L -C IO and excludes all foreign members of A F L -C IO affiliates.
The BLS figures cited include these members. For the U.S., A F L CIO reported membership in 1978 was 15.6 million, or 69 percent of
the organized work force.
8 Lane Kirkland, Comments in support of Resolution 265, “George
Meany,” A F L -C IO Convention, November 16, 1979.
9AFL-CIO Resolutions, Thirteenth Convention, 1979, pp. 5 -6 .
10Leon Bornstein, “Developments in Industrial Relations,” Monthly
Labor Review, November 1979, pp. 58-61.
" A 3-cent increase was approved at the 1975 convention and again
in 1977, both to offset current and expected deficits. The 1979 in­
crease is to offset anticipated deficits of about $4.3 million over the
next 2 years.

M ajor Agreements
Expiring Next M onth
This list of collective bargaining agreements expiring in March is based on contracts on file in the
Bureau’s Office of Wages and Industrial Relations. The list includes agreements covering 1,000
workers or more.

Employer and location

Allied Employers, Inc. (King-Snohomish Counties, W a s h .) ...........................
American Airlines, Inc., Ground Service (Interstate)2 .....................................
A nchor Hocking Corp. (Interstate) .....................................................................
Associated General Contractors of America, Inc.:
Connecticut C h a p t e r ........................................................................................
Maryland Chapter ...........................................................................................
San A ntonio Chapter (T e x a s )........................................................................

Industry

Number of
workers

U n io n 1

Retail t r a d e ................................... Food and Commercial Workers ...........
Air transportation ..................... Transport W o rk e rs ...................................
Stone, clay, and glass products . Glass Bottle B lo w ers................................

4,000
12,500
5,000

C o n stru c tio n ................................

C a rp e n te rs...................................................

C o n stru c tio n ................................

C a rp e n te rs ...................................................

1,100
2,450
1,300

Borg-Warner Corp., W arner Gear Division (Muncie, Ind.) ...........................
Brockway Glass Co., Inc. (In te rsta te )...................................................................
Builders Association of Missouri, 2 agreements (Kansas and Missouri) . . .
Building Managers Association of Chicago (Illin o is)........................................

Transportation equipment . . . .
Stone, clay, and glass products .
C o n stru c tio n ................................
Real estate ...................................

Auto Workers ( I n d . ) ................................
Glass Bottle B lo w ers................................
Laborers; and Teamsters ( I n d .) .............
Service Employees ...................................

1,400
7,500
5,600
5,000

California Metal Trades Association (Northern California) ...........................
Campbell Soup Co. (Camden, N . J . ) .....................................................................
Carter County Fibers, Inc., Viscose Plant (Elizabethton, T e n n .) ...................
Cincinnati Gas and Electric Co., and Subsidiaries (Ohio) .............................
Commonwealth Edison Co. (Illinois) ...................................................................
Connecticut Construction Industries Association, Inc.:
Heavy and Highway work (Connecticut) ...................................................
Heavy and Highway work (Connecticut) ...................................................
5 Divisions (Connecticut, New York, and Rhode Island) .....................

Fabricated metal products . . . .
Food p ro d u c ts .............................
C h e m ic a ls.....................................
Utilities ........................................
Utilities ........................................

M ac h in ists...................................................
Food and Commercial Workers ...........
Textile Workers ........................................
Independent Utilities U n i o n ...................
Electrical Workers (IBEW) ...................

3,000
1,500
1,400
1,150
5,300

C o n stru c tio n ................................
C o n stru c tio n ................................
C o n stru c tio n ................................

C a rp e n te rs...................................................
Bricklayers ................................................
Operating Engineers ................................

6,100
2,500
2,500

Dairy Employers Labor Council (Washington)

................................................

Food p ro d u c ts .............................

Teamsters ( I n d .) ...................

1,000

Glass Containers Corp. (Interstate) ......................................................................
Gould, Inc. (Philadelphia, Pa.) ..............................................................................
Grower-Shipper Vegetable Association, Packinghouse Agreement
(California)

Stone, clay and glass products .
Electrical p r o d u c ts .....................
Wholesale t r a d e ...........................

Glass Bottle B lo w ers................................
A uto Workers ( I n d . ) ................................
Food and Commercial Workers ...........

3,100
2,800
1,000

H. J. Heinz Co., Heinz U.S.A. (Pittsburgh, P a .) ................................................
Heavy Construction Association of Greater Kansas City Area
(Kansas and Missouri)

Food p ro d u c ts .............................
C o n stru c tio n ................................

Food and Commercial Workers ...........
L a b o r e r s ......................................................

1,800
1,500

Imperial and 3 others Negotiating Committee (California and Arizona) . . .
Indian Head, Inc. (I n te r s ta te )................................................................................
Industrial Conference Board, grocery stores (Pierce County, W a s h .) ...........
ITT Continental Baking Co. (Crozet, Va.) ........................................................

Agricultural se rv ic e s ...................
Stone, clay and glass products .
Retail t r a d e ...................................
Food p ro d u c ts .............................

Food and Commercial Workers ...........
Glass Bottle B lo w ers................................
Food and Commercial Workers ...........
Teamsters ( I n d .) ........................................

2,000
2,300
1,600
1,000

Liggett Group, Inc. (Durham, N.C.) ...................................................................

T o b a c c o ........................................

Bakery, Confectionery and Tobacco
Workers

1,650

Metal Trades Independent Companies (California)2 ........................................
Michigan Distribution Contractors Association (M ic h ig a n )...........................
Milwaukee Transport Services, Inc. (Milwaukee, W i s . ) ...................................
Moore Co., Inc. (Chicopee and Springfield, M a s s .)...........................................
Moving and Storage Industry (New York, New Jersey and Connecticut)3 .

Fabricated metal products . . . .
C o n stru c tio n ................................
T r a n s i t ...........................................
Primary metals ...........................
T ru c k in g ........................................

M ac h in ists...................................................
L a b o r e r s ......................................................
Transit Union ...........................................
Directly Affiliated Unions .....................
Teamsters ( I n d .) ........................................

2,450
2,000
1,200
1,350
2,300

National Broadcasting Co., Inc. (Interstate) ......................................................
National Can Co., Foster-Forbes Glass Co. Division ( I n te r s ta te ) ................

C o m m u n ic atio n ........................... Broadcast Employees and Technicians .
Stone, clay and glass products . Glass Bottle Blowers . . . .........................

1,550
2,000
1,600

Owens-Illinois, Inc.:
(California and O re g o n )...................................................................................
Forming Department (Interstate) ................................................................
Production and Maintenance (Interstate) ...................................................

Stone, clay and glass products . Glass Bottle B lo w ers................................
Stone, clay and glass products . Glass Bottle B lo w ers................................
Stone, clay and glass products . Glass Bottle B lo w ers................................

2,400
1,800
13,600

................

6,500

See fooi notes at end of table.


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Major Agreements Expiring Next Month
Continued— Major Agreements Expiring Next Month
Employer and location

Industry

Number of
workers

Union 1

Philadelphia Food Stores (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and D elaw are)1 . . . .

Retail t r a d e ...................................

Food and Commercial Workers

Restaurant-Hotel Employers' Council of Southern California, Inc.
(California)

R e sta u ra n ts...................................

Hotel and Restaurant Employees

...........

2,500
2,000

....

9,000
1,200
5,600

Union Carbide Corp. (Texas City, T e x . ) ..............................................................
United Super Market Association (Detroit, M ic h .)...........................................

C h e m ic a ls.....................................
Retail t r a d e ...................................

Directly Affiliated Unions .....................
Food and Commercial Workers ...........

1,600
11,000

Weatherhead Co. (Indiana and O h io ) ...................................................................
West Coast Envelope Employers Council (C alifo rn ia)......................................

Transportation equipment . . . Auto Workers ( I n d . ) ................................
P a p e r .............................................. Printing and G ra p h ic s .............................

2,000
1,000
1,000
4.600

Government activity

Ohio: Cuyahoga County Hospital, nonprofessional employees .....................

M ultidepartment ........................

Ohio: Cuyahoga County Welfare Department ...................................................

M ultidepartment ........................

'Affiliated with A F L -C IO except where noted as independent (Ind.).
'Information is from newspaper reports.

64


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Em ployee organization 1

State, County and Municipal
Employees
State, County and Municipal
Employees

'Industry area (group of companies signing same contract).

2,800
1,500

Book Reviews
Now we know how— but can we?
The World Economy: History and Prospect. By W. W.
Rostow. Austin, University of Texas Press, 1978. 833
pp. $34.50.
Getting From Here to There: America's Future in the
World Economy. By W. W. Rostow. New York,
McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1978. 271 pp. $14.95.
These two books are complementary. In The World
Economy, Professor Rostow starts back in the 18th cen­
tury and carries the history down to 1977. In the sec­
ond book, he projects the economic outlook through
the next quarter century to the year 2000.
The first book, a comprehensive history of more than
800 pages, traces the various aspects of population dy­
namics and economic growth over the last two centu­
ries. World population grew at a rate of about 0.5
percent a year up to the year 1900; doubled to 1.0 per­
cent during 1930-50; and then doubled again to 2.0
percent, 1960-70. These developments are analyzed by
Rostow, showing that it has been the spectacular de­
cline in death rates throughout the world which has
brought about the population explosion.
The author analyzes industrial growth and its
diffusion throughout the world, with emphasis on the
growth of international trade and makes a more de­
tailed analysis of the stages of economic growth in each
of 20 countries, starting with Great Britain and the
United States afid ending with Taiwan, Thailand, and
South Korea.
Professor Rostow devotes a chapter to balanced and
unbalanced growth over the last two centuries, followed
by a chapter on business cycles, starting with the 18th
century, 1700-1783; and followed by the Classic era,
1783-1914; and then by recent developments down to
1973. He closes the historical book with a section on
the Future of the World Economy, focusing on the
“Fifth Kondratieff Upswing” which is projected for the
last quarter of the 20th century. (Kondratieff was a fa­
mous Russian historian executed in the mid-1930’s by
Stalin, who had no use for scholars.)
So the second book (subtitle: America's Future in the
World Economy) opens with a restatement of the longrange business cycles originated by Kondratieff and car
https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

ried forward by Rostow. Here are the original cycles
with Rostow’s continuations:
Kondratieff

1790-1815
1815-1848
1848-1872
1872-1896
1896-1920
1920-1930

Rostow

up
down
up
down
up
down

1920-1933
1933-1951
1951-1972
1972-1977
1977-2000

down
up
down
up
up?

Kondratieff’s idea was that long-range economic cy­
cles covered about half a century, up and then down.
But Rostow pointed out that World War II changed
the down cycle into a worldwide upturn, which then
gave way to a typical postwar downturn, 1952-1972.
Following the severe recession, 1974-75, there has been
an upturn, which was still underway in 1979. Rostow’s
thesis is that this could be the beginning of a quartercentury worldwide upturn. He then proceeds to make
the case for such a prospect.
In passing, Rostow devotes a chapter to the “Bank­
ruptcy of Neo-Keynesian Economics”. Keynes original­
ly had a classical economist’s view of business upturns
and downturns. But after World War I, the unionized
workers in Great Britain forced a general strike in 1926,
which prevented normal wage reductions. Keynes then
developed the theory that rising consumer incomes
would create effective demand for goods and services,
which, in turn, prevented a worldwide depression after
World War II. However, Keynes had no formula for
restraining the economy during inflation.
As Rostow states, “It will no longer suffice to focus
obsessively on the indiscriminate expansion of effective
demand . . . the world of the 1970’s and 1980’s cannot
afford to waste manpower . . . every man and woman
available in the working forces of the advanced industri­
al economies (must) be put to work on high-priority
tasks . . . an extravagant, neo-Keynesian policy makes
neither economic nor political sense.”
The greatest crisis facing the next quarter century is
the population explosion versus limited food produc­
tion. The world population in 1977 was about 4.0 bil­
lion; by the year 2000 it will be 6.5 billion. On the
contrary, world food production is failing to keep pace.

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Book Reviews
The United States and Canada are the only countries in
the world with substantial food exports to the hungry
nations. Great efforts are being made, locally and inter­
nationally, to stimulate higher productivity in agricul­
ture. Futhermore, there is need for an ever-normal
granary (such as the United States developed in the
1930’s) in order to avoid the wild price fluctuations of
the 1970’s. Improved agriculture can help the food
problem, but it must be supplemented by better popula­
tion control in many nations.
Rostow then tackles the energy problem, which he la­
bels “A Test of the Democratic Process.” When oil
prices exploded in 1973-1974, the world economy was
shaken into a depression. But the actions of the oil­
importing governments failed to match the problem.
The United States was the worst performer, upping its
imports from 4 million to 8 million barrels per day by
1977. Furthermore, in the United States, the Adminis­
tration’s national energy plan projects such low prices
for natural gas that there is little prospect for gas as a
solution to the energy problem.
However, Rostow cites technological advances which
hold great promise for the longer future— the liquidmetal, fast-breeder reactor, the possibility of fusion, and
the eventual solution of solar energy.
He closes on a hopeful note: “The human race faces
in the generation ahead, therefore, the greatest challenge
it has confronted since modern industrialization began
in the late 18th century: the challenge of creating a new,
hopefully infinite and non-polluting source of energy.”
Raw materials are a major factor in the Kondratieff
cycles. In the down phase they become plentiful and
cheap. In 1972, for example, the price index for raw
materials was only 122; but by 1976 it was 214, not far
from double. The shortage was brought about by a
slackening of investment in the 1960’s combined with
the new governmental regulations dealing with the envi­
ronment, health, and safety.
The domestic U.S. situation was further complicated
by international developments. That well-advertised
study on Limits to Growth had forecast a world-wide
long-run shortage of many basic raw materials—cop­
per, lead, zinc, molybdenum, and gold. But a table
published by the U.S. Geological Survey in 1973
showed that, at present rates of annual consumption,
metals such as coal, iron, uranium, and especially alu­
minium are in ample supply for thousands of years.
The real problem is distribution. Minerals are often
highly concentrated in a few countries (such as lead in
Peru) which then may be able to exact a monopoly
price. One possible solution is a broad international
agreement for fair sharing. Another solution is the dis­
covery of unlimited metals on the ocean floors, on
which the United Nations has been unable to get an

66

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

agreement in 5 years. Rostow’s conclusion is that the
current raw materials shortage is temporary; there is an
ample supply for the longer future.
Productivity in the United States took a turn for the
worse during the 1970’s. For decades the domestic
economy had an increase in output per hour averaging
3 percent a year, which has operated to lower labor
costs to that extent. But in the 1970’s, the rate fell to 1
percent and in some quarter-years to zero. A dramatic
example is coal mining, which had annual increases of
about 6 percent a year from 1948 to 1968, but which
declined by nearly 3 percent a year in the 1970’s.
Two factors are primarily responsible: first, the new
health and safety standards, which raised labor costs in
many industries, and second, the expansion of jobs in
retail trade and the service industries, where productivi­
ty is low. With collective bargaining still proceeding on
the assumption of substantial productivity increases, the
result is a rising cost-of-living inflation.
Rostow has two suggestions. First, workers should
recognize that there is (temporarily) no productivity in­
crease for wages, and second, that major efforts should
be made to stimulate productivity throughout the econ­
omy. The unions should recognize that this is the only
solution to inflation; otherwise, rising consumer prices
undermine the wage increases before the year is over.
This productivity experience leads Rostow to raise
the question, Is Human Creativity on the Wane? His
conclusion is that the long-run future is heavily depen­
dent on the success of the next quarter century.
The fact is that U.S. investment in research and de­
velopment has been declining, whereas in Germany, Ja­
pan, and the U.S.S.R., there are significant increases.
Yet, there are many new possibilités in developmental
biology, astronomy, and materials substitution, plus in­
ventive new directions in agriculture, energy, sea-bed
mining, and the communications revolution. Such ex­
pansion can only be achieved by private industry. The
question is whether the government will give industry
the opportunity.
The crucial issue is inflation. In Rostow’s words,
“How to conduct anti-inflationary policy in the context
of the fifth Kondratieff upswing?” There are two an­
swers. One is on the supply side, which is to insure that
there is expanding investment in productivity, energy,
food, raw materials, and research. The other is on the
demand side, where noninflationary wage-price agree­
ments require that both labor and business accept re­
straints which clash with their conventional ways of
operating.
Rostow’s solution is long-term voluntary agreements,
backed by legal reserve powers. There are three reasons
why this may work. First, in public opinion polls, in­
flation ranks higher than unemployment as the issue of

public concern. Second, serious businessmen and labor
leaders know that inflation is costly to their respective
interests. Third, the circumstances “require that we gen­
erate in American society the most important single in­
gredient for successful wage-price policies: a sense of
common purpose.”
In his final chapter, “Can Democracy Survive?”,
Rostow sums up his conclusions in these terms: “In
short, if we are forehanded, generate a lucid and gener­
ally accepted view of the Nation’s problems, and a spir­
it of public-private collaboration in dealing with them,
there is no reason to fear that the policies required to
transit with reasonable success the next quarter century
would seriously compromise democratic practice and in­
stitutions as we have known them. But a failure to meet
these conditions could endanger democratic life in the
U.S. and throughout the Western world.”
In this reviewer’s opinion, Professor Rostow’s analy­
sis of Getting From Here to There should be read by all
serious professional forecasters. Inflation in 1979 is al­
ready double the 6-percent rate on which Rostow’s
analysis was based. Furthermore, the new oil price in­
creases, derived from the political collapse of Iran,
threaten more inflation. The United States must act im­
mediately to (a) cut its imports of oil from the Middle
East (b) economize in the use of gas and oil, and (c) de­
velop new sources of energy in the United States and
the North American continent. The time is short and
the crisis may come soon. Rostow shows the way—can
the United States make it?
— E wan Clague
Consultant, former Commissioner
of Labor Statistics

Where the working is easy
Comparative Metropolitan Employment Complexes—
New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, Atlanta. By
Dale L. Hiestand and Dean W. Morse. Montclair,
N.J., Allanheld, Osmun and Co. Publishers, Inc.,
1979. 141 pp. $21.50.
Most studies of urban labor markets emphasize the
features that such markets have in common. In this ex­
ploratory study, Dale L. Hiestand and Dean W. Morse
make a significant contribution to labor economics liter­
ature by analyzing the effects on five large metropolitan
labor markets of the differences among the areas in fac­
tors such as size, rate of employment growth, industrial
and occupational composition of employment, extent of
unionization, political climate, and work attitudes. The
five metropolitan areas that the authors analyze— New
York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, and Atlanta—


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

contain nearly 16 percent of the U.S. labor force.
Hiestand and Morse focus not only on the effects of
interarea differences on traditional labor market pro­
cesses such as recruitment and hiring, but also on the
effects of these differences on workers’ mobility within
the “internal labor market” — that is, within a firm or
other structured organization. Because of the vast num­
ber of factors that affect the labor market in each met­
ropolitan area, the authors are unable to base their
analysis on statistical correlation techniques. Instead,
they present tentative cause-and-effect conclusions based
on their own judgments.
Hiestand and Morse present many interesting and
useful findings and conclusions. For example:
• Because of its rapid growth, Houston had 10 per­
cent of its labor force employed in construction in 1970
—a much higher proportion than in any of the other
four areas.
• For several reasons, including the high educational
standards in the white-collar industries in which New
York specializes, young men enter the labor force
there at a distinctly later age than in any of the other
areas.
• A worker’s initial job determines his career pros­
pects to a greater extent in the slow-growing New York
area than in any of the other areas.
The book has two minor faults. First, some of the
analysis is superficial. For example, on page 99, the au­
thors observe, “The number of women employed as op­
eratives failed to increase past age 29 in the New York
area, reflecting perhaps the decline of manufacturing in
the city.” It seems to me that the presence of a declin­
ing manufacturing sector that could not provide jobs
for new labor force entrants would be just as consistent
with an aging work force as it is with a work force that
is growing younger. Furthermore, the increase only in
young female operatives in New York probably has as
much to do with the age composition of the ethnic
groups that supply these operatives as it does with any
factor on the demand side of the labor market.
The authors’ discussion of the contrasting work atti­
tudes in the five metropolitan areas contains several su­
perficial statements, such as “In Houston, a clever per­
son can make a good living without working overly
hard and still enjoy the city’s night life and weekends,”
and “The exodus to the shore or country on Fridays,
holiday eves, and during much of the summer are (sic)
observable facts of life in the New York area.”
My second complaint is that some of the theoretical
material in the opening chapters of the book is tedious,
and adds little to the reader’s understanding of the
analysis. Indeed, a savvy Houstonian or a New York
manpower “maven” might even skip the first two chap­
ters and get a head start on his night life or weekend.

67

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Book Reviews
These two faults detract only minimally from the
quality and usefulness of the book. In fact, I raise these
two criticisms only because I am employed in Washing­
ton, an area that specializes in discovering the faults of
the rest of the country.
— E dward Steinberg
Bureau of Economic Analysis
U.S. Department of Commerce

Publications received
Economic and social statistics

Bertrand, Trent J., “Shadow Pricing in Distorted Economies,”
The American Economic Review, December 1979, pp. 902
-14.
Duncan, Beverly, “Change in Worker/Nonworker Ratios for
Women,” Demography, November 1979, pp. 535-47.
Economic Council of Canada, Two Cheers for the Eighties:
Sixteenth Annual Review of the Economic Council of Can­
ada. Hull, Quebec, Canada, Economic Council of Cana­

da, 1979, 105 pp. $6.75, Canada; $8.10 other countries.
Available from Canadian Government Publishing Center,
Supply and Services Canada, Hull, Quebec.
McNees, Stephen K., “The Forecasting Record for the
1970’s,” New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve
Bank of Boston, September-October 1979, pp. 33-53.
Nam, Charles B., “The Progress of Demography as a Scienti­
fic Discipline,” Demography, November 1979, pp. 48592.
Plaut, Thomas R., Net Migration into Texas and its Regions:
Trends and Patterns. Austin, The University of Texas,
Bureau of Business Research, 1979, 54 pp., bibliography.
(Research Report 1979-1.)
Economic growth and development
Gilland, Bernard, The Next Seventy Years: Population, Food
and Resources. Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, Abacus

Press, 1979, 133 pp., bibliography.
Hauser, Philip M., World Population and Development: Chal­
lenges and Prospects. Syracuse, N.Y., Syracuse University
Press, 1979, 683 pp. $18, cloth; $9.95, paper.
Kahn, Herman, World Economic Development: 1979 and Be­
yond. Boulder, Colo., West view Press, 1979, 519 pp. $20,
cloth; $7.95, paper.
Ross-Skinner, Jean with Susan Antilla, “Germany: Why It
Thrives,” Dun's Review, December 1979, beginning on p.
106.
Swanson, Gordon I. and Jon Michaelson, eds., Manpower Re­
search and Labor Economics. Beverly Hills, Calif., Sage
Publications, 1979, 332 pp. $20, cloth, $9.95, paper.
Health and safety

Corn, Morton, “An inside view of OSHA compliance,” The
Personnel Administrator, November 1979, beginning on
p. 39.
Mabuchi, Kiyohiko, Abraham M. Lilienfeld, Laura M. Snell,
“Lung Cancer Among Pesticide Workers Exposed to In­
organic Arsenicals,” Archives of Environmental Health,
68


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

September-October 1979, pp. 312-20.
Nemec, Margaret M„ “Preventive industrial hygiene tames oc­
cupational health hazards,” Occupational Hazards,
September 1979, pp. 42-47.
U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, Acute Conditions:
Incidence and Associated Disability, United States, July
1977-June 1978. Hyattsville, Md., U.S. Department of

Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service,
National Center for Health Statistics, 1979, 68 pp. (Vital
and Health Statistics, Series 10, DHEW Publication PHS
79-1560.) For sale by the Superintendent of Documents,
Washington 20402.
----- Prevalence of Selected Chronic Digestive Conditions, Unit­
ed States, 1975. Hyattsville, Md., U.S. Department of
Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service,
National Center for Health Statistics, 1979, 55 pp. (Vital
and Health Statistics, Series 10, DHEW Publication PHS
79-1558.) For sale by the Superintendent of Documents,
Washington 20402.
Wechsler, Henry, Nell H. Gottlieb, Harold W. Demone, Jr.,
“Lifestyle, Conditions of Life, and Health Care in Urban
and Suburban Areas,” Public Health Reports, SeptemberOctober 1979, pp. 477-82.
Industrial relations

Hall, Robert E. and David M. Lilien, “Efficient Wage Bar­
gains under Uncertain Supply and Demand,” The Ameri­
can Economic Review, December 1979, pp. 868-79.
Ison, Terence G., Occupational Health and Wildcat Strikes.
Kingston, Ontario, Canada, Queen’s University, Industri­
al Relations Center, 1979, 11 pp. (Reprint Series, 45.) $3.
Kruse, Scott A., “Boards of Inquiry in Health Care Disputes:
New Options for the Parties,” Labor Law Journal, Octo­
ber 1979, pp. 603-10.
Miller, Bruce A., “The National Labor Relations Act: Should
Amendments Cover Public Employees?” Labor Law Jour­
nal, October 1979, pp. 637-42.
Morales, Gerard, “The Obligation of a Multiplant Employer
to Bargain on the Decision to Close One of Its Plants,”
Labor Law Journal, November 1979, pp. 709-16.
Pettibone, Jon E., “Preemption and Derivative Discovery in
Unfair Labor Practice Proceedings,” Labor Law Journal,
November 1979, pp. 689-99.
Rains, Harry H., “Should Strikers Receive Unemployment In­
surance Benefits?” Labor Law Journal, November 1979,
pp. 700-08.
Smith, J. Clay Jr., “The Broadcast Industry and Equal Em­
ployment Opportunity,” Labor Law Journal, November
1979, pp. 659-66.
Swan, Kenneth P., Professional Obligations, Employment Re­
sponsibilities and Collective Bargaining. Kingston, Ontar­
io, Canada, Queen’s University, Industrial Relations
Center, 1979, 16 pp. (Reprint Series, 46.) $3.
Tiefer, Charles, “OSHA’s Toxics Program Faces a Supreme
Court T e s t Labor Law Journal, November 1979, pp. 680
-

88 .

U.S. Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, Impact of
the 1974 Health Care Amendments to the NLRA on Col­
lective Bargaining in the Health Care Industry. Washing­

ton, U.S. Department of Labor, Labor-Management

Services Administration, Federal Mediation and Concilia­
tion Service, Office of Research, 1979, 473 pp.
Waters, Gola E. and Christine Foote Pursell, “Emotional Dis­
tress: The Battle Over a New Tort Under Age
Discrimination Continues,” Labor Law Journal, Novem­
ber 1979, pp. 667-79.
Industry and government organization
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Ju­
dicial Discipline and Tenure Proposals. Washington, 1979,
39 pp. (AEI Legislative Analysis, 10.) $3.
Riemer, Jeffrey W., Hard Hats: The Work World of Construc­
tion Workers. Beverly Hills, Calif., Sage Publications,
1979, 203 pp. $17.50, cloth; $7.95, paper.
Russell, James S. and Warren J. Samuels, “Corporate and
Public Responsibility in Environmental Policy: A Case
Study,” MSU Business Topics, Autumn 1979, pp. 2332.
U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, Regulatory Bud­
geting and the Need for Cost-Effectiveness in the Regulato­
ry Process. Washington, 1979, 32 pp. (96th Cong., 1st

sess.) Stock No. 052-070-05142-6. For sale by the Super­
intendent of Documents, Washington 20402.
International economics
U.S. Bureau of International Labor Affairs, Country Labor Pro­
file: New Zealand. By Joseph Mire. Washington, U.S. De­
partment of Labor, Bureau of International Labor Af­
fairs, 1979, 8 pp. 60 cents, Superintendent of Documents,
Washington 20402.
Wright, Charles L. “International Comparisons of Income
Levels and Growth Rates,” The Journal of Development
Studies, July 1979, pp. 331-41.
Labor and economic history
Foner, Philip S., Women and the American Labor Movement:
From Colonial Times to the Eve of World War I. New
York, The Free Press, A division of Macmillian Publish­
ing Co., Inc., 1979, 621 pp., bibliography. $15.95.
“West Europe, 1979,” Current History, November 1979, pp.
147-86.
Labor force
Bartel, Ann P., “The Migration Decision: What Role Does
Job Mobility Play?” The American Economic Review, De­
cember 1979, pp. 775-86.
Lloyd, Cynthia B., Emily S. Andrews, Curtis L. Gilroy, eds.,
Women in the Labor Market. New York, Columbia Uni­
versity Press, 1979, 393 pp., bibliography. $25.
Nevile, John W., “How voluntary is unemployment? Two
views of the Phillips curve,” Journal of Post Keynesian
Economics, Fall 1979, pp. 110-19.
Nickell, Stephen, “Estimating the Probability of Leaving Un­
employment,” Econometrica, September 1979, pp. 1249—
66 .

O’Connell, Brian J., Blacks in White-Collar Jobs. Montclair,
N.J., Allanheld, Osmun & Co., Publishers, 1979, 126 pp.
$18. 19.
Schlozman, Kay Lehman and Sidney Verba, Injury to Insult:

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Unemployment, Class, and Political Response. Cambridge,
Mass., Harvard University Press, 1979, 393 pp. $20.
Smith, Ralph E., Women in the Labor Force in 1990. Wash­
ington, The Urban Institute, 1979, 162 pp., bibliography.
(URI 24600.) $7. 19.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Geographic Profile of Employ­
ment and Unemployment: States, 1978; Metropolitan
Areas, 1977-78. (Prepared by Russ Marshall, Anderia

Thomas, and Richard Rosen.) Washington, 1979, 111 pp.
(Report 571.)
----- Women in the Labor Force: Some New Data Series. (Pre­
pared by Janet Norwood, and Elizabeth Waldman.)
Washington, 1979, 9 pp. (Report 575.)
U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, Employment-Un­
employment, Pt. 14. Hearings before the Joint Congressio­
nal Economic Committee. Washington, 1979, 234 pp.
(96th Cong., 1st sess.) For sale by the Superintendent of
Documents, Washington 20402.
U.S. Employment and Training Administration, Seven Years
Later: The Experiences of the 1970 Cohort of Immigrants
in the United States. Washington, U.S. Department of La­

bor, Employment and Training Administration, 1979,
172 pp. (R&D Monograph 71.)
Walsh, W. Bruce and others, “Holland’s Theory and CollegeDegreed Working Black and White Women,” Journal of
Vocational Behavior, October 1979, pp. 217-23.
Management and organization theory
Albert, Kenneth J., Handbook of Business Problem Solving.
New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1980, 841 pp.
$24.95.
Brooks, Robin F., “Going the Clerical Route,” Public Person­
nel Management, September-October 1979, pp. 330-35.
Herzberg, Frederick L, “New perspectives on the will to
work,” The Personnel Administrator, December 1979, pp.
72-76.
Homjak, William W., “Layoff rotation,” The Personnel Ad­
ministrator, December 1979, pp. 57-61.
Jensen, Michael C. and William H. Meckling, “Rights and
Production Functions: An Application to Labor-managed
Firms and Codetermination,” The Journal of Business,
October 1979, pp. 469-506.
Koch, James L., “Effects of Goal Specificity and Performance
Feedback to Work Groups on Peer Leadership, Perfor­
mance, and Attitudes,” Human Resources, October 1979,
pp. 819-40.
Lagges, James G., “The Role of Delegation in Improving Pro­
ductivity,” Personnel Journal, November 1979, pp. 77679.
Lien, Lawrence, “Reviewing Your Training and Development
Activities,” Personnel Journal, November 1979, beginning
on p. 791.
Lindo, David K., Supervision Can Be Easy! New York,
AMACOM, A division of American Management Asso­
ciations, 1979, 272 pp. $14.95.
Murray, Thomas J., "Where Are Tomorrow’s Top Manag­
ers?” Dun's Review, December 1979, pp. 98-100.
Rix, Sara E., “Rethinking Retirement-Age Policy in the
69

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Book Reviews
United States and Canada,” Personnel Journal, November
1979, pp. 780-88.
Sanderson, George and Frederick Stepenhurst, eds., Industrial
Democracy Today: A New Role for Labour. Toronto, Can­
ada, McGraw-Hill Ryerson, Ltd., 1979, 243 pp., bibliog­
raphy. $19.95. Available in the United States from
McGraw-Hill, New York.
Stack, Ruth H., HMOs from the Management Perspective.
New York, AMACOM, a division of American Manage­
ment Associations, 1979, 49 pp. $5, AMA members;
$7.50, others.
Sweeny, Allen, ROI Basics for Nonfinancial Executives. New
York, AMACOM, a division of American Management
Associations, 1979, 115 pp. $9.95.
The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., Aspects of the Personnel
Function: Structure, Use of Electronic Data Processing,
and Professional Activities, Prepared by Mary Green Min­
er. Washington, The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.,
1979, 65 pp. (Personnel Policies Forum Survey, 127.) $5.
Yates, Jere E., Managing Stress: A Businessperson's Guide.
New York, AMACOM, a division of American Manage­
ment Associations, 1979, 165 pp. $12.95.
Zaltman, Gerald, ed., Management Principles for Nonprofit
Agencies and Organizations. New York, AMACOM, a di­
vision of American Management Associations, 1979, 584
pp., index. $34.95.
Zimet, Melvin and Ronald G. Greenwood, eds., The Evolving
Science of Management: The Collected Papers of Harold
Smiddy and Papers by Others in His Honor. New York,
AMACOM, a division of American Management Associ­
ations, 1979, 496 pp. $24.95.
Monetary and fiscal policy
Day, William H. L., "Domestic Credit and Money Ceilings
Under Alternative Exchange Rate Regimes,” Internation­
al Monetary Fund Staff Papers, September 1979, pp. 490512.
Feltenstein, Andrew, Morris Goldsmith, and Susan M.
Schadler. "A Multilateral Exchange Rate Model for Pri­
mary Producing Countries, ” International Monetary Fund
Staff Papers, September 1979, pp. 543-82.
Gordon, Josephine G. and Robert N. Schoeplein. “Tax Im­
pact From Elimination of the Retirement Test, ” Social Se­
curity Bulletin, September 1979, pp. 22-32.
Prices and living conditions
Salathe, Larry E., Household Expenditure Patterns in the
United States. Washington, U.S. Department of Agricul­
ture, Economics, Statistics, and Cooperative Service,
1979, 23 pp. (Technical Bulletin 1603.)
-----Anthony E. Gallo, William T. Boehm, The Impact of
Race on Consumer Food Purchases. Washington, U.S. De­
partment of Agriculture, Economics, Statistics, and Co­
operatives Service, 1979, 14 pp.
-----and Rueben C. Buse, Household Food Consumption
Patterns in the United States. Washington, U.S. Depart­
ment of Agriculture, Economics, Statistics, and Coopera­
tives Service, 1979, 27 pp. (Technical Bulletin 1587.)
Digitized for70
FRASER
https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Stein, Jerome L., “The acceleration of inflation,” Journal of
Post Keynesian Economics. Fall 1979, pp. 26-42.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Escalation and Producer Price
Indexes: A Guide for Contracting Parties. (Prepared by
Craig Howell and William Thomas.) Washington, 1979, 9
pp. (Report 570.)
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food Prices in Perspective and
Summary Analysis. Washington, Economics, Statistics,
and Cooperatives Service, 1979, 43 and 9 pp., respective­
lyProductivity and technological change
Adkins, Lynn, “Getting a Grip on White-Collar Produc­
tivity,” Dun's Review, December 1979, beginning on p.
120.

Allen, Steven G., Unionized Construction Workers Are More
Productive. Washington, Center to Protect Workers’
Rights, 1979, 25 pp.
Grayson, C. Jackson, “Productivity’s impact on our economic
future,” The Personnel Administrator, December 1979, be­
ginning on p. 21.
Urban affairs
Jennrich, John H., “Transportation 2000: How America Will
Move Its People and Products,” Nation's Business, No­
vember 1979, pp. 34-40.
Kettl, Donald F., “Can the Cities be Trusted? The Communi­
ty Development Experience,” Political Science Quarterly,
Fall 1979, pp. 437-51.
Wages and compensation
Deitsch, Clarence and David Dilts, “The Shorter Standard
Workweek: A Method for Circumvention of Wage and
Price Controls?” Indiana Business Review, July-August
1979, pp. 12-13.
Fogel, Walter, “Occupational Earnings: Market and Institu­
tional Influences,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review,
October 1979, pp. 24-35.
Hoffman, Saul D., “Black-White Life Cycle Earnings Dif­
ferences and the Vintage Hypothesis: A Longitudinal
Analysis,” The American Economic Review, December
1979, pp. 855-67.
Hyclak, Thomas, “The Effect of Unions on Earnings Inequali­
ty in Local Labor Markets,” Industrial and Labor Rela­
tions Review, October 1979, pp. 77-84.
Moroney, J. R., “Do Women Earn Less Under Capitalism?”
The Economic Journal, September 1979, pp. 601-13.
O’Kelly, Charlotte G., “The ‘Impact’ of Equal Employment
Legislation on Women’s Earnings; Limitations of Legisla­
tive Solutions to Discrimination in the Economy,” Ameri­
can Journal of Economics and Sociology, October 1979,
pp. 419-30.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Area Wage Surveys: Selected
Metropolitan Areas, 1977. Washington, 1979, 154 pp.
(Bulletin 1950-76.) $4.75, Superintendent of Documents,
Washington, 20402.
--------Area Wage Surveys: Toledo, Ohio-------- Michigan,
Metropolitan Area, May 1979; San Antonio, Texas, Metro­
politan Area. May 1979; Wichita, Kansas, Metropolitan

Area, April 1979; San Jose, California, Metropolitan Area,
March 1979; Atlanta, Georgia, Metropolitan Area, May
1979; Chicago, Illinois, Metropolitan Area, May 1979; Nor­
folk— Virginia Beach—Portsmouth, Virginia— North Car­
olina, Metropolitan Area, May 1979; Worcester,
Massachusetts, Metropolitan Area, April 1979; Richmond,
Virginia, Metropolitan Area, June 1979; Fresno, California,
Metropolitan Area, June 1979; Patterson—Clifton—Passa­
ic, New Jersey Metropolitan Area, June 1979; Portland,
Oregon— Washington Metropolitan Area, May 1979;
Northeast Pennsylvania, Metropolitan Area, August 1979;
Corpus Christi, Texas, Metropolitan Area, July 1979;
Poughkeepsie, New York, Metropolitan Area, June 1979;
Poughkeepsie—Kingston—Newburgh, New York %rea,
June 1979. Washington, 1979, 30, 27, 28, 36, 42, 47, 40,
27, 31, 27, 28, 38, 43, 39, 24, 27 pp., respectively. (Bulle­
tins 2050-16, 2050-17, 2050-18, 2050-19, 2050-20
2050-21, 2050-22, 2050-23, 2050-24, 2050-25, 205026 2050-27, 2050-32, 2050-33, 2050-34, 2050-35.)
$1.10, $1, $1, $1.10, $1.30, $1.75, $1.75, $1.50, $1.50,
$1.50, $1.50, $1.75, $1.75, $1.75, $1.50, $1.50. Superin­
tendent of Documents, Washington 20402, GPO book­
stores, or BLS regional offices.
--------Industry Wage Surveys: Grain Mill Products, September
1977; Computer and Data Processing Services, March
1978; Communications, October-December 1977. 54, 51,
12 pp., respectively. (Bulletins 2026, 2028, 2029.) Stock
Nos. 029-001-02317-1, 029-001-02319-7, 029-001-02311-1.
$2.30, $2.50, $1.10 Superintendent of Documents, Wash­
ington 20402.
--------National Survey of Professional, Administrative, Techni­
cal, and Clerical Pay, March 1979. Washington 1979, 71
pp. (Bulletin 2045.) Stock No. 029-001-02403-7. For sale
by the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, 20402.
--------Occupational Earnings and Wage Trends in Metropoli­
tan Areas, 1978. Washington, 1979, 7 pp. (Summary 7911.)

--------Union Wages and Benefits: Local-Transit Operating
Employees, 1978. (Prepared by Harry B. Williams.)
Washington, 1979, 21 pp. (Bulletin 2043.) Stock No.
029-001-02407-0. For sale by the Superintendent of Doc­
uments, Washington 20402.
Welfare programs and social insurance
Adcock, George, “How Will the Recession Impact Pension
Portfolios?” Pension World, August 1979, beginning on
p. 8.
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, The
Administration's 1979 Welfare Reform Proposal. Washing­
ton, 1979, 61 pp. (AEI Legislative Analysis 7.) $3.
Australian Department of Social Security, “Changing Family
Patterns and Social Security Protection: The Australian
Scene,” The International Social Security Review, No. 1,
1979, pp. 3-20.
Campbell, Colin D., Financing Social Security. Washington,
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research,
1979, 352 pp. (AEI Symposia 78H.) $13.75, cloth; $6.75
paper.
Cavanaugh, Thomas J., “Recognizing Inflation in Public Pen­
sions,” Pension World, August 1979, beginning on p. 53.
Chaikin, Sol C., “Redesigning Unemployment Compensa­

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

tion,” The AFL-CIO American Federationist, November
1979, pp. 19-24.
Chief, Elizabeth, “Need Determination in AFDC Program,”
Social Security Bulletin, September 1979, pp. 11-21.
Danziger, Sheldon, Irwin Garfinkel, Robert Haveman, “Pov­
erty, Welfare, and Earnings: A New Approach,” Chal­
lenge, September 1979, pp. 28-34.
deLone, Richard H., “One proposal to redistribute income,”
Across the Board, November 1979, pp. 33-36.
Derthick, Martha, Policymaking for Social Security. Washing­
ton, The Brookings Institution, 1979, 446 pp. $11.95,
cloth; $4.95, paper.
Economic Council of Canada, One in Three: Pensions for Ca­
nadians to 2030. Hull, Quebec, Canada, Economic Coun­
cil of Canada, 1979, 144 pp. $6.25, Canada; $7.50, other
countries. Available from Canadian Government Publish­
ing Center, Supply and Services Canada, Hull, Quebec.
Gramlich, Edward M. and Michael J. Wolkoff, “A Procedure
for Evaluating Income Distribution Policies,” The Jour­
nal of Human Resources, Summer 1979, pp. 319-50.
Haanes-Olsen, Leif, “Taxation and Pensions,” The Interna­
tional Social Security Review, No. 1, 1979, pp. 32-49.
Huntley, Diane, “Educational and Economic Characteristics
of Student Beneficiaries: Black-White Differences,” Social
Security Bulletin, September 1979, pp. 3-10.
Logue, John, “The Welfare State: Victim of Its Success,” Dae­
dalus, Fall 1979, pp. 69-87.
Martin, Peter W.,“Public Assurance of an Adequate Mini­
mum Income in Old Age: The Erratic Partnership
Between Social Insurance and Public Assistance.” Cornell
Law Review, March 1979, pp. 437-520.
Morrison, Malcolm H., “International Developments in
Retirement Flexibility,” Aging and Work, Fall 1979, pp.
221-34.
National Commission on Unemployment Compensation, Re­
insurance of State Unemployment Compensation Plans and
Federal Taxable Wage Base: Summary of Responses to the
National Commission on Unemployment Compensation.
Rosslyn, Va., National Commission on Unemployment
Compensation, 1979, 299 pp.
Perham, John C., “Battle Over Workers’ Compensation,”
Dun's Review, September 1979, pp. 104-08.
Plattner, Marc F., “A new vision of the welfare state—redis­
tribute income to create an equality state,” Across the
Board, November 1979, pp. 22-32.
Price, Karl F., James W. Walker, Douglas C. Kimmel, “Re­
tirement Timing and Retirement Satisfaction,” Aging and
Work, Fall 1979, pp. 235-45.
Worker training and development
Barton, Paul E., The Next Step in Managing Recessions:
Countercyclical Education and Training. Washington, Na­
tional Manpower Institute, 1979, 12 pp. $2.50.
Baxter, Neale, “Disabled Workers and the Career Counselor,”
Occupational Outlook Quarterly, Fall 1979, pp. 2-11.
Gentz, Susan C, “Lawyers Who Work With Older People,”
Occupational Outlook Quarterly, Fall 1979, pp. 16-19.
71

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • B o o k R eview s

Health Careers Guidebook. 4th ed. Washington, U.S. Depart­
ment of Labor, Employment and Training Administra­
tion and U.S. Department of Health, Education, and
Welfare, Health Resources Administration, 1979, 221 pp.
Stock No. 029-000-00343-2. For sale by the Superinten­
dent of Documents, Washington 20402.
Horn, Frederick F. and Victor W. Farah, Trading in Com­
modity Futures. 2d ed. New York, New York Institute of
Finance, 1979, 373 pp.
Krantz, David L., Radical Career Change: Life Beyond Work.
New York, The Free Press, a division of Macmillan Pub­
lishing Co., Inc., 1978, 157 pp. $9.95.
Lecht, Leonard A., Involving Private Employers in Local
CETA Programs. New York, The Conference Board,
1979, 18 pp. (Information Bulletin 63.)
Payne, Richard A., How to Get a Better Job Quicker. New

72


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

York, Taplinger Publishing Co., Inc., 1979, 217 pp.
$9.95.
U.S. Employment and Training Administration, Dateline:
CETA— A Selection of Programs. Washington, U.S. De­
partment of Labor, Employment and Training Adminis­
tration, 1979, 15 pp.
----- Employment and Training Report of the President.
(Transmitted to Congress 1979.) Washington, U.S. De­
partment of Labor, Employment and Training Adminis­
tration, 1979, 398 pp. Stock No. 029-000-00359-9.
Available from the Superintendent of Documents, Wash­
ington 20402.
“When children decide not to go to college,” Business Week,
Sept. 3, 1979, beginning on p. 154.
Weinstein, Marc, “Occupational unemployment,” Occupation­
al Outlook Quarterly, Fall 1979, pp. 28-36.

Current
Labor Statistics
Notes on Current Labor Statistics

....................................................................................................................................

Schedule of release dates for major BLS statistical series

..........................................................................

Employment data from household survey. Definitions and notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Employment status of noninstitutional population, selected years, 1950-78 ................................................................
Employment status by age, sex, and race, seasonally adjusted .......................................................................................
Selected employment indicators, seasonally adjusted .......................................................................................................
Selected unemployment indicators, seasonally adjusted .....................................................................................................
Unemployment rates, by age and sex, seasonally adjusted ........................................,v ...................................................
Unemployed persons, by reason for unemployment, seasonally adjusted .....................................................................
Duration of unemployment, seasonally adjusted ...............................................................................................................

Employment, hours, and earnings data from establishment surveys. Definitions and notes
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.

Employment by industry, 1949-78 .......................................................................................................................................
Employment by State ...............................................................................................................................................................
Employment by industry division and major manufacturing group ................................................................................
Employment by industry division and major manufacturing group, seasonally adjusted ........................................
Labor turnover rates in manufacturing, 1976 to date .......................................................................................................
Labor turnover rates in manufacturing, by major industry group ..................................................................................
Hours and earnings, by industry division, 1947-78 ..........................................................................................................
Weekly hours, by industry division and major manufacturing group .............................................................................
Weekly hours, by industry division and major manufacturing group, seasonally adjusted .....................................
Hourly earnings, by industry division and major manufacturing group ........................................................................
Hourly Earnings Index, by industry division .......................................................................................................................
Weekly earnings, by industry division and major manufacturing group ........................................................................
Gross and spendable weekly earnings in current and 1967 dollars, 1960 to date ........................................................

Unemployment insurance data. Definitions and notes

75

75
76
77
78
79
79
79
80

81
81
82
83
84
84
85
86
87
88
88
89
90
91

.........................................................................................................................................
Consumer Price Indexes, 1967-78
Consumer Price Index, U.S. city average, general summary and selected items ...........................................................
Consumer Price Index, cross classification of region and population size class ...........................................................
Consumer Price Index, selected areas ....................................................................................................................................
Producer Price Indexes, by stage of processing .................................................................................................
Producer Price Indexes, by commodity grouping ...............................................................................................................
Producer Price Indexes, for special commodity groupings ...............................................................................................
Producer Price Indexes, by durability of product ..................................
Price indexes for the output of selected SIC industries ............................................................................................

92

Price data. Definitions and notes

Productivity data. Definitions and notes
31.
32.
33.
34.

74

.......................................................................................
.......................................................................................

21. Unemployment insurance and employment service operations

22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.

74

Indexes
Annual
Indexes
Percent

.......................................................................................................................
of productivity and related data, 1950-78
percent change in productivity and related data, 1968-78 ...............................................................................
of productivity, hourly compensation, and unit costs ........................................................................................
change in productivity, hourly compensation, and unit costs ...............................

91

93
93
99
100
101
103
103
104
105
107

107
108
108
109

Labor-management data. Definitions and notes ............................................................................

no

35. Wage and benefit settlements in major collective bargaining units . . . . * ..................................................................
36. Effective wage rate adjustments going into effect in major collective bargaining units .............................................
37. Work stoppages, 1946 to date ...............................................................................................................................................

110
I ll
I ll


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

73

NOTES ON CURRENT LABOR STATISTICS

This section of the Review presents the principal statistical se­
ries collected and calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
A brief introduction to each group of tables provides defi­
nitions, notes on the data, sources, and other material usually
found in footnotes.
Readers w ho need additional inform ation are invited to
consult the BLS regional offices listed on the inside front cov­
er of this issue of the Review. Som e general notes applicable to
several series are given below.
Seasonal adjustment. Certain monthly and quarterly data are adjusted
to eliminate the effect of such factors as climatic conditions, industry
production schedules, opening and closing of schools, holiday buying
periods, and vacation practices, which might otherwise mask short­
term movements of the statistical series. Tables containing these data
are identified as “seasonally adjusted." Seasonal effects are estimated
on the basis of past experience. When new seasonal factors are com­
puted each year, revisions may affect seasonally adjusted data for sev­
eral preceding years. For a technical discussion of the method used to
make seasonal adjustments, see “Appendix A. The BLS Seasonal Fac­
tor Method," BLS Handbook of Methods for Surveys and Studies, Bul­
letin 1910 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1976), pp. 272-78, and X -ll
Variant of the Census Method II Seasonal Adjustment Program, Techni­
cal Paper No. 15 (Bureau of the Census, 1967). Seasonally adjusted la­
bor force data in tables 2 -7 were last revised in the February 1980 is­
sue of the Review to reflect the preceding year’s experience. Beginning
in January 1980, the BLS introduced two major modifications in the
seasonal adjustment methodology for labor force data. First, the data
are being seasonally adjusted with a new procedure called X - l l /
ARIMA, which was developed at Statistics Canada as an extension of
the standard X- l l method. A detailed description of the procedure
appears in The X -ll ARIMA Seasonal Adjustment Method by Estela
Bee Dagum (Statistics Canada Catalogue No. 12-564E, September
1979).
The second change is that seasonal factors are now being calculated
for use during the first 6 months of the year, rather than for the entire
year, and then are calculated at mid-year for the July-December peri­
od. Revisions of historical data continue to be made only at the end of
each calendar year. Annual revision of the seasonally adjusted payroll
data in tables 11, 13, 16, and 18 was last introduced in the November
1979 issue of the Review. New seasonal factors for productivity data in
tables 33 and 34 are usually introduced in the September issue. Sea­

sonally adjusted indexes and percent changes from month to month
and from quarter to quarter are published for numerous Consumer
and Producer Price Index series. However, seasonally adjusted indexes
are not published for the U.S. average All Items CPI. Only seasonally
adjusted percent changes are available for this series.
Adjustments for price changes. Some data are adjusted to eliminate
the effect of changes in price. These adjustments are made by dividing
current dollar values by the Consumer Price Index or the appropriate
component of the index, then multiplying by 100. For example, given
a current hourly wage rate of $3 and a current price index number of
150, where 1967 = 100, the hourly rate expressed in 1967 dollars is
$2 ($3/150 X 100 = $2). The resulting values are described as
“real,” "constant,” or “ 1967” dollars.
Availability of information. Data that supplement the tables in this
section are published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in a variety of
sources. Press releases provide the latest statistical information
published by the Bureau; the major recurring releases are published
according to the schedule given below. The Handbook o f Labor Statis­
tics 1978, Bulletin 2000, provides more detailed data and greater his­
torical coverage for most of the statistical series presented in the
Monthly Labor Review. More information from the household and es­
tablishment surveys is provided in Employment and Earnings, a
monthly publication of the Bureau, and in two comprehensive data
books issued annually — Employment and Earnings, United States and
Employment and Earnings, States and Areas. More detailed informa­
tion on wages and other aspects of collective bargaining appears in
the monthly periodical, Current Wage Developments. More detailed
price information is published each month in the periodicals, the CPI
Detailed Report and Producer Prices and Price Indexes. Selected key
statistical series are presented graphically in the monthly Chartbook
on Prices, Wages, and Productivity.

Symbols
p = preliminary. To improve the timeliness of some series,
preliminary figures are issued based on representative
but incomplete returns.
r = revised. Generally this revision reflects the availability
of later data but may also reflect other adjustments,
n.e.c. — not elsewhere classified.

Schedule of release dates for major BLS statistical series
Title and frequency
(monthly except where indicated)

Release
date

Period
covered

Release
date

Period
covered

MLR table
number

The Employment situation............................................................
Producer Price Indexes................................................................
Consumer Price Index ................................................................
Real earnings ............................................................................
Productivity and costs:
Nonfinancial corporations ........................................................
Work stoppages..........................................................................
Labor turnover in manufacturing ..................................................

February 1
February 15
February 22
February 22

January
January
January
January

March 7
March 7
March 25
March 25

February
February
February
February

1-11
26-30
22-25
14-20

February 27
February 28
February 29

4th quarter
January
January

March 28
March 31

February
February

31-34
37
12-13

74


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

EMPLOYMENT DATA FROM THE HOUSEHOLD SURVEY

Employment data in this section are obtained from the
Current P opulation Survey, a program of personal interviews
conducted m onthly by the Bureau of the Census for the
Bureau of Labor Statistics. The sam ple consists of about
56,000 households, selected to represent the U.S. population
16 years of age and older. H ouseholds are interviewed on a
rotating basis, so that three-fourths of the sam ple is the same
for any 2 consecutive m onths.

Definitions
Employed persons are (1) those who worked for pay any time
during the week which includes the 12th day of the month or who
worked unpaid for 15 hours or more in a family-operated enterprise
and (2) those who were temporarily absent from their regular jobs
because of illness, vacation, industrial dispute, or similar reasons. A
person working at more than one job is counted only in the job at
which he or she worked the greatest number of hours.
Unemployed persons are those who did not work during the survey
week, but were available for work except for temporary illness and
had looked for jobs within the preceding 4 weeks. Persons who did
not look for work because they were on layoff or waiting to start new
jobs within the next 30 days are also counted among the unemployed.
The unemployment rate represents the number unemployed as a
percent of the civilian labor force.
The civilian labor force consists of all employed or unemployed
persons in the civilian noninstitutional population; the total labor
force includes military personnel. Persons not in the labor force are

1.

those not classified as employed or unemployed; this group includes
persons retired, those engaged in their own housework, those not
working while attending school, those unable to work because of
longterm illness, those discouraged from seeking work because of
personal or job market factors, and those who are voluntarily idle.
The noninstitutional population comprises all persons 16 years of age
and older who are not inmates of penal or mental institutions,
sanitariums, or homes for the aged, infirm, or needy.
Full-time workers are those employed at least 35 hours a week;
part-time workers are those who work fewer hours. Workers on parttime schedules for economic reasons (such as slack work, terminating
or starting a job during the week, material shortages, or inability to
find full-time work) are among those counted as being on full-time
status, under the assumption that they would be working full time if
conditions permitted. The survey classifies unemployed persons in
full-time or part-time status by their reported preferences for full-time
or part-time work.

Notes on the data
From time to time, and especially after a decennial census,
adjustments are made in the Current Population Survey figures to
correct for estimating errors during the preceding years. These
adjustments affect the comparability of historical data presented in
table 1. A description of these adjustments and their effect on the
various data series appear in the Explanatory Notes of Em ploym ent
and Earnings.

Data in tables 2 - 7 are seasonally adjusted, based on the seasonal
experience through December 1979.

Employment status of the noninstitutional population, 16 years and over, selected years, 1950-79

[Numbers inthousands]
Civilian labor force

Total labor force

Year

Total non­
institutional
population

Employed
Number

Percent of
population

Unemployed

Total

Agriculture

Nonagricultural
industries

Total

Number

Percent of
labor
force

Not in
labor force

1950
1955
1960
1964
1965

............................................................
............................................................
............................................................
............................................................
............................................................

106,645
112,732
119,759
127,224
129,236

63,858
68,072
72,142
75,830
77,178

59.9
60.4
60.2
59.6
59.7

62,208
65,023
69,628
73,091
74,455 .

58,920
62,171
65,778
69,305
71,088

7,160
6,449
5,458
4,523
4,361

51,760
55,724
60,318
64,782
66,726

3,288
2,852
3,852
3,786
3,366

5.3
4.4
5.5
5.2
4.5

42,787
44,660
47,617
51,394
52,058

1966
1967
1968
1969
1970

............................................................
............................................................
............................................................
............................................................
............................................................

131,180
133,319
135,562
137,841
140,182

78,893
80,793
82,272
84,239
85,903

60.1
60.6
60.7
61.1
61.3

75,770
77,347
78,737
80,733
82,715

72,895
74,372
75,920
77,902
78,627

3,979
3,844
3,817
3,606
3,462

68,915
70,527
72,103
74,296
75,165

2,875
2,975
2,817
2,831
4,088

3.8
3.8
3.6
3.5
4.9

52,288
52,527
53,291
53,602
54,280

1971
1972
1973
1974
1975

............................................................
............................................................
............................................................
............................................................
............................................................

142,596
145,775
148,263
150,827
153,449

86,929
88,991
91,040
93,240
94,793

61.0
61.0
61.4
61.8
61.8

84,113
86,542
88,714
91,011
92,613

79,120
81,702
84,409
85,936
84,783

3,387
3,472
3,452
3,492
3,380

75,732
78,230
80,957
82,443
81,403

4,993
4,840
4,304
5,076
7,830

5.9
5.6
4.9
5.6
8.5

55,666
56,785
57,222
57,587
58,655

1976
1977
1978
1979

............................................................
............................................................
............................................................
............................................................

156,048
158,559
161,058
163,620

96,917
99,534
102,537
104,996

62.1
62.8
63.7
64.2

94,773
97,401
100,420
102,908

87,485
90,546
94,373
96,945

3,297
3,244
3,342
3,297

84,188
87,302
91,031
93,648

7,288
6,855
6,047
5,963

7.7
7.0
6.0
5.8

59,130
59,025
58,521
58,623


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

75

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • C u rren t L a b o r S ta tistics: H o u seh o ld D a ta
2.

Employment status by sex, age, and race, seasonally adjusted

[Numbers inthousands]
Annual Average

1978

1979

Employment status
1978

1979

Dec.

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

161,058
102,537
158,941
100,420
94,373
3,342
91,031
6,047
6,0
58,521

163,620
104,996
161,532
102,908
96,945
3,297
93,648
5,963
5.8
58,623

162,250
103,923
160,142
101,815
95,831
3,375
92,456
5,984
5.9
58,327

162,448
104,155
160,353
102,061
96,157
3,260
92,897
5,904
5.8
58,292

162,633
104,473
160,539
102,379
96,496
3,307
93,189
5,883
5.7
58,160

162,909
104,595
160,819
102,505
96,623
3,320
93,303
5,882
5.7
58,314

163,008
104,280
160,926
102,198
96,254
3,215
93,039
5,944
5.8
58,728

163,260
104,476
161,182
102,398
96,495
3,246
93,249
5,903
5.8
58,784

163,469
104,552
161,393
102,476
96,652
3,243
93,409
5,824
5.7
58,917

163,685
105,475
161,604
103,093
97,184
3,267
93,917
5,909
5.7
58,511

163,891
105,218
161,801
103,128
97,004
3,315
93,689
6,124
5.9
58,673

164,106
105,586
162,013
103,494
97,504
3,364
94,140
5,990
5.8
58,519

164,468
105,688
162,375
103,595
97,474
3,294
94,180
6,121
5.9
58,780

164,682
105,744
162,589
103,652
97,608
3,385
94,223
6,044
5.8
58,937

164,898
106,088
162,809
103,999
97,912
3,359
94,553
6,087
5.9
58,810

67,006
53,464
51,212
2,361
48,852
2,252
4.2
13,541

68,293
54,486
52,264
2,350
49,913
2,223
4.1
13,807

67,600
54,059
51,861
2,387
49,474
2,198
4.1
13,541

67,726
54,191
52,024
2,303
49,721
2,167
4.0
13,535

67,816
54,349
52,211
2,329
49,882
2,138
3.9
13,467

67,939
54,315
52,151
2,350
49,801
2,164
4.0
13,624

67,997
54,239
52,049
2,295
49,754
2,190
4.0
13,758

68,123
54,288
52,158
2,301
49,857
2,130
3.9
13,835

68,227
54,370
52,201
2,305
49,896
2,169
4.0
13,857

68,319
54,579
52,325
2,327
49,998
2,254
4.1
13,740

68,417
54,597
52,311
2,375
49,936
2,286
4.2
13,820

68,522
54,735
52,453
2,377
50,076
2,282
4.2
13,787

68,697
54,760
52,443
2,371
50,072
2,317
4.2
13,937

68,804
54,709
52,374
2,438
49,936
2,335
4.3
14,095

68,940
54,781
52,478
2,427
50,051
2,303
4.2
14,159

75,489
37,416
35,180
586
34,593
2,236
6.0
38,073

76,860
38,910
36,698
591
36,107
2,213
5.7
37,949

76,119
38,156
35,944
598
35,346
2,212
5.8
37,963

76,228
38,207
36,012
596
35,416
2,195
5.7
38,021

76,332
38,399
36,197
593
35,604
2,202
5.7
37,933

76,476
38,574
36,362
595
35,767
2,212
5.7
37,902

76,532
38,415
36,216
572
35,644
2,199
5.7
38,117

76,670
38,619
36,411
577
35,834
2,208
5.7
38,051

76,784
38,653
36,457
583
35,874
2,196
5.7
38,131

76,897
39,033
36,873
585
36,288
2,160
5.5
37,864

77,006
39,304
37,000
600
36,400
2,304
5.9
37,702

77,124
39,239
37,075
628
36,447
2,164
5.5
37,885

77,308
39,362
37,112
572
36,540
2,250
5.7
37,946

77,426
39,445
37,248
612
36,636
2,197
5.6
37,981

77,542
39,659
37,402
582
36,820
2,257
5.7
37,883

16,447
9,540
7,981
395
7,586
1,559
16.3
6,907

16,379
9,512
7,984
356
7,628
1,528
16.1
6,867

16,422
9,600
8,026
390
7,636
1,574
16.4
6,822

16,400
9,663
8,121
361
7,760
1,542
16.0
6,737

16,391
9,631
8,088
385
7,703
1,543
16.0
6,760

16,404
9,616
8,110
375
7,735
1,506
15.7
6,788

16,397
9,544
7,989
348
7,641
1,555
16.3
6,853

16,389
9,491
7,926
368
7,558
1,565
16.5
6,898

16,381
9,453
7,994
355
7,639
1,459
15.4
6,928

16,387
9,481
7,986
355
7,631
1,495
15.8
6,906

16,377
9,227
7,693
340
7,353
1,534
16.6
7,150

16,367
9,520
7,976
359
7,617
1,544
16.2
6,847

16,370
9,473
7,919
351
7,568
1,554
16.4
6,897

16,360
9,498
7,986
335
7,651
1,512
15.9
6,862

16,326
9,559
8,032
350
7,682
1,527
16.0
6,767

139,580
88,456
83,836
4,620
5.2
51,124

141,614
90,602
86,025
4,577
5.1
51,011

140,507
89,668
85,069
4,599
5.1
50,760

140,683
89,973
85,434
4,539
5.0
50,590

140,825
90,250
85,786
4,464
4.9
50,430

141,063
90,260
85,754
4,506
5.0
50,648

141,123
89,996
85,497
4,499
5.0
51,200

141,331
90,120
85,632
4,488
5.0
51,313

141,492
90,215
85,775
4,440
4.9
51,213

141,661
90,659
86,120
4,539
5.0
51,107

141,822
90,759
85,976
4,783
5.3
51,161

141,981
91,082
86,425
4,657
5.1
50,900

142,296
91,147
86,454
4,693
5.1
51,149

142,461
91,242
86,571
4,671
5.1
51,219

142,645
91,579
86,894
4,685
5.1
51,066

19,361
11,964
10,537
1,427
11.9
7,397

19,918
12,306
10,920
1,386
11.3
7,612

19,635
12,141
10,752
1,389
11.4
7,482

19,670
12,101
10,736
1,365
11.3
7,593

19,714
12,177
10,746
1,431
11.8
7,486

19,755
12,238
10,860
1,378
11.3
7,504

19,802
12,191
10,767
1,424
11.7
7,627

19,850
12,219
10,816
1,403
11.5
7,674

19,901
12,260
10,887
1,373
11.2
7,629

19,943
12,386
11,023
1,363
11.0
7,579

19,979
12,343
10,982
1,361
11.0
7,639

20,032
12,404
11,063
1,341
10.8
7,264

20,079
12,512
11,076
1,436
11.5
7,567

20,128
12,391
11,044
1,347
10.9
7,737

20,631
12,432
11,024
1,408
11.3
7,731

TOTAL
Total noninstitutional population' ..........................
Total labor force ......................................
Civilian noninstitutional population' ......................
Civilian labor force ................................
Employed ......................................
Agriculture ..............................
Nonagricultural industries ........
Unemployed ..................................
Unemployment rate ........................
Not in labor force ..................................
Men, 20 years and over
Civilian noninstitutional population' ......................
Civilian labor force ......................................
Employed ............................................
Agriculture ....................................
Nonagricultural industries ................
Unemployed ........................................
Unemployment rate ..............................
Not in labor force ........................................
Women, 20 years and over
Civilian noninstitutional population' ......................
Civilian labor force ......................................
Employed ............................................
Agriculture ....................................
Nonagricultural industries ................
Unemployed ........................................
Unemployment rate ..............................
Not in labor force ........................................
Both sexes, 16-19 years
Civilian noninstitutional population' ......................
Civilian labor force ......................................
Employed ............................................
Agriculture ....................................
Nonagricultural industries ................
Unemployed ........................................
Unemployment rate ..............................
Not in labor force ........................................
WHITE
Civilian noninstitutional population’ ......................
Civilian labor force ......................................
Employed ............................................
Unemployed ........................................
Unemployment rate ..............................
Not in labor force ........................................
BLACK AND OTHER
Civilian noninstitutional population' ......................
Civilian labor force ......................................
Employed ............................................
Unemployed ........................................
Unemployment rate ..............................
Not in labor force ........................................

'As in table 1, population figures are not seasonally adjusted.

76


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

3.

Selected employment indicators, seasonally adjusted

[ In thousands]
Annual average

1978

1978

1979

Dec.

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

94,373
55,491
38,882
38,688
21,881

96,945
56,499
40,446
39,090
22,724

95,831
56,087
39,744
39,030
22,284

96,157
56,326
39,831
39,139
22,372

96,496
56,476
40,020
39,291
22,522

96,623
56,449
40,174
39,193
22,605

96,254
56,294
39,960
38,910
22,376

96,495
56,372
40,123
39,045
22,547

96,652
56,477
40,175
39,079
22,664

97,184
56,570
40,614
39,176
22,908

97,004
56,408
40,596
39,180
22,869

97,504
56,714
40,790
39,198
22,937

97,474
56,629
40,845
39,124
22,919

97,608
56,580
41,028
38,845
22,940

97,912
56,734
41,178
38,924
23,027

47,205
14,245

49,342
15,050

48,108
14,645

48,303
14,734

48,836
14,950

48,996
15,012

49,061
15,091

49,136
15,100

49,192
15,010

49,536
15,057

49,663
15,068

49,816
15,141

49,738
15,057

49,912
15,131

49,911
15,272

10,105
5,951
16,904
31,531
12,386
10,875
3,541
4,729
12,839
2,798

10,516
6,163
17,613
32,066
12,880
10,909
3,612
4,665
12,834
2,703

10,284
6,058
17,121
31,966
12,666
10,868
3,613
4,819
12,942
2,802

10,312
6,048
17,209
32,290
12,807
10,958
3,651
4,874
12,817
2,764

10,379
6,090
17,417
32,176
12,898
10,901
3,602
4,775
12,804
2,746

10,392
6,055
17,537
32,041
12,792
10,991
3,569
4,689
12,847
2,774

10,398
6,084
17,488
31,705
12,703
10,770
3,564
4,668
12,907
2,659

10,427
6,101
17,508
31,904
12,820
10,755
3,644
4,685
12,772
2,628

10,534
6,103
17,545
31,992
12,944
10,804
3,605
4,639
12,805
2,679

10,612
6,163
17,704
32,051
12,876
10,884
3,627
4,664
12,766
2,678

10,698
6,145
17,752
31,849
12,761
10,909
3,604
4,575
12,621
2,707

10,659
6,181
17,835
32,209
12,993
10,964
3,617
4,635
12,859
2,722

10,639
6,261
17,781
32,205
13,001
10,967
3,593
4,644
12,937
2,695

10,617
6,362
17,802
32,110
12,925
10,963
3,628
4,594
12,899
2,718

10,535
6,346
17,758
32,302
13,041
11,042
3,635
4,584
12,970
2,694

1,419
1,607
316

1,413
1,580
304

1,447
1,608
312

1,387
1,564
295

1,425
1,558
334

1,415
1,583
314

1,379
1,553
291

1,424
1,519
283

1,423
1,539
291

1,419
1,558
291

1,384
1,614
310

1,399
1,642
325

1,381
1,602
313

1,475
1,622
310

1,451
1,596
310

84,253
15,289
68,966
1,363
67,603
6,305
472

86,540
15,369
71,171
1,240
69,931
6,652
455

85,461
15,326
70,135
1,302
68,833
6,506
469

86,029
15,251
70,778
1,247
69,531
6,497
475

86,192
15,322
70,870
1,328
69,542
6,591
455

86,439
15,281
71,158
1,262
69,896
6,542
446

86,105
15,359
70,746
1,172
69,574
6,463
465

86,232
15,616
70,616
1,195
69,421
6.608
460

86,309
15,318
70,991
1,235
69,756
6,629
474

86,454
15,393
71,061
1,219
69,842
6,752
519

86,421
15,279
71,142
1,211
69,931
6,689
450

86,912
15,407
71,505
1,313
70,192
6,731
449

86,982
15,423
71,559
1,261
70,298
6,812
430

87,020
15,358
71,662
1,211
70,451
6,781
417

87,384
15,397
71,987
1,228
70,759
6,737
409

85,693
70,543
3,216
1,249
1,967
11,934

88,133
72,647
3,281
1,325
1,956
12,205

87,050
71,903
3,082
1,202
1,880
12,065

87,520
72,176
3,203
1,252
1,951
12,141

87,543
72,212
3,176
1,246
1,930
12,155

87,847
72,529
3,211
1,254
1,957
12,107

86,608
71,659
3,279
1,287
1,992
11,670

87,785
72,496
3,283
1,273
2,010
12,006

87,749
72,243
3,284
1,322
1,962
12,222

88,769
72,915
3,274
1,334
1,940
12,580

88,855
73,053
3,298
1,401
1,897
12,504

88,723
73,159
3,167
1.273
1,894
12,397

88,638
73,204
3,315
1,354
1,961
12,119

88,617
72,997
3,392
1,413
1,979
12,228

89,180
73,137
3,519
1,491
2,028
12,524

1979

Selected categories

CHARACTERISTIC
Total employed, 16 years and over ......................
Men ..................................
Women..........................................
Married men, spouse present ........................
Married women, spouse present ....................
OCCUPATION
White-collar workers............................................
Professional and technical ............................
Managers and administrators, except
farm ......................................................
Salesworkers................................................
Clerical workers............................................
Blue-collar workers..............................................
Craft and kindred workers ............................
Operatives, except transport ...........................
Transport equipment operatives ....................
Nonfarm laborers..........................................
Service workers ......................................
Farmworkers ........................................
MAJOR INDUSTRY AND CLASS
OF WORKER
Agriculture:
Wage and salary workers..............................
Self-employed workers..................................
Unpaid family workers ..................................
Nonagricultural industries:
Wage and salary workers..........................
Government ..........................................
Private industries....................................
Private households ..........................
Other industries ..............................
Self-employe^ workers..................................
Unpaid family workers ..........................
PERSONS AT WORK1
Nonagricultural industries ....................................
Full-time schedules ......................................
Part time for economic reasons......................
Usually work full time..............................
Usually work part tim e............................
Part time for noneconomic reasons................

'Excludes persons “ with a job but not at work" during the survey period for such reasons as
vacation, illness, or industrial disputes.


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

77

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Current Labor Statistics: Household Data
4.

Selected unemployment indicators, seasonally adjusted
1979

Annual average

1978

1978

1979

Dec.

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

Total, 16 years and over......................................
Men, 20 years and over................................
Women, 20 years and over ..........................
Both sexes, 16-19 years ............................

6.0
4.2
6.0
16.3

5.8
4.1
5.7
16.1

5.9
4.1
5.8
16.4

5,8
4.0
5.7
16.0

5.7
3.9
5.7
16.0

5.7
4.0
5.7
15.7

5,8
4.0
5.7
16.3

5.8
3.9
5.7
16.5

5.7
4.0
5.7
15.4

5.7
4.1
5.5
15.8

5.9
4.2
5.9
16.6

5.8
4.2
5.5
16.2

5.9
4.2
5.7
16.4

5.8
4.3
5.6
15.9

5.9
4.2
5.7
16.0

White, total ....................................? ...........
Men, 20 years and over ........................
Women, 20 years and o v e r....................
Both sexes, 16-19 years ......................

5.2
3.7
5.2
13,9

5.1
3.6
5.0
13.9

5.1
3.5
5.1
14.2

5.0
3.5
5.0
13.8

4.9
3.4
5.0
13.6

5.0
3.4
5.0
13.6

5.0
3.5
5.0
13.9

5.0
3.4
5.0
14.2

4.9
3.5
4,9
13.2

5.0
3.6
4.8
13.8

5.3
3.7
5.2
14.8

5.1
3.7
4.8
14.3

5.1
3.7
5.0
14.1

5.1
3.7
4.9
13.9

5.1
3.7
5.0
13.9

Black and other, total....................................
Men, 20 years and over ........................
Women, 20 years and over ....................
Both sexes, 16-19 years ......................

11.9
8.6
10.6
36.3

11.3
8.4
10.1
33.5

11.4
8.3
10.2
34.6

11.3
8.0
10.5
33.0

11.8
8.6
10.4
34.9

11.3
8.7
10.0
31.5

11.7
8.6
10.5
34.3

11.5
8.4
10,0
36.1

11.2
8.1
10.4
33.5

11.0
8.4
10.0
31.5

11.0
8.1
10.3
32.6

10.8
8.0
9.8
32.3

11.5
8.6
10.2
35.1

10.9
8.4
9.5
32.8

11,3
8.6
10.0
34.3

Married men, spouse present........................
Married women, spouse present....................
Women who head families............................
Full-time workers..........................................
Part-time workers ........................................
Unemployed 15 weeks and over....................
Labor force time lost' ..................................

2.8
5.5
8.5
5.5
9.0
1.4
6.5

2.7
5.1
8.3
5.3
8.7
1.2
6.3

2.6
5.5
7.9
5.3
9.1
1.2
6.3

2.6
5.3
8.0
5.2
9.1
1.2
6.2

2.6
5.3
8.3
5.2
8.8
1.2
6.2

2.6
5.2
8.2
5.2
9.0
1.3
6.2

2.7
5.2
8.3
5.3
8.7
1.2
6.4

2.5
5.2
8.6
5.2
9.3
1.2
6.3

2.7
5.1
9.0
5.2
8.6
1.1
6.3

2.8
4.9
8.1
5.3
8.3
1.0
6.4

2.9
5.3
7.9
5.4
8.8
1.1
6.4

2.9
4.8
7.7
5.3
8.4
1.1
6.2

2.9
5.2
8.4
5.4
8.9
1.2
6.4

2.9
4.8
8.4
5.4
8.3
1.1
6.4

2.8
5.0
8.4
5.4
8.5
1.2
6.4

3.5
2.6

3.3
2.4

3.5
3.0

3.4
2.5

3.4
2.4

3.3
2.2

3.3
2.3

3.2
2.1

3.4
2.5

3.3
2.5

3.5
2.5

3.3
2.4

3.4
2.7

3.2
2.4

3.3
2.3

2.1
4.1
4.9
6.9
4.6
8.1
5.2
10.7
7.4
3.8

2.1
3.9
4.6
6.9
4.5
8.4
5.4
10.8
7.1
3.8

1.9
3.7
4.7
6.7
4.6
7.8
5.3
10.4
7.7
3.3

2.0
4.0
4.7
6.5
4.4
7.8
5.0
9.7
7.7
2.9

2.0
4.2
4.7
6.5
4.5
7.8
5.0
9.7
7.3
3.4

2.1
4.1
4.8
6.6
4.5
7.8
5.2
10.2
7.3
3.3

2.3
4.0
4.5
6.9
4.4
8.5
5.9
10.6
7.3
3.4

2.2
4.0
4.5
6.8
4.2
8.2
5.4
11.1
7.2
3.6

2.1
4.4
4.6
6.6
4.3
7.7
5.7
10.6
7.2
3.2

2.0
3.5
4.5
6.8
4.4
8,3
5.1
11.0
7.1
4.2

2.3
4.0
4.9
7.3
4.7
8.9
6.2
11.3
7.1
3.9

2.2
3.8
4.5
7.1
4.3
9.0
6.1
11.0
6.7
4.1

2.2
3.8
4.7
7.2
4.6
9.1
5.6
10.7
6.8
4.3

1.9
3.7
4.4
7.5
4.9
9.0
5.2
12.2
6.6
4.5
•

2.0
3.8
4.6
7.2
4.4
9.0
5.0
12.2
6.6
4.3

5.9
10.6
5.5
4.9
6.3
3.7
6.9
5.1
3.9
8.8

5.7
10.2
5.5
5.0
6.4
3.7
6.5
4.9
3.7
9.1

5.8
11.4
5.1
4.4
6.1
3.3
6.9
5.1
3.9
8.0

5.7
10.3
5.1
4.4
6.1
3.5
6.6
5.1
3.9
7.5

5.6
10.9
4.9
4.2
5.9
3.2
6.5
4.8
3.8
8.6

5.6
10.1
5.2
4.4
6.4
3.9
6.3
4.8
4.1
8.0

5.7
10.5
5.3
4.7
6.3
3.0
6.6
4.8
3.7
8.7

5.7
10.0
5.4
4.4
6.9
3.6
6.4
4.9
3.6
9.3

5.6
10.0
5.4
4.9
6.3
3.1
6.7
4.7
3.6
7.8

5.7
10.0
5.7
5.4
6.2
3.8
6.3
4.9
3.6
9.7

6.0
10.1
5.9
5.4
6.8
3.7
6.5
5.2
3.7
9.9

5.8
9.6
6.0
5.3
7.1
4.0
6.4
4.7
3.3
10.0

5.9
9.9
6.0
5.5
6.8
3.8
6.4
4.9
4.0
9.9

5.8
10.2
5.9
5.6
6.3
4.2
6.5
4.6
3.6
10.1

5.8
10.3
5.9
5.5
6.4
4.1
6.4
4.7
3.6
9.4

Employment status

CHARACTERISTIC

OCCUPATION
White-collar workers ..........................................
Professional and technical ............................
Managers and administrators, except
farm ........................................................
Salesworkers ..............................................
Clerical workers ..........................................
Blue-collar workers ............................................
Craft and kindred workers ............................
Operatives, except transport ........................
Transport equipment operatives ....................
Nonfarm laborers ........................................
Service workers..................................................
Farmworkers......................................................
INDUSTRY
Nonagricultural private wage and salary workers2
Construction ................................................
Manufacturing..............................................
Durable goods ......................................
Nondurable goods..................................
Transportation and public utilities ..................
Wholesale and retail trade ............................
Finance and service industries ......................
Government workers ..........................................
Agricultural wage and salary workers ..................

' Aggregate hours lost by the unemployed and persons on part time for economic reasons as a
percent of potentially available labor force hours.

78


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

2 Includes mining, not shown separately,

5.

Unemployment rates, by sex and age, seasonally adjusted
1979

Annual average

1978

1978

1979

Dec.

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

Total, 16 years and over..........
16 to 19 years ................
16 to 17 years ..........
18 to 19 years ..........
20 to 24 years ................
25 years and over............
25 to 54 years ..........
55 years and over

6.0
16.3
19.3
14.2
9.5
4.0
4.2
3.2

5.8
16.1
18.1
14.6
9.0
3.9
4.1
3.0

5.9
16.4
19.6
14.0
9.0
3.9
4.2
2.9

5.8
16.0
18.6
13.8
8.7
3.9
4.1
3.0

5.7
16.0
18.5
14.3
8.6
3.9
4.1
3.0

5.7
15.7
18.5
13.5
8.8
3.9
4.1
3.1

5.8
16.3
18.7
14.3
8.6
4.0
4.2
3.1

5.8
16.5
18.9
15.0
8.9
3.9
4.0
3.1

5.7
15.4
17.5
14.4
8.9
3.9
4.1
2.9

5.7
15.8
17.3
14.5
9.1
3.9
4.0
3.2

5.9
16.6
18.5
15.4
9.3
4.0
4.2
3.1

5.8
16.2
16.9
15.6
9.2
3.9
4.1
2.9

5.9
16.4
18.4
15.0
9.6
4.0
4.2
3.0

5.8
15.9
17.3
14.7
8.8
4.0
4.3
2.7

5.9
16.0
18.0
14.5
9.8
3.8
4.1
2.7

Men, 16 years and over..
16 to 19 years ..........
16 to 17 years ..
18 to 19 years ..
20 to 24 years ..........
25 years and over
25 to 54 years ..
55 years and over

5.2
15.7
19.2
13.2
9.1
3.3
3.4
3.1

5.1
15.8
17.9
14.2
8.6
3.3
3.4
2.9

5.1
16.5
19.9
13.8
8.6
3.2
3.4
2.6

5.1
16.2
19.2
13.7
8.4
3.2
3.3
2.9

5.0
16.1
19.2
14.2
8.1
3.2
3.3
2.8

5.0
15.8
18.9
13.6
8.3
3.2
3.3
2.8

5.1
16.0
17.9
14.1
8.0
3.3
3.3
3.0

5.0
16.1
18.9
14.0
8.2
3.1
3.2
2.8

4.9
14.5
16.8
14.0
8.3
3.2
3.2
3.1

5.1
15.4
16.1
14.8
8.8
3.3
3.4
3.3

5.2
16.3
18.0
15.1
8.8
3.4
3.5
3.1

5.2
16.1
16.7
15.3
8.8
3.3
3.6
2.8

5.2
15.7
17.1
14.4
9.5
3.4
3.5
2.8

5.2
15.8
17.8
14.0
8.4
3.5
3.8
2.6

5.2
15.6
17.9
13.6
9.4
3.2
3.4
2.6

Women, 16 years and over
16 to 19 years ..........
16 to 17 years ..
18 to 19 years ,.
20 to 24 years ..........
25 years and over___
25 to 54 years ..
55 years and over

7.2
17.0
19.5
15.3
10.1
5.1
5.4
3.3

6.8
16.4
183
15.0
9.6
4.8
5.2
3.2

6.9
16.2
19.4
14.2
9.5
5.0
5.4
3.3

6.8
15.7
17.8
14.0
9.1
5.0
5.4
3.2

6.8
15.9
17.7
14.5
9.3
5.0
5.4
3.3

6.8
15.5
18.0
13.3
9.5
4.9
5.3
3.6

6.9
16.6
19.6
14.5
9.4
4.9
5.3
3.2

6.9
16.9
18.8
16.0
9.7
4.9
5.2
3.6

6.8
16.5
18.3
14.9
9.7
4.8
5.2
2.8

6.6
16.2
18.6
14.2
9.4
4.7
5.0
3.1

7.0
17.0
19.0
15.7
9.8
4.9
5.3
3.2

6.6
16.4
17.2
15.9
9.6
4.6
5.0
2.9

6.9
17.2
19.8
15.6
9.7
4.9
5.2
3.4

6.6
16.1
16.7
15.5
9.3
4.7
5.0
2.9

6.8
16.4
18.0
15.5
10.2
4.7
5.1
2.9

Sex and age

6.

Unemployed persons, by reason for unemployment, seasonally adjusted

[Numbers in thousands]
1979

1978

Reason for unemployment

Dec.

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

2,443
735
1,708
912
1,904
826

2,441
752
1,689
900
1,721
824

2,475
779
1,696
828
1,766
858

2,457
791
1,666
864
1,766
808

2,520
839
1,681
847
1,778
800

2,356
725
1,631
940
1,767
824

2,449
816
1,633
857
1,753
781

2,526
797
1,729
846
1,762
726

2,680
915
1,765
875
1,788
745

2,632
855
1,777
825
1,760
801

2,731
929
1,802
835
1,762
804

2,729
987
1,742
845
1,698
736

2,728
944
1,784
800
1,771
858

100.0
40.1
12.1
28.1
15.0
31.3
13.6

100.0
41.5
12.8
28.7
15.3
29.2
14.0

100.0
41.8
13.1
28.6
14.0
29.8
14.5

100.0
41.7
13.4
28.3
14.7
30.0
13.7

100.0
42.4
14.1
28.3
14.2
29.9
13.5

100.0
40.0
12.3
27.7
16.0
30.0
14.0

100.0
41.9
14.0
28.0
14.7
30.0
13.4

100.0
43.1
13.6
29.5
14.4
30.1
12.4

100.0
44.0
15.0
29.0
14.4
29.4
12.2

100.0
43.7
14.2
29.5
13.7
29.2
13.3

100.0
44.5
15.2
29.4
13.6
28.7
13.1

100.0
45.4
16.4
29.0
14.1
28.3
12.3

100.0
44.3
15.3
29.0
13.0
28.8
13.9

2.4
.9
1.9

2.4
.9
1.7
.8

2.4
.8
1.7
.8

2.4
.8
1.7
.8

2.5
.8
1.7
.8

2.3
.9
1.7
.8

2.4
.8
1.7
.8

2.5
.8
1.7
.7

2.6
.8
1.7
.7

2.5
.8
1.7
.8

2.6
.8
1.7
.8

2.6
.8
1.6
.7

2.6
.8
1.7
.8

NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED
Lost last job ......................................................................................
On layoff ....................................................................................
Other job losers ..........................................................................
Left last jo b ........................................................................................
Reentered labor force ........................................................................
Seeking first jo b ..................................................................................
PERCENT DISTRIBUTION
Total unemployed ..............................................................................
Job 'osers..........................................................................................
Or layoff ....................................................................................
Other job losers ..........................................................................
Job leavers........................................................................................
Reentrants ........................................................................................
New entrants......................................................................................
UNEMPLOYED AS A PERCENT OF
THE CIVILIAN LABOR FORCE
Job losers..........................................................................................
Job leavers........................................................................................
Reentrants ........................................................................................
New entrants......................................................................................

7.

.6

Duration of unemployment, seasonally adjusted

[Numbers in thousands]
Weeks of unemployment

Less than 5 weeks..............................................
5 to 14 weeks ....................................................
15 weeks and over ............................................
15 to 26 weeks............................................
27 weeks and over ......................................
Average (mean) duration, in weeks ......................


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

1979

Annual average

1978

1978

1979

Dec.

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct

Nov.

Dec.

2,793
1,875
1,379
746
633
11.9

2,869
1,892
1,202
684
518
10.8

2,858
1,937
1,217
732
485
10.6

2,751
1,881
1,229
708
521
11.2

2,779
1,877
1,239
700
539
11.3

2,769
1,860
1,291
729
562
11.8

2,876
1,884
1,223
687
536
11.0

2,823
1,919
1,212
705
507
10.9

2,880
1,808
1,152
656
496
10.5

2,820
1,934
1,067
615
452
10.1

3,168
1,738
1,185
658
527
10.7

2,778
2,035
1,152
644
508
10.7

2,955
1,963
1,195
678
517
10.5

2,919
1,869
1,191
660
531
10.6

2,916
1,966
1,230
711
519
10.5

79

EMPLOYMENT, HOURS, AND EARNINGS DATA FROM ESTABLISHMENT SURVEYS

E mployment, hours, and earnings data in this section are
compiled from payroll records reported monthly on a volun­
tary basis to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and its cooperat­
ing State agencies by 162,000 establishments representing all
industries except agriculture. In most industries, the sampling
probabilities are based on the size of the establishment; most
large establishments are therefore in the sample. (An estab­
lishment is not necessarily a firm; it may be a branch plant,
for example, or warehouse.) Self-employed persons and others
not on a regular civilian payroll are outside the scope of the
survey because they are excluded from establishment records.
This largely accounts for the difference in employment figures
between the household and establishment surveys.
Labor turnover data in this section are compiled from per­
sonnel records reported monthly on a voluntary basis to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics and its cooperating State agencies.
A sample of 40,000 establishments represents all industries in
the manufacturing and mining sectors of the economy.

Definitions
Employed persons are all persons who received pay (including holi­
day and sick pay) for any part of the payroll period including the
12th of the month. Persons holding more than one job (about 5 per­
cent of all persons in the labor force) are counted in each establish­
ment which reports them.
Production workers in manufacturing include blue-collar worker
supervisors and all nonsupervisory workers closely associated with
production operations. Those workers mentioned in tables 14-20 in­
clude production wofkers in manufacturing and mining; construction
workers in construction; and nonsupervisory workers in transporta­
tion and public utilities, in wholesale and retail trade, in finance, in­
surance, and real estate, and in service industries. These groups
account for about four-fifths of the total employment on private
nonagricultural payrolls.
Earnings are the payments production or nonsupervisory workers
receive during the survey period, including premium pay for overtime
or late-shift work but excluding irregular bonuses and other special
payments. Real earnings are earnings adjusted to eliminate the effects
of price change. The Hourly Earnings Index is calculated from aver­
age hourly earnings data adjusted to exclude the effects of two types
of changes that are unrelated to underlying wage-rate developments:
fluctuations in overtime premiums in manufacturing (the only sector
for which overtime data are available) and the effects of changes and
seasonal factors in the proportion of workers in high-wage and lowwage industries. Spendable earnings are earnings from which estimat­
ed social security and Federal income taxes have been deducted. The
Bureau of Labor Statistics computes spendable earnings from gross

80


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

weekly earnings for only two illustrative cases: (1) a worker with no
dependents and (2) a married worker with three dependents.
Hours represent the average weekly hours of production or
nonsupervisory workers for which pay was received and are different
from standard or scheduled hours. Overtime hours represent the por­
tion of gross average weekly hours which were in excess of regular
hours and for which overtime premiums were paid.
Labor turnover is the movement of all wage and salary workers
from one employment status to another. Accession rates indicate the
average number of persons added to a payroll in a given period per
100 employees; separation rates indicate the average number dropped
from a payroll per 100 employees. Although month-to-month changes
in employment can be calculated from the labor turnover data, the re­
sults are not comparable with employment data from the employment
and payroll survey. The labor turnover survey measures changes dur­
ing the calendar month while the employment and payroll survey
measures changes from midmonth to midmonth.

Notes on the data
Establishment data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are
periodically adjusted to comprehensive counts of employment (called
“benchmarks”). The latest complete adjustment was made with the re­
lease of September 1979 data, published in the November 1979 issue of
the Review. Consequently, data published in the Review prior to that
issue are not necessarily comparable to current data. Complete compa­
rable historical unadjusted and seasonally adjusted data are published
in a Supplement to Employment and Earnings (unadjusted data from
April 1977 through June 1979 and seasonally adjusted data from Jan­
uary 1974 through June 1979) and in Em ploym ent and Earnings, U nit­
ed States, 1909-78, BLS Bulletin 1312-11 (for prior periods).
Data on recalls were shown for the first time in tables 12 and 13 in
the January 1978 issue of the Review. For a detailed discussion of the
recalls series, along with historical data, see “New Series on Recalls
from the Labor Turnover Survey,” Em ploym ent and Earnings, Decem­
ber 1977, pp. 10-19.
A comprehensive discussion of the differences between household
and establishment data on employment appears in Gloria P. Green,
“Comparing employment estimates from household and payroll sur­
veys,” M o n th ly L a b o r Review, December 1969, pp. 9 -2 0 . See also
B L S H andbook o f Methods f o r Surveys and Studies, Bulletin 1910 (Bu­
reau of Labor Statistics, 1976).
The formulas used to construct the spendable average weekly earn­
ings series reflect the latest provisions of the Federal income tax and
social security tax laws. For the spendable average weekly earnings
formulas for the years 1977-79, see Em ploym ent an d Earnings, Sep­
tember 1979, pp. 6 -8 . Beginning with data for January 1978, real
earnings data are adjusted using the revised Consumer Price Index for
Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers. Data prior to January
1978 are based on the unrevised Consumer Price Index for Urban
Wage Earners and Clerical Workers.

8.

Employment by industry, 1949-78

[Nonagricultural payroll data, in thousands]

Year

Total

Mining

Government

Construc­
tion

Manufac­
turing

Trans­
portation
and
public
utilities

Whole­
sale
and
retail
trade

Wholesale
trade

Retail
trade

Finance,
insur­
ance,
and real
estate

Services
Total

Federal

State
and local

1949
1950

43,754
45,197

930
901

2,194
2,364

14.441
15,241

4,001
4,034

9,264
9,386

2,602
2,635

6,662
6,751

1,828
1,888

5,240
5,357

5,856
6.026

1,908
1,928

3,948
4.098

1951
1952
1953
1954
1955

47,819
48,793
50,202
48,990
50,641

929
898
866
791
792

2,637
2,668
2,659
2,646
2,839

16,393
16,632
17,549
16,314
16,882 ,

4,226
4,248
4,290
4,084
4,141

9,742
10,004
10,247
10,235
10,535

2,727
2,812
2,854
2,867
2,926

7,015
7,192
7,393
7,368
7,610

1,956
2,035
2,111
2,200
2,298

5,547
5,699
5,835
5,969
6,240

6,389
6,609
6,645
6,751
6,914

2,302
2,420
2,305
2,188
2,187

4,087
4,188
4,340
4,563
4,727

1956
1957
1958
1959'
1960

52,369
52,853
51,324
53,268
54,189

822
828
751
732
712

3,039
2,962
2,817
3,004
2,926

17,243
17,174
15,945
16,675
16,796

4,244
4,241
3,976
4,011
4,004

10,858
10,886
10,750
11,127
11,391

3,018
3,028
2,980
3,082
3,143

7,840
7,858
7,770
8,045
8,248

2,389
2,438
2,481
2,549
2,629

6,497
6,708
6,765
7,087
7,378

7,278
7,616
7,839
8,083
8,353

2,209
2,217
2,191
2,233
2,270

5,069
5,399
5,648
5,850
6,083

1961
1962
1963
1964
1965

53,999
55,549
56,653
58,283
60,765

672
650
635
634
632

2,859
2,948
3,010
3,097
3,232

16,326
16,853
16,995
17,274
18,062

3,903
3,906
3,903
3,951
4,036

11,337
11,566
11,778
12,160
12,716

3,133
3,198
3,248
3,337
3,466

8,204
8,368
8,530
8,823
9,250

2,688
2,754
2,830
2,911
2,977

7,620
7,982
8,277
8,660
9,036

8,594
8,890
9,225
9,596
10,074

2,279
2,340
2,358
2,348
2,378

6,315
6,550
6,868
7,248
7,696

1966
1967
1968
1969
1970

63,901
65,803
67,897
70,384
70,880

627
613
606
619
623

3,317
3,248
3,350
3,575
3,588

19,214
19,447
19,781
20,167
19,367

4,158
4,268
4,318
4,442
4,515

13,245
13,606
14,099
14,705
15,040

3,597
3,689
3,779
3,907
3,993

9,648
9,917
10,320
10,798
11,047

3,058
3,185
3,337
3,512
3,645

9,498
10,045
10,567
11,169
11,548

10,784
11,391
11,839
12,195
12,554

2,564
2,719
2,737
2,758
2,731

8,220
8,672
9,102
9,437
9,823

1971
1972
1973
1974
1975

71,214
73,675
76,790
78,265
76,945

609
628
642
697
752

3,704
3,889
4,097
4,020
3,525

18,623
19,151
20,154
20,077
18,323

4,476
4,541
4,656
4,725
4,542

15,352
15,949
16,607
16,987
17,060

4,001
4,113
4,277
4,433
4,415

11,351
11,836
12,329
12,554
12,645

3,772
3,908
4,046
4,148
4,165

11,797
12,276
12,857
13,441
13,892

12,881
13,334
13,732
14,170
14,686

2,696
2,684
2,663
2,724
2,748

10,185
10,649
11,068
11,446
11,937

1976
1977
1978

79,382
82,423
86,446

779
813
851

3,576
3,851
4,271

18,997
19,682
20,476

4,582
4,713
4,927

17,755
18,516
19,499

4,546
4,708
4,957

13,209
13,808
.14,542

4,271
4,467
4,727

14,551
15,303
16,220

14,871
15,079
15,476

2,733
2,727
2,753

12,138
12,352
12,723

'Data Include Alaska and Hawaii beginning in 1959.

9.

Employment by State

[Nonagricultural payroll data, in thousands]
State

Alaska..........................................................................
Arizona ........................................................................
Arkansas ......................................................................
California......................................................................
Co'orado ......................................................................
Connecticut ..................................................................
Delaware......................................................................
District of Columbia........................................................
Florida..........................................................................

Nov. 1978

Oct. 1979

Nov. 1979 p

1 361 7

1,365 0
177.4

1,364.0

973.5

985.0

160.8
924.4

162.1

733.8

755.8

750.4

9,463.0

9,811.6

9,827.7

1,168.0

1,207.8

1,203.4

1,386.7

1,414.5

1,422.9

248.4

250.2

247.9

590.5

596.6

599.1

3,206.3

3,301.0

3,350.1

2,019.0

2,029.1

2,0333

384.2
341 3

399.1
345 4

397.8

Illinois ..........................................................................
Indiana..........................................................................

4,841.7

4,860.8

4,833.0

2,2335

2,258.4

2,243.1

Iowa ............................................................................
Kansas ........................................................................
Kentucky ......................................................................
Louisiana......................................................................
Maine ..........................................................................

1,126.6

1.131.0

1,147.0

931.7

958.8

963.5

Georgia ........................................................................
Hawaii..........................................................................

1,270.2

1,290.0

1,295.6

1,458.5

1,467.9

416.2

413.1

1,626.1

1,632.8

2,557.8

2,602.2

2,614.3

3,706.1

3,6081

3,597.3

1,727.4

1,795.6

1,797.7

832.1

838.9

836.9

1,956.9

1,976.5

1,965.4

Nov. 1978

282 0

Nebraska................................................................
Nevada ..................................................................
New Hampshire ......................................................
New Jersey ............................................................
New Mexico .............................................................
New York................................................................
North Carolina ........................................................
North Dakdta ..........................................................
Ohio ......................................................................
Oklahoma ..............................................................
Oregon ..................................................................

343.0

1,431.6
410.5
1,623.5

Massachusetts..............................................................
Michigan ......................................................................
Minnesota ....................................................................
Mississippi ....................................................................
Missouri........................................................................

State

Rhode Island ..........................................................
South Carolina ........................................................
South Dakota..........................................................
Tennessee ..............................................................
Texas ....................................................................
Utah ......................................................................
Vermont..................................................................

Washington ............................................................
West Virginia ..........................................................
Wisconsin................................................................
Wyoming ................................................................

Oct. 1979

Nov. 1979 p

294.2

291.8

609.9

619.1

368.1

383.3

620.5
384.4

371.8

389.6

387.8

3,025.0

3,053.8

3,056.7

455.0
7.139.0

475.3
7,154.4

7,172.7

2,315.3

2,371.7

2,375.5

240.1
4,490.4

252.0

250.0

4,526.6

4,522.5

1,047.2

1,093.3

474.7

1,098.5

1,029.5

1,072.1

1.066.5

4,738 2

4,735.7

4,745.5

409.6

405.2

406.5

1,150.9

1,174.0

1,175.8

234.4

240.7

1,741.6

2 383
1.737.8

5,369.6

1,740.8
5,594.1

5,621.3

546.2

574.6

576.2

193 5

200.3

197.6

2,0852

2.124.4

2,128.5

1,557.2

1,650.6

1,644.7

639.7

639.9

639.1

1,933.8

2,007.3

2,002.4

195.9

221.2

221.2

’ Revised series; not strictly comparable with previously published data.


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

81

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Current Labor Statistics: Establishment Data
10.

Employment by industry division and major manufacturing group

[Nonagricultural payroll data, in thousands]
Annual average

1978

1977

1978

Dec.

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.p

Dec.p

82,423

86,446

88,893

87,128

87,331

88,207

88,820

89,671

90,541

89,618

89,673

90,211

90,678

90,908

91,179

813

851

916

910

915

926

932

944

968

976

986

980

982

985

992

1979

Industry division and group

TOTAL
MINING
CONSTRUCTION

3,851

4,271

4,402

3,998

3,957

4,226

4,413

4,662

4,881

4,993

5,048

4,984

4,976

4,877

4,688

MANUFACTURING
Production workers ......................................

19,682
14,135

20,476
14.714

20,902
15.047

20,763
14,910

20,775
14,908

20,887
14,993

20,907
15,002

20,988
15,061

21,234
15,240

20,965
14,946

20,996
14,960

21,192
15,172

21,094
15,082

20,974
14,961

20,975
14,969

Durable goods
Production workers ......................................

11,597
8,307

12,246
8,786

12,616
9,081

12,561
9,016

12,579
9,018

12,664
9,081

12,697
9,105

12,739
9,129

12,877
9,223

12,712
9,031

12,598
8,907

12,805
9,116

12,737
9,058

12,669
8,991

12,694
9,019

Lumber and wood products ..........................
Furniture and fixtures....................................
Stone, clay, and glass products ....................
Primary metal industries................................
Fabricated metal products ............................
Machinery, except electrical..........................
Electric and electronic equipment..................
Transportation equipment..............................
Instruments and related products ..................
Miscellaneous manufacturing ........................

721.9
464,3
668.7
1,181.6
1,582.8
2,174.7
1,878.0
1,871.5
615.1
438.4

752.4
491.1
698.0
1,212.7
1,673.4
2,319.2
1,999.5
1,991.7
653.5
454.0

753.9
498.4
703,6
1,243.0
1,723,6
2,415.7
2,062.4
2,087.6
675.6
452.3

739.0
497.0
681.6
1,243.8
1,716.0
2,428.7
2,060.9
2,075.2
677.5
441.2

737.7
495.2
680.6
1.244.8
1,715.6
2,446.4
2,071,0
2,062.7
680.2
444.8

745.5
491.8
697.2
1,251.1
1,719.8
2,459.5
2.082.6
2,083.9
683.2
. 449.0

748.8
487.8
706.6
1,259.0
1,723.7
2,468,0
2,086,1
2,082.2
686.5
448.0

763.8
483.9
718.6
1,258.6
1,727.8
2,463.6
2,095.2
2,091.8
686,5
448.9

783.2
484.2
733.1
1,274.3
1,749.0
2,491.2
2,128.2
2,077.9
698.8
457.4

776,8
475.5
727.1
1,260.7
1,715.7
2,485.1
2,111.7
2,027.7
692.9
438.6

780.0
483.5
728.2
1,244.5
1,716.1
2,467.1
2,089.5
1,933.2
695.3
460.6

776.3
485.3
723.6
1,244.3
1,735.3
2,496.4
2,136.1
2,051.0
692.7
4638

771.3
487.6
721.0
1,225.1
1,738.3
2,447.2
2,143.7
2,040.9
695.4
466.9

749.9
488.3
713.0
1,217.2
1,737.4
2,447.4
2,145.8
2,011.8
695.9
462.5

731.4
488,1
700.4
1,218.5
1,731.6
2,468.0
2,163.8
2,046.4
701.7
444.1

Nondurable goods
Production workers ......................................

8,086
5,828

8,230
5,928

8,286
5.966

8,202
5,894

8,196
5,890

8,223
5,912

8,210
5,897

8,249
5,932

8,357
6,017

8,253
5,915

8,398
6,053

8,387
6,056

8,357
6,024

8,305
5,970

8,281
5,950

Food and kindred products............................
Tobacco manufactures ................................
Textile mill products......................................
Apparel and other textile products ................
Paper and allied products ............................
Printing and publishing..................................
Chemicals and allied products ......................
Petroleum and coal products ........................
Rubber and miscellaneous plastics products
Leather and leather products ........................

1,711.0
70.7
910.2
1,316.3
691.6
1,141.4
1,073.7
202.3
713.5
254.8

1.72Î.2
69.6
900.2
1,332.5
700.9
1.193.1
1,096.3
208.7
751.9
255.6

1,717.2
73.9
899.9
1,327.4
704.1
1,226.4
1,103.0
209.0
773.5
251.5

1,678.0
69.8
896.3
1,313.6
700.0
1,221.0
1,100.0
2058
771.0
246.3

1,658.1
66.4
896.4
1,320.6
703.4
1,225,7
1,099.7
206.4
773.8
245.1

1,666.9
64.4
894.4
1,326.6
708.8
1,229.5
1,103.9
208.3
774.4
245.7

1,657.3
625
890.4
1,323.7
710.8
1,231.0
1,106.7
210.8
772.0
245.1

1,669.6
61.9
892.5
1,327.5
712.7
1,234.7
1,110.9
212.9
777.0
249.2

1,716,6
62.1
900.4
1,333.1
724.6
1,243.4
1,126.6
216.8
779.4
253.7

1,737.8
62.1
875.5
1,278.7
719.6
1,245.8
1,123.0
218.0
767.4
224.7

1,810.0
69.0
890.4
1,308.9
723.3
1,245.4
1,121.2
218.3
765,8
245.8

1,814.1
72.2
888.9
1,309.1
718.5
1,246.1
1,114.9
218.1
762.0
243,1

1,766.8
71.9
889.8
1317.0
717.7
1,254.5
1,115.0
218.1
762.6
243.1

1,726.5
64.6
891 8
1,304.8
715.8
1,265.5
1,116.6
217.3
759.2
242.6

1,703.4
669
893.3
1,295.2
716.4
1,273.5
1,122.3
214.7
753.6
241.7

TRANSPORTATION AND PUBLIC UTILITIES

4,713

4,927

5.084

5,010

5,028

5,060

4,989

5,125

5,231

5,200

5,210

5,242

5,244

5,253

5,255

18,516

19,499

20,523

19,765

19,548

19,690

19,957

20,119

20,222

20,118

20,137

20,260

20,314

20,575

20,978

4,708

4,957

5,092

5,066

5,067

5,098

5,112

5,146

5,211

5,208

5,211

5,206

5,235

5,249

5,262

13,808

14,542

15,431

14,699

14,481

14,592

14,845

14,973

15,011

14,910

14,926

15,054

15,079

15,326

15,716

4,467

4,727

4,832

4,829

4,845

4,870

4,900

4,936

5,003

5,032

5,053

5,002

5,013

5,031

5,055

SERVICES

15,303

16,220

16,547

16,353

16,545

16,749

16,897

17,039

17,239

17,314

17,312

17,225

17,292

17,297

17,298

GOVERNMENT
Federal........................................................
State and local ............................................

15,079
2,727
12,352

15,476
2,753
12,723

15,687
2,733
12,954

15,500
2,730
12,770

15,718
2,738
12,980

15,799
2,740
13,059

15,825
2,750
13,075

15,858
2,773
13,085

15,763
2,824
12,939

15,020
2,838
12,182

14,931
2,844
12,087

15,326
2,751
12,575

15,763
2,756
13,007

15,916
2,760
13,156

15,938
2,770
13,168

WHOLESALE AND RETAIL TRADE
WHOLESALE TRADE
RETAIL TRADE
FINANCE, INSURANCE, AND REAL ESTATE

82


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

11.

Employment by industry division and major manufacturing group, seasonally adjusted

[Nonagricultural payroll data, In thousands]
1979

1978
Industry division and group

TOTAL

Dec.

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.p

Dec.p

88,133

88,433

88,700

89,039

89,036

89,398

89,626

89,713

89,762

89,803

89,982

90,109

90,426

922

927

937

940

940

944

949

956

968

973

979

984

999

4,469

4,497

4,486

4,614

4,559

4,648

4,662

4,688

4,674

4,671

4,694

4,712

4,759

MANUFACTURING
Production workers..................................................................

20,881
15,021

20,958
15,085

21,025
15,128

21,073
15,153

21,066
15,134

21,059
15,112

21,063
15,096

21,079
15,090

20,957
14,956

20,949
14,957

20,899
14,894

20,846
14,838

20,954
14,944

Durable goods
Production workers..................................................................

12.583
9,042

12£40
9,085

12,715
9,138

12,751
9,158

12,752
9,146

12,739
9,119

12,760
9,123

12,786
9,124

12,714
9,044

12,737
9,066

12,650
8,972

12,597
8,918

12,660
8,980

Lumber and wood products ............................................................
Furniture and fixtures......................................................................
Stone, clay, and glass products ......................................................
Primary metal industries..................................................................
Fabricated metal products ..............................................................
Machinery, except electrical............................................................
Electric and electronic equipment ....................................................
Transportation equipment................................................................
Instruments and related products ....................................................
Miscellaneous manufacturing ..........................................................

765
494
710
1,247
1,718
2,404
2,050
2,063
674
458

768
497
709
1,250
1,725
2,419
2,065
2,069
679
459

. 768
496
712
1,256
1,733
2,437
2,079
2,094
682
458

769
493
718
1,259
1,732
2,450
2,093
2,094
685
458

761
490
714
1,260
1,732
2,466
2,101
2,084
689
455

762
487
715
1,254
1,730
2,471
2,106
2,077
688
449

757
485
715
1,257
1,737
2,484
2,124
2,057
693
451

753
488
711
1,256
1,730
2,500
2,131
2,073
694
450

752
484
710
1,245
1,714
2,492
2,092
2,079
695
451

758
480
708
1,236
1,716
2,496
2,117
2,086
692
448

760
482
709
1,226
1,723
2,455
2,125
2,025
696
449

752
483
705
1,223
1,725
2,445
2,125
1,996
694
449

742
484
707
1,222
1,726
2,456
2,151
2,022
700
450

Nondurable goods
Production workers..................................................................

8,298
5,979

8,318
6,000

8,310
5,990

8,322
5,995

8,314
5,988

8,320
5,993

8,303
5,973

8,293
5,966

8,243
5,912

8,212
5,891

8,249
5,922

8,249
5,920

8,294
5,964

Food and kindred products..............................................................
Tobacco manufactures ..................................................................
Textile mill products........................................................................
Apparel and other textile products ..................................................
Paper and allied products ..............................................................
Printing and publishing . ................................................................
Chemicals and allied products ........................................................
Petroleum and coal products ..........................................................
Rubber and miscellaneous plastics products ....................................
Leather and leather products ..........................................................

1,736
69
899
1,333
703
1,218
1,106
211
770
253

1,735
68
900
1,339
706
1,225
1,109
211
774
251

1,729
68
899
1,327
711
1,229
1,108
212
779
248

1,736
69
897
1,324
716
1,232
1,108
213
780
247

1,728
69
892
1,325
717
1,234
1,111
213
781
244

1,725
70
893
1,324
714
1,236
1,114
213
784
247

1,720
69
892
1,312
715
1,242
1,119
212
775
247

1,707
68
892
1,324
718
1,250
1,116
212
777
229

1,696
64
886
1,302
717
1,247
1,111
213
764
243

1,691
65
884
1,294
714
1,245
1,110
215
751
243

1,707
65
887
1,299
715
1,252
1,113
217
751
243

1,711
60
887
1,291
714
1,262
1,115
217
750
242

1,722
62
892
1,300
716
1,265
1,126
217
751
243

MINING
CONSTRUCTION

TRANSPORTATION AND PUBLIC UTILITIES
WHOLESALE AND RETAIL TRADE
WHOLESALE TRADE
RETAIL TRADE

5,054

5,071

5,094

5,116

5,024

5,130

5,190

5,169

5,194

5,180

5,218

5,227

5,224

19,858

19,965

20,016

20,054

20,088

20,129

20,116

20,122

20,126

20,169

20,243

20,303

20,300

5,077

5,102

5,118

5,134

5,138

5,156

5,180

5,182

5,185

5,190

5,209

5,233

5,246

14,781

14,863

14,898

14,920

14,950

14,973

14,936

14,940

14,941

14,979

15,034

15,070

15,054

4,847

4,868

4.884

4,899

4,915

4,936

4,958

4,972

5,003

4,997

5,018

5,041

5,070

SERVICES

16,630

16,670

16,763

16,833

16,880

16,954

17,051

17,092

17,141

17,191

17,257

17,314

17,385

GOVERNMENT
Federal..........................................................................................
State and local ..............................................................................

15,472
2,734
12,738

15,477
2,758
12,719

15,495
2,757
12,738

15,510
2,757
12,753

15,564
2,758
12,806

15,598
2,770
12,828

15,637
2,788
12,849

15,635
2,785
12,850

15,699
2,813
12,886

15,673
2,762
12,911

15,674
2,770
12 904

15,682
2,771
12,911

15,735
2,787
12,948

FINANCE, INSURANCE, AND REAL ESTATE


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

83

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Current Labor Statistics: Establishment Data
12.

Labor turnover rates in manufacturing, 1976 to date

[Per 100 employees]
Year

Annual
average

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

4.2
4.3
4.4
4.3

5.1
5.3
5.4
4.9

4.4
4.6
4.9
4.4

3,5
3.9
4.3
4.1

2.9
3.1
3.3
p2.9

2.2
2.4
2.4

2.9
3.0
3.3
3.1

3.6
4.0
4.2
3.7

3.2
3.5
3.9
3.4

2.5
3.0
3.5
3.1

1.9
2.2
2.6
p2.1

1.3
1.6
1,7

1.1
.9
.8
.9

1.1
1.0
.9
.9

8
.8
.7
.8

.7
.6
.6
.7

.7
.6
.5
p.6

.7
.6
.5

4.3
4.3
4.1
4.3

4.9
5.1
5.3
5.7

4.7
4.9
4.8
4.7

4.1
3.8
4.1
4.2

3.4
3.4
3.5
p3.8

3.5
3.4
3.4

1.9
1.9
2.1
2.0

2.8
3.1
3.5
3.3

2.5
2.8
3.1
2.7

1.7
1.9
2.3
2.1

1.2
1.5
1.7
01.5

1.0
1.2
1.3

1.6
1.5
1.0
1.4

1.1
1.0
8
1.3

1.3
1.1
.8
1.1

1.5
1.1
.9
1.2

1.5
1.1
1.0
p1.5

1.8
1.5
1.4

Nov.

Dec.

Total accessions
1976
1977
1978
1979

..............................................
..............................................
..............................................
..............................................

3.9
4.0
4.1

3.9
3.7
3.8
4.0

3.5
3.7
3.2
3.4

4.2
4.0
3.8
3.8

3.9
3.8
4.0
3.9

4.5
4.6
4.7
4.7

1976
1977
1978
1979

..............................................
..............................................
..............................................
..............................................

2.6
2.8
3.1

2.1
2.2
2.5
28

2.1
2.1
2.2
2.5

2.7
2.6
2.7
2.8

2.6
2.7
2.9
2.9

3.1
3.5
3.6
3.6

1976
1977
1978
1979

..............................................
..............................................
..............................................
..............................................

1.0
.9
.7

1.4
1.2
1.0
.9

4.8
4.9
4.9
4.8
New hires
3.6
3.7
3.9
3.8
Recalls

1.0
1.3
.7
.7

1.2
1.1
.8
.7

1.0
.9
.8
.7

1.0
.8
.8
8

.9
.8
.7
.7
Total separations

1976
1977
1978
1979

..............................................
..............................................
..............................................
..............................................

3.8
3.8
3.9

3.7
3.9
3.6
3.8

3.0
3.4
3.1
3.2

3.5
3.4
3.5
3.6

3.4
3.5
3.7
3.8

3.6
3.4
3.6
3.6

3.6
3.5
3.8
3.9
Quits

1976
1977
1978
1979

..............................................
..............................................
..............................................
..............................................

1.7
1.8
2.1

1.3
1.4
1.5
1.8

1.2
1.3
1.4
1.6

1.6
1.6
1.8
1.9

1.7
1.7
2.0
2.0

1.7
1.9
2.1
2.1

1976
1977
1978
1979

..............................................
..............................................
..............................................
..............................................

1.3
1.1
.9

1.6
1.7
1.2
1.1

1.0
1.4
.9
.8

1.1
1.0
.9
.8

1.1
.9
.8
.9

.9
.8
.7
.7

1.8
1.9
2.2
2.1
Layoffs

13.

.9
.8
.7
.8

Labor turnover rates in manufacturing, by major industry group

[Per 100 employees]
Accession rates
Major industry group

84

Total

Separation rates

New hires

Recalls

Total

Quils

Nov.
1978

Oct.
1979

Nov.
1979 p

Nov.
1978

Oct.
1979

Nov.
1979 p

Nov.
1978

Oct.
1979

Nov.
1979 p

Nov.
1978

Oct.
1979

Nov.
1979 p

MANUFACTURING..................................
Seasonally adjusted..............

3.3
4.4

4.1
4.1

2.9
3.9

2.6
3.4

3.1
2.9

2.1
2.8

0.5

0.7

0.6

3.5
4.0

4.2
3.9

3.8
4.1

Durable goods..................................
Lumber and wood products..........
Furniture and fixtures ..................
Stone, clay, and glass products . . .
Primary metal industries ..............
Fabricated metal products............
Machinery, except electrical..........
Electric and electronic equipment ..
Transportation equipment ............
Instruments and related products ..
Miscellaneous manufacturing........

3.1
4.6
5.0
2.8
2.3
3.4
2.7
3.0
2.8
2.8
3.9

3.7
5.1
5.5
3.5
2.6
4.4
3.0
3.3
3.5
3.1
6.2

2.6
3.2
4.0
2.7
2.0
2.9
2.3
2.5

2.4
4.0
4.4
2.3
1.4
2.8
2.2
2.3
1.8
2.4
3.3

2.8
4.4
4.8
2.8
1.5
3.5
2.5
2.6
2.1
2.6
5.2

1.9
2.5
3.3
1.9
1.1
2.3
1.8
1.9

.4
.4
.3
.3
.6
.4
.2
.3
.6
.2
.4

.6
.5
.5
.5
.7
.7
.3
.3
1.1
.2
.7

.5
.5
,6
.6
.7
.5
2
.3

3.0
4.9
5.1
3.5
2.1
3.6
2.1
2.7
2.4
2.2
7.0

3.6
6.4
5.2
4.2
3.5
4.4
2.7
3.1
2.9
2.7
6.2

3.5
6.5
4.6
4.4
3.2
3.9
2.4
2.8

Nondurable goods
Food and kindred products ..........
Tobacco manufacturers................
Textile mill products ....................
Apparel and other products..........
Paper and allied products ............
Printing and publishing..................
Chemicals and allied products . . . .
Petroleum and coal products........
Rubber and miscellaneous
plastics products......................
Leather and leather products........

3.7
5.0
4.0
4.0
4.3
2.1
3.3
1.3
1.3

4.7
6.5
2.9
5.1
6.1
2.9
3.8
1.7
2.3

3.4
4.6

3.6
4.9
1.6
4.1
4.5
2.2
3.4
1.4
2.1

.8
1.3
.7
.6
1.5
.4
.4
.2
.1

.5
1.2
.4
.5
.2
.1

4.2
6.7
4.8
4.3
5.3
2.4
2.9
1.3
1.9

5.0
8.3
4.7
4.9
6.1
2.8
3.4
1.7
2.0

4.2
6.0

3.0
' 3.0
1.4
2.6
1.0
1.3

.7
1.3
2.1
.5
1.0
.3
.5
.2
.0

.7
1.2

4.7
4.5
1.9
3.1
1.4
1.5

2.8
3.5
1.6
3.2
3.2
1.6
2.8
1.0
1.1

4.2
5.6

4.9
7.2

3.5
5.1

3.4
4.2

3.9
5.6

2.5
3.7

.5
1.1

.7
1.2

.6
1.0

4.5
6.8

5.3
7.2


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

2.5
3.4

2.0
2.7
2.5
3.2

.2
.6

Layoffs

Oct.
1979

Nov.
1979 p

Nov.
1978

Oct.
1979

Nov.
1979 p

' 1.7
2.2

2.1
2.0

1.5
1.9

1.0
.9

1.2
1.1

1.5
1.3

1.5
3.0
3.2
1.6
.7
1.8
1.1
1.3
1.0
1.3
2.5

1.7
3.5
3.2
1.9
.9
2.1
1.3
1.6
1.1
1.6
3.4

1.3
2.4
2.4
1.5
.7
1.5
1.0
1.3

.7
.8
.7
1.1
.6
1.0
.3
.5
.6
.4
3.2

1.0
1.8
.7
1.4
1.7
1.4
.5
.5
.9
.5
1.5

1.4
3.0
1.0
2.2
1.9
1.6
.6
.7

4.1
5.7
2.6
2.9
1.4
1.9

2.1
2.9
1.1
2.5
2.7
1.1
1.9
.6
.6

2.7
4.0
1.2
3.1
3.4
1.3
2.2
.8
.8

2.4
2.6
9
1.8
6
.7

1.4
3.1
3.2
.8
1.7
6
.5
.4
.7

1.5
3.3
2.6
.7
1.8
.7
.5
.4
.6

.8
2.4
1.0
.5
.4
.7

5.1
6.7

2.4
3.8

2.8
4.5

2.1
3.0

1.0
2.0

1.2
1.6

2.1
2.7

2.3
6.5

Nov.
1978

1.1
2.5
1.9
2.5

.5
3.1
1.6
2.7

14.

Hours and earnings, by industry division, 1947-78

[Gross averages, production or nonsupervisory workers on nonagricultural payrolls]

Year

Average
weekly
earnings

Average
weekly
hours

Average
hourly
earnings

Average
weekly
earnings

Average
weekly
hours

Average
hourly
earnings

Average
weekly
earnings

Average
hourly
earnings

Average
weekly
earnings

Average
weekly
hours

Average
hourly
earnings

Manufacturing

Construction

Mining

Total private

Average
weekly
hours

1947
1948
1949
1950

..................
..................
..................
..................

$45.58
49.00
50.24
53.13

40.3
40.0
39.4
39.8

$1,131
1,225
1.275
1.335

$59,94
65.56
62.33
67.16

40,8
39.4
36.3
37.9

$1.469
1.664
1.717
1.772

$58.87
65.27
67.56
69.68

38.2
38.1
37.7
37.4

$1,541
1.713
1.792
1.863

$49.17
53.12
53.88
58.32

40.4
40.0
39.1
40.5

$1,217
1.328
1.378
1.440

1951
1952
1953
1954
1955

..................
..................
..................
..................
..................

57.86
60.65
63.76
64.52
67.72

39.9
39.9
39.6
39.1
39.6

1.45
1.52
1.61
1.65
1.71

74.11
77.59
83.03
82.60
89.54

38.4
38.6
38.8
38.6
40,7

1.93
2.01
2.14
2.14
2.20

76.96
82.86
86.41
88.91
90.90

38.1
38.9
37.9
37.2
37.1

2.02
2.13
2.28
2.39
2.45

63.34
66.75
70.47
70,49
75.30

40.6
40.7
40.5
39.6
40,7

1.56
1.64
1.74
1.78
1.85

1956 ..................
1957 ..................
1958 ..................
1959' ................
1960 ..................

70.74
73.33
75.08
78.78
80.67

39.3
388
38.5
39.0
38.6

1.80
1.89
1.95
2.02
2.09

9506
98.25
96.08
103.68
105.04

40.8
40.1
38.9
40.5
40.4

2.33
2.45
2.47
2.56
2.60

96.38
100.27
103.78
108.41
112.67

37.5
37.0
368
37.0
36.7

2.57
2.71
2.82
2.93
3.07

78.78
81.19
82.32
88.26
89.72

40.4
39.8
39.2
40.3
39.7

1.95
2.04
2.10
2.19
2.26

1961
1962
1963
1964
1965

..................
..................
..................
..................
..................

82.60
85.91
88.46
91.33
95.45

38.6
38.7
38.8
38.7
38.8

2.14
2.22
2.28
2.36
2.46

106.92
110.70
114.40
117.74
123.52

40.5
41.0
41.6
41.9
42.3

2.64
2.70
2.75
2.81
2.92

118.08
122.47
127.19
132.06
138.38

369
37.0
37.3
37.2
37.4

3.20
3.31
3.41
3.55
3.70

92.34
96.56
99 23
102.97
107.53

39.8
40.4
40.5
40.7
41.2

2.32
2.39
2.45
2.53
2.61

1966
1967
1968
1969
1970

..................
..................
..................
..................
..................

98.82
101.84
107.73
114.61
119.83

38.6
38.0
37.8
37.7
37.1

2.56
2.68
2.85
3.04
3.23

130.24
135.89
142.71
154.80
164.40

42.7
42.6
42.6
43.0
42.7

3.05
3.19
3.35
3.60
3.85

146.26
154.95
164.49
181.54
195.45

37.6
37.7
37.3
37.9
37.3

3.89
4.11
4.41
4.79
5.24

112.19
114.49
122.51
129.51
133.33

41.4
40,6
40.7
40.6
39.8

2.71
2.82
3.01
3.19
3.35

1971
1972
1973
1974
1975

..................
..................
..................
..................
..................

127.31
136.90
145.39
154.76
163.53

36.9
37.0
36.9
36.5
36.1

3.45
3.70
3.94
4.24
4.53

172.14
189.14
201.40
219.14
249.31

42.4
42.6
42.4
41.9
41.9

4.06
4.44
4.75
5.23
5.95

211.67
221.19
235.89
249.25
266.08

37.2
36.5
36.8
36.6
36.4

5.69
6.06
6.41
6.81
7.31

142.44
154.71
166.46
176.80
190.79

39.9
40.5
40.7
40.0
39.5

3.57
3.82
4.09
4.42
483

1976 ..................
1977 ..................
1978 ..................

175.45
189.00
203.70

36.1
36.0
35.8

4.86
5.25
5.69

273.90
301.20
332.11

42.4
43.4
43.3

6.46
6.94
7.67

283.73 ■
295.65
31832

36.8
36.5
368

7.71
8.10
8.65

209.32
228.90
249.27

40.1
40.3
40.4

5.22
568
6.17

Trans portation and public
utilities

1964 ..................
1965 ..................

Finance, insurance, and
real estate

Wholesale and retail trade

Services

$3807
40.80
42 93
44.55

40.5
40.4
40.5
40.5

$0,940
1.010
1.060
1.100

$43.21
45.48
47 63
50.52

37.9
37.9
37.8
37.7

$1,140
1.200
1.260
1.340

47 79
49 20
51.35
53 33
55.16

40 5
40.0
39 5
39.5
39.4

1.18
1.23
1.30
1.35
1.40

54.67
57.08
59.57
62.04
63.92

37.7
37.8
37.7
37.6
37.6

1.45
1.51
1.58
1,65
1.70

57.48
59 60
61 76
64 41
66 01

39.1
38.7
38 6
38.8
38.6

1.47
1.54
1.60
1.66
1.71

65.68
67.53
70.12
72.74
75.14

36.9
36.7
37.1
37.3
37.2

1.78
1.84
1.89
1.95
2.02

38.3
38.2
38.1
37.9
37.7

1.76
1.83
1.89
1.97
2.04

77.12
80.94
84.38
85.79
88.91

36.9
37,3
37.5
37.3
37.2

2.09
2.17
2.25
2.30
2.39

$70.03
73.60

361
35.9

$1.94
2.05

$118.78
125.14

41.1
41.3

$2.89
3.03

67 41
69 91
72.01
74.66
76.91

1966
1967
1968
1969
1970

..................
..................
..................
..................
..................

128.13
130.82
138.85
147.74
155.93

41.2
40.5
40.6
40.7
40.5

3.11
3.23
3.42
3.63
3.85

79.39
82.35
87.00
91.39
96.02

37.1
36.6
36.1
35.7
35.3

2.14
2.25
2.41
2.56
2.72

92.13
95.72
101.75
108.70
112.67

37.3
37.1
37.0
37.1
36.7

2.47
258
2.75
2.93
3.07

77.04
80 38
83.97
9057
96.66

355
35.1
34.7
34.7
34.4

2.17
2.29
2.42
2.61
2.81

1971
1972
1973
1974
1975

..................
..................
..................
..................
..................

168.82
187.86
203.31
217 48
233.44

40.1
40.4
40.5
40.2
39.7

4.21
4.65
5.02
5.41
5.88

101.09
106.45
111.76
119.02
126.45

35.1
34.9
34.6
34.2
33.9

2.88
3.05
3.23
3.48
3.73

117.85
122.98
129.20
137.61
14819

36.6
36.6
366
36.5
36.5

3.22
3.36
3.53
3.77
4.06

103.06
110.85
117.29
126 00
134.67

33.9
339
338
33.6
33.5

3.04
3.27
3.47
3.75
4.02

1976 ..................
1977 ..................
1978 ..................

256.71
278.90
302.80

39.8
39,9
40.0

6.45
699
7.57

133.79
142.52
153.64

33.7
33.3
32.9

3.97
4.28
4.67

155.43
165.26
178.36

36.4
36.4
36.4

4.27
4.54
4.90

143.52
153.45
163.67

33.3
33.0
32.8

4.31
465
4.99

’ Data include Alaska and Hawaii beginning in 1959.


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

85

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Current Labor Statistics: Establishment Data
15.

Weekly hours, by industry division and major manufacturing group

[Gross averages, production or nonsupervisory workers on private nonagricultural payrolls]
Annual Average

1978

1979

Industry division and group
1977

1978

Dec.

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

TOTAL PRIVATE..........................................

36.0

35.8

36.1

35.2

35.4

35.7

35.1

35.5

35.9

36.0

36.0

35.8

35.7

35.6

35.9

MINING ............................................................

43.4

43.3

43.4

42.4

42.6

42.9

42.6

428

43.3

41.7

43.1

43.5

43.7

43.8

43.9

CONSTRUCTION................................................

36.5

36.8

37.0

34.6

35.4

37.0

35.5

37.2

37.9

37.7

38.0

37.9

37.6

36.5

37.1

MANUFACTURING
Overtime hours......................................

40.3
3.5

40.4
3.6

41.4
3.9

40.1
3.5

40.2
3.5

40.6
3.6

38.9
2.5

40.1
3.3

40.4
3.4

39.9
3.2

40.0
3.3

40.3
3.6

40.3
3.4

40,4
3.4

41.0
3.4

Durable goods
Overtime hours......................................

41.0
3.7

41.1
3.8

42.3
4.3

40.9
3.8

41.1
3.9

41.4
3.9

39.3
2.6

40.8
3.6

41.0
3.6

40.4
3.4

40.4
3.4

40.8
3.6

40.8
3.5

40.9
3.5

41.7
3.5

Lumber and wood products ..........................
Furniture and fixtures ....................................
Stone, clay, and glass products......................
Primary metal industries................................
Fabricated metal products ............................

39.8
39.0
41.3
41.3
41.0

39.8
39.3
41.6
41.8
41.0

40.1
40.1
42.2
42.5
42.2

38.5
38.3
40.5
42.2
40.8

39.0
38.1
40.6
42.1
40.9

39.7
39.0
41.8
41.9
41.3

39.1
37.5
41.1
41.7
38.8

39.6
38.2
41.9
41.4
40.7

40.2
38.8
42.1
41.6
41.0

39.4
38.0
41.5
41.3
40.3

39.9
38.6
41.7
40.8
40.5

40.1
39.0
41.7
41.3
40.8

39.8
39.3
41.7
40.9
41.0

39.2
39.2
41.7
40.7
40.9

40.0
39.7
42.0
40.9
41.8

Machinery except electrical............................
Electric and electronic equipment ..................
Transportation equipment..............................
Instruments and related products ..................
Miscellaneous manufacturing ........................

41.5
40.4
42.5
40.6
38.8

42.0
40.3
42.2
40.9
38.8

43.6
41.3
44.5
41.7
39.4

42.1
40.3
41.9
40.6
38.6

42.5
40.5
42.1
41.0
38.6

42.6
40.7
42.3
41.3
39.2

40.3
38.8
37.9
40.0
37.6

41.7
40.2
41.6
40.8
38.5

42.0
40.5
41.3
40.7
39.0

41.2
39.6
40.9
40.3
38.7

41.3
39.7
40.5
40.3
38.9

41.9
40.5
40.7
40.7
39.3

41.6
40.3
41.3
40.8
39.3

41.9
40.8
40.8
41.3
39.6

42.9
41.4
42.7
41.8
39.7

Nondurable goods
Overtime hours......................................

39.4
3.2

39.4
3.2

39.9
3.3

38.9
3.0

38.9
3.0

39.3
3.1

38.2
2.5

39.1
2.9

39.4
3.0

39.2
3.0

39.4
3.2

39.6
3.5

39.4
3.2

39.6
3.3

40.0
3.3

Food and kindred products............................
Tobacco manufactures..................................
Textile mill products......................................
Apparel and other textile products..................
Paper and allied products..............................

40.0
378
40.4
35.6
42.9

39.7
38.1
40.4
35.6
42.9

40.3
38.8
40.8
35.8
43.4

39.5
36.1
39.9
34.6
42.6

39.2
36.2
39.9
34.9
42.2

39.6
38.1
40.4
35.4
42.6

39.0
37.6
38.6
33.9
41.6

39.6
38.9
40.1
35.1
42.4

39.8
39.0
40.6
35.6
42.8

40.1
36.1
39.9
35.4
42.5

40.3
37.6
40.3
35.6
42.6

40.6
39.1
40.8
35.4
42.7

40.0
38.8
40.8
35.5
42.6

40.1
38.9
41.2
35.6
42.9

40.4
39.4
41.7
36.0
43.5

Printing and publishing ..................................
Chemicals and allied products........................
Petroleum and coal products ........................
Rubber and miscellaneous plastics products
Leather and leather products ........................

37.7
41.7
42.7
41.0
36.9

37.6
41.9
43.6
40.9
37.1

38.3
42.3
43.7
42.0
37.1

37.1
41.7
42.8
41.1
36.3

37.3
41.7
42.7
41.2
35.9

37.7
41.9
43.8
41.4
35.9

36.8
41.9
43.9
39.4
35.3

37.3
41.8
43.7
40.5
36.4

37.4
41.8
43.4
40.7
37.1

37.4
41.7
44.1
40.2
36.9

37.9
41.8
43.6
40.0
36.6

37.9
41.8
44.7
40.5
36.8

37.5
41.7
44.1
40.5
36.5

37.9
42.1
44.7
40.2
36.8

38.2
42.4
44.1
40.5
37.1

TRANSPORTATION AND PUBLIC UTILITIES

39.9

40.0

40.2

39.6

39.9

39.8

39.0

39.6

40.0

40.0

40.3

39.9

39.9

40.0

40.2

WHOLESALE AND RETAIL TRADE

33.3

32.9

33.1

32.0

32.1

32.4

32.5

32.4

32.9

33.3

33.2

32.7

32.5

32.4

32.9

WHOLESALE TRADE

38.8

38.8

39.1

38.4

38.4

38.9

38.6

38.9

39.0

39.0

38.9

38.8

38.9

39.0

39.2

RETAIL TRADE

31.6

31.0

31.3

29.9

30.1

30.3

30.6

30.4

31.0

31.5

31.4

30.7

30.4

30.4

30.9

FINANCE, INSURANCE, AND REAL
ESTATE
SERVICES

86


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov."

Dec. p

36.4

36.4

36.3

36.4

36.4

36.3

36.4

36.1

36.2

36.4

36.2

36.3

36.3

36.4

36.4

. 33.0

32.8

32.5

32.4

32.4

32.6

32.5

32.5

32.9

33.3

33.2

32.7

32.6

32.6

32.7

16.

Weekly hours, by industry division and major manufacturing group, seasonally adjusted

[Gross averages, production or nonsupervisory workers on private nonagricultural payrolls]
1979

1978
Industry division and group

TOTAL PRIVATE ..............................................
MINING

Dec.

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.p

Dec.p

358

35.8

35.7

35.9

35.3

35.7

356

35.6

35.6

35.7

35.6

35.7

35.7

43.4

43.4

43.1

43.1

42.9

42.8

43.0

41.6

43.2

43.1

43.1

43.3

43.9

368

37.2

37.5

36.6

36.8

37.1

CONSTRUCTION

37.0

37.1

36.6

37.1

35.5

37.1

37.2

MANUFACTURING
Overtime hours............................................

40,6
3.7

40.6
3.7

40.6
3.7

40.6
3.7

39.1
2.7

40.2
3.5

40.1
3.4

40.2
3.3

40.1
3.2

40.2
3.2

40.2
3.2

40.1
3.2

40.3
3.3

Durable goods
Overtime hours............................................

41.4
4.0

41.4
4.1

41.4
4,1

41.4
4.0

39.5
2.7

40.9
3.8

40.7
3.6

40.7
3.5

40.7
3.3

40.7
3.3

40.8
3.3

40.6
3.4

408
3.3

Lumber and wood products ................................
Stone, clay, and glass products ..........................
Primary metal industries......................................
Fabricated metal products ..................................

39.9
39.2
41.9
42.2
41.3

39.9
38.9
41.8
42.3
41.1

39.6
38.8
41.6
42.2
41.3

40.0
39.1
42.0
42.0
41.3

39.1
38.1
41.2
41.8
39.1

39.4
38.5
41.7
41.4
40.7

39.4
38.5
41.6
41.2
40.7

39.3
38.4
41.4
41.3
40.8

39.5
38.3
41.3
41.0
40.6

39.7
38.6
41.5
41.0
40.7

39.4
38.8
41.3
41.1
40.9

39.3
38.9
41.5
40.7
40.6

39.8
38.8
41.7
40.6
40.9

Machinery, except electrical................................
Electric and electronic equipment ........................
Transportation equipment....................................
Instruments and related products ........................
Miscellaneous manufacturing ..............................

42.4
40.5
42.8
40.9
38.9

42.3
40.5
42.8
41.1
39.0

42.5
40,7
42.7
41.2
39.0

42.4
40.7
42.3
41.2
39.0

40.5
39.0
37.9
403
37.6

42.0
40.4
41.5
40.8
38.6

42.0
40.3
408
40.6
38.9

41.9
40.2
40.9
40.7
39.3

41.6
39.8
41.7
40.5
39.1

41.9
40.3
40.6
40.6
39.1

41.6
40.3
41.3
40.7
39.1

41.6
40.5
40.6
40.9
39.1

41.7
40.6
41.1
41.0
39.2

Nondurable goods
Overtime hours............................................

39.4
3.2

39.5
3.2

393
3.2

39.4
3.3

38.6
2.7

39.2
3.0

39.2
3.0

39.2
3.0

39.2
3.0

39.3
3.1

39.3
3.0

39.4
3.2

39.5
3.2

Food and kindred products..................................
Tobacco manufactures ......................................
Textile mill products............................................
Apparel and other textile products ......................
Paper and allied products ..................................

39.9
38.1
40.4
35.5
42.8

40.0
37.2
40,7
35.3
42.8

39.8
36.9
40.1
35.4
42.7

40.0
38.0
40.3
35.4
42.8

39.6
37.6
38.8
34.2
41.8

39.8
38.9
40.0
35.2
42.6

398
37.6
40.1
35.2
42.5

39.8
38.5
40.1
35.5
42.5

39.7
38.0
40.1
35.3
42.6

400
38.6
40.6
35.3
42.4

39.9
38.3
40.8
35.3
42.6

39.9
37.7
41.0
35.3
42.7

40.0
38.7
41.2
35.7
42.9

Printing and publishing........................................
Chemicals and allied products ............................
Petroleum and coal products ..............................
Rubber and miscellaneous plastics products ........
Leather and leather products ..............................

37.6
41.8
43.8
41.2
36.7

37.7
42.0
43.5
41.4
36.8

37.7
42.0
43.6
41.2
364

37.7
41.9
44.0
41.3
36.3

37.1
41.7
43.9
39.7
35.6

37.4
41.9
43.7
40.9
361

37.4
41.7
43.3
40.7
36.4

37.5
41.9
43.6
40.6
36.6

37.7
42.0
43.7
40.2
36.5

37.5
41.7
44,1
40.3
37.0

37.4
41.7
43.7
40.3
36.5

37.6
41.9
44.3
39.9
36.7

37.5
41.9
44.2
39.7
36.7

TRANSPORTATION AND PUBLIC UTILITIES

40.0

40.0

40.0

40.0

39.2

39.8

39.8

39.7

39.9

39.9

39.9

40.0

40.0

WHOLESALE AND RETAIL TRADE

32.8

32.5

32.5

32.7

32.8

32.6

32.6

32.6

32.5

32.6

32.6

32.7

32.6

WHOLESALE TRADE ..............................................

38.9

38.7

38.7

39.0

38.7

39.0

38.8

38.8

38.7

38.7

38.8

39.0

39.0

RETAIL TRADE ......................................................

30.9

306

30.6

30.7

30.9

30.6

30.6

306

30,5

307

30.6

307

30.5

FINANCE, INSURANCE, AND REAL
ESTATE ..............................................................

36.3

36.3

36.4

36.4

36.5

36.1

36.2

36.3

36.1

36.4

36.2

36.5

36.4

SERVICES

32.6

32.6

32.6

32.8

32.7

32.7

32.7

32.8

32.7

32.7

32.6

32.7

32.8


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

87

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Current Labor Statistics: Establishment Data
17.

Hourly earnings, by industry division and major manufacturing group

[Gross averages, production or nonsupervisory workers on private nonagricultural payrolls]
Annual average

1978

1979

Industry division and group

TOTAL PRIVATE..........................

1977

1978

Dec.

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov."

Dec.p

$6.34

$6.38

$5.25

$5.69

$5.91

$5.97

$6.00

$6.02

$6.03

$6.09

$6.12

$6.16

$6.19

$6.31

$6.32

MINING

6.94

7.67

8.06

8.20

8.21

8.27

8.54

8.45

8.49

8.52

8.48

8.57

8.57

8.70

8.76

CONSTRUCTION........................

8.10

8.65

8.92

898

9.02

8.97

9.02

9.14

9.13

9.24

9.32

9.51

949

9.50

9.52

MANUFACTURING ..........................

5.68

6.17

6.48

6.49

6.52

6.56

6.54

6.63

6.66

6.71

6.69

6.80

6.82

6.87

6.97

Durable goods
Lumber and wood products ......................
Furniture and fixtures..........................
Stone, clay, and glass products ......................
Primary metal industries................................
Fabricated metal products ..................

6.06
5.10
4.34
5.81
7.40
5.91

6.58
5.60
4.68
6.32
8.20
6.34

6.93
5.79
4.86
6.58
8.56
6.62

6.92
5.79
4.87
6.57
8.62
6.60

6.96
5.83
4.93
6.58
8.75
6.65

6.99
5.84
4.95
6.64
8.75
6.72

6.95
5.90
4.94
6.73
8.92
6.62

7.07
5.97
4.97
6.78
8.83
6.77

7.11
6.16
5.05
6.85
8.91
6.81

7.15
6.23
5.04
6.89
9.04
6.80

7.12
6.23
5.10
6.90
9.10
6.83

7.24
6.32
5.18
6.98
9.16
6.93

7.25
6.24
5.20
7.00
9.10
6.96

7 29
624
5 22
706
9 27
7.00

7 42
6 25
5 28
706
9 35
7.11

Machinery, except electrical............................
Electric and electronic equipment ....................
Transportation equipment........................
Instruments and related products ....................
Miscellaneous manufacturing ..................

6.26
5.39
7.28
5.29
4.36

6.77
5.82
7.91
5.71
4.69

7.15
6.09
8.41
5.95
4.86

7.10
6.11
8.34
5.99
4.93

7.16
6.13
8.35
6.02
4.95

7.19
6.16
8.42
6.04
4.95

7.10
6.11
8.26
6.03
4.96

7.25
6.21
8.56
6.11
5.00

7.34
6.25
8.53
6.11
4.99

7.35
6.27
8.55
6.16
5.03

7.35
6.36
8.44
6.14
5.04

7.48
6.46
8.59
6.21
5.07

7.45
6.48
8.67
6.32
5.12

7 53
652
8 70
6 39
5.14

7 65
6 63
8 88
6 45
5.24

Nondurable goods
Food and kindred products................
Tobacco manufactures......................
Textile mill products............................
Apparel and other textile products ..................
Paper and allied products................................

5.11
5.37
5.54
3.99
3.62
5.96

5.53
5.80
6.13
4.30
3.94
6.52

5.75
6.02
6.18
4.48
4.08
6.79

5.81
6.09
6.36
4.52
4.17
6.80

5.82
6.10
6.53
4.51
4.17
6.83

5.85
6.12
6.64
4.52
4.19
6.88

5.90
6.19
6.80
4.48
4.19
6.92

5.91
6.22
6.83
4.52
4.20
6.96

5.94
6.22
6.82
4.54
4.21
7.05

6.03
6.28
6.83
4.65
4.23
7.17

6.04
6.28
6.59
4.77
4.21
7.22

6.11
6.33
6.54
4.82
4.28
7.32

6.14
6.36
6.43
4 83
4.32
7.34

6 20
6.50
7.01

6 26
6 54
7 02

4 32
7.41

4 38
7.45

Printing and publishing..............................
Chemicals and allied products ........................
Petroleum and coal products ..............
Rubber and miscellaneous plastics products . . .
Leather and leather products ..............

6.12
6.43
7.83
5.17
3.61

6.50
7.01
8.63
5.52
3.89

6.70
7.28
8.89
5.77
4.01

6.72
7.32
9.01
5.82
4.13

6.73
7.32
9.10
5.84
4.14

6.77
7.36
9.31
5.86
4.17

6.72
7.50
9.44
5.82
4.18

6.83
7.47
9.39
5.90
4.18

6.88
7.53
9.32
5.91
4.19

6.90
7.60
9.39
5.95
4.19

6.94
7.65
9.35
5.94
4.22

7.04
7.73
9.51
6.03
4.29

706
7.82
9 49
6 12
4.31

7 10
7 86
9 59
613
4.34

7 16
7 92
9 57
6 23
4.39

7.88

7.94

8.03

8.23

8.32

8.45

8.45

8.49

8.55

TRANSPORTATION AND PUBLIC UTILITIES............

6.99

7.57

7.85

7.90

7.92

7.90

WHOLESALE AND RETAIL TRADE ..................

4.28

4.67

4.81

4.96

4.97

4.98

5.00

5.00

5.02

5.05

5.06

5.13

5.15

5.18

5.17

WHOLESALE TRADE..............................

5.39

5.88

6.14

6.18

6.21

6.23

6.30

6.29

6.34

6.39

6.41

6.51

6.51

6.57

6.64

RETAIL TRADE................................

3.85

4.20

4.31

4.47

4.47

4.47

4.49

4,49

4.50

4.51

4.52

4.58

4.59

4.62

4.59

FINANCE, INSURANCE, AND REAL
ESTATE ....................................

4.54

4.90

5.07

5.13

5.19

5.16

5.23

5.22

5.22

5.29

5.29

5.38

5.37

5.42

5.49

SERVICES....................

4.65

4.99

5.16

5.23

5.27

5.26

5.29

5.27

5.27

5.29

5.30

5.45

5.48

5.53

5.59

18.

Hourly Earnings Index for production or nonsupervisory workers on private nonagricultural payrolls, by industry division

[Seasonally adjusted data: 1967 = 100]
1978

1979

Percent change

Industry
Dec.

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.p

Dec. p

Nov. 1979
to
Dec. 1979

Dec. 1978
to
Dec. 1979

TOTAL PRIVATE (in current dollars) ..

220.9

222.6

224.0

225.2

226.8

227.5

229.0

230.9

232.2

234.3

234.9

237.1

239.1

0.8

8.2

Mining..............................
Construction ......................
Manufacturing ..............................
Transportation and public utilities . . .
Wholesale and retail trade ............
Finance, insurance, and real estate
Services ............................

250.9
213.0
224.2
239.0
214.7
202.1
219.3

252.1
213.8
225.4
240.8
217.7
202.4
220.8

253.7
216.7
227.2
241.7
218.1
204.2
222.2

256.1
216.5
228.7
243.1
219.4
204.8
223.3

264.1
218.1
231.0
241.7
220.9
207.5
225.0

262.7
220.4
232.3
243.7
221.0

266.9
222.1
235.4
251.3
223.8
210.8
227.0

265.6
223.1
236.9
252.6
225.4
211.5
228.4

266.1
224.4
238.7
255.6
227.0
214.4
231.5

268.0
224.0
240.0
255.8
227.4
213.1
232.3

271.4
225.6
242.1
258.0
229.4
216.2
234.6

274.0
226.5
244 2
260.5
230.4
218.4
237.4

.9
.4
9
10
.4
1.0
1.2

92
64

224.3

264.9
220.4
233.9
246.4
222.6
208.0
225.7

108.7

108.5

107.8

107.3

106.9

106.1

105.7

105.6

105.1

104.9

104.2

104.1

( ')

TOTAL PRIVATE (In constant dollars)
1Not available.

88

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

(’ )

90
73
81
8.2
n

19.

Weekly earnings, by industry division and major manufacturing group

[Gross averages, production or nonsupervisory workers on private nonagricultural payrolls]
Annual average

1979

1978

Industry division and group
1977

TOTAL PRIVATE......................................

$189.00

1978

$203.70

Dec.

$213.35

Jan.

Feb.

$210.14

$212.40

Mar.

$214.91

Apr.

$211.65

May

$216.20

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

p

Dec.p

$219.71

$221.76

$222.84

$22590

$225.62

$225.70

$229.04

365.49

372.80

374.51

381.06

384.56

MINING ..............................................................

301.20

332.11

349.80

347.68

349.75

354.78

363.80

361.66

367.62

355.28

CONSTRUCTION ................................................

295.65

318.32

330.04

310.71

319.31

331.89

320.21

340.01

346.03

348.35

354.16

360.43

356.82

346.75

353.19

274.04

274.85

277.55

285.77

MANUFACTURING..............................................

228.90

249.27

268.27

260.25

262.10

266.34

254.41

265.86

269.06

267.73

267.60

Durable goods
Lumber and wood products ..........................
Furniture and fixtures ....................................
Stone, clay, and glass products......................
Primary metal Industries................................
Fabricated metal products ............................

248.46
202.98
169.26
239.95
305.62
242.31

270.44
222.88
183.92
262.91
342.76
259.94

293.14
232.18
194.89
277.68
363.80
279.36

283.03
222.92
186.52
266.09
363.76
269.28

286.06
227.37
187.83
267.15
368.38
271.99

289.39
231.85
193.05
277.55
366.63
277.54

273.14
230.69
185.25
276.60
371.96
256.86

288.46
236.41
189.85
284.08
365.56
275.54

291.51
247.63
195.94
288.39
370.66
279.21

288.86
245.46
191.52
285.94
373.35
274.04

287.65
248.58
196.86
287.73
371.28
276.62

295.39
253.43
202.02
291.07
378.31
282.74

295.80
248.35
204.36
291.90
372.19
285.36

298.16
244.61
204.62
294.40
377.29
286.30

309.41
250.00
209.62
296.52
382.42
297.20

Machinery except electrical............................
Electric and electronic equipment ..................
Transportation equipment..............................
Instruments and related products ..................
Miscellaneous manufacturing ........................

259.79
217.76
309.40
214.77
169.17

284.34
234.55
333.80
233.54
181.97

311.74
251.52
374.25
248.12
191.48

298.91
246.23
349.45
243.19
190.30

304.30
248.27
351.54
246.82
191.07

306.29
250.71
356.17
249.45
194.04

286.13
237.07
313.05
241.20
186.50

302.33
249.64
356.10
249.29
192.50

308.28
253.13
352.29
248.68
194.61

302.82
248.29
349.70
248.25
194.66

303.56
252.49
341.82
247.44
196.06

313.41
261.63
349.61
252.75
199.25

309.92
261.14
358.07
257.86
201.22

315.51
266.02
354.96
263.91
203.54

328.19
274.48
379.18
269.61
208.03

Nondurable goods
Food and kindred products............................
Tobacco manufactures..................................
Textile mill products......................................
Apparel and other textile products..................
Paper and allied products..............................

201.33
214.80
209.41
161.20
128.87
255.68

217.88
230.26
233.55
173.72
140.26
279.71

229.43
242.61
239.78
182.78
146.06
294.69

226.01
240.56
229.60
180.35
144.28
289.68

226.40
239.12
236.39
179.50
145.53
288.23

229.91
242.35
252.98
182.61
148.33
293.09

225.38
241.41
255.68
172.93
142.04
287.87

231.08
246.31
265.69
181.25
147.42
295.10

234.04
247.56
265.98
184.32
149.88
302.74

236.38
251.83
246.56
185.54
149.74
304.73

237.98
253.08
247.78
192.23
149.88
307.57

241.96
257.00
255.71
196.66
151.51
312.56

241.92
254.40
249.48
197.06
153.36
312.68

245.52
260.65
272.69
200.23
153.79
317.89

250.40
264.22
276.59
203.91
157.68
324.08

Printing and publishing ..................................
Chemicals and allied products........................
Petroleum and coal products ........................
Rubber and miscellaneous
plastics products.................. ......................
Leather and leather products ........................

230.72
268.13
334.34

244.40
293.72
376.27

256.61
307.94
388.49

249.31
305.24
385.63

251.03
305.24
388.57

255.23
308.38
407.78

247.30
314.25
414.42

254.76
312.25
410.34

257.31
314.75
404.49

258.06
316.92
414.10

263.03
319.77
407.66

266.82
323.11
425.10

264.75
326.09
418.51

269.09
330.91
428.67

273.51
335.81
422.04

211.97
133.21

225.77
144.32

242.34
148.77

239.20
149.92

240.61
148.63

242.60
149.70

229.31
147.55

238.95
152.15

240.54
155.45

239.19
154.61

237.60
154.45

244.22
157.87

247.86
157.32

246.43
159.71

252.32
162.87

TRANSPORTATION AND PUBLIC UTILITIES

278.90

302.80

315.57

312.84

316.01

314.42

307.32

314.42

321.20

329.20

335.30

337.16

337.16

339.60

343.71

WHOLESALE AND RETAIL TRADE

142.52

153.64

159.21

158.72

159.54

161.35

162.50

162.00

165.16

168.17

167.99

167.75

167.38

167.83

170.09

WHOLESALE TRADE ..........................................

209.13

228.14

240.07

237.31

238.46

242,35

243.18

244.68

247.26

249.21

249.35

252.59

253.24

256.23

260.29

RETAIL TRADE....................................................

121.66

130.20

134.90

133.65

134.55

135.44

137.39

136.50

139.50

142.07

141.93

140.61

139.54

140.45

141.83

FINANCE, INSURANCE, AND REAL ESTATE

165.26

178.36

184.04

186.73

188.92

187.31

190.37

188.44

188.96

192.56

191.50

195.29

194.93

197.29

199.84

180.28

182.79

SERVICES


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

..

153.45

163.67

167.70

169.45

170.75

171.48

171.93

171.28

173.38

176.16

175.96

178.22

178.65

89

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Current Labor Statistics: Establishment Data
20.

Gross and spendable weekly earnings, in current and 1967 dollars, 1960 to date

[Averages for production or nonsupervisory workers on private nonagricultural payrolls]
Private nonagricultural workers

Year and month

1960 ..............................

Gross average
weekly earnings

Manufacturing workers

Spendable average weekly earnings
Worker with no
dependents

Married worker with
3 dependents

Spendable average weekly earnings
Worker with no
dependents

Married worker with
3 dependents

Current
dollars

1967
dollars

Current
dollars

1967
dollars

Current
dollars

1967
dollars

Current
dollars

1967
dollars

Current
dollars

1967
dollars

Current
dollars

1967
dollars

$80.67

$90.95

$65.59

$73.95

$72.96

$82.25

$89.72

$101.15

$72.57

$81.82

$80.11

$90.32

1961
1962
1963
1964
1965

................................
..................................
................................
................................
....................................

82.60
85.91
88.46
91.33
95.45

92.19
94.82
96.47
98.31
101.01

67.08
69.56
71.05
75.04
79.32

74.87
76.78
77.48
80.78
83.94

74.48
76.99
78.56
82.57
86.63

83.13
84.98
85.67
88.88
91.67

92.34
96.56
99.23
102.97
107.53

103.06
106.58
108.21
110.84
113.79

74.60
77.86
79.51
84.40
89.08

83.26
85.94
86.71
90.85
94.26

82.18
85.53
87.25
92.18
96.78

91.72
94.40
95.15
99 22
102.41

1966
1967
1968
1969
1970

....................................
............................
........................
........................
....................................

98.82
101.84
107.73
114.61
119.83

101.67
101.84
103.39
104.38
103.04

81.29
83,38
86.71
90.96
96.21

83.63
83.38
83.21
82,84
82.73

88.66
90.86
95.28
99.99
104.90

91.21
9086
91.44
91.07
90.20

112.19
114.49
122.51
129.51
133.33

115.42
114.49
117.57
117.95
114.64

91.45
92.97
97.70
101.90
106.32

94.08
92.97
93.76
92.81
91.42

99.33
100.93
106.75
111.44
115.58

102.19
100.93
102.45
101.49
99.38

1971..................................
1972 ..................................
1973 ............................
1974 ..................
1975 ................................

127.31
136.90
145.39
154.76
163.53

104.95
109.26
109.23
104,78
101.45

103.80
112.19
117.51
124.37
132.49

85.57
89.54
88.29
84.20
82.19

112.43
121.68
127.38
134.61
145.65

92.69
97.11
95.70
91.14
90,35

142.44
154.71
166.46
176.80
190.79

117.43
123.47
125.06
119.70
118.36

114,97
125.34
132.57
140.19
151.61

94.78
100.03
99.60
94.92
94.05

124.24
135.57
143.50
151.56
166.29

102.42
108.20
107.81
102.61
103.16

1976 ....................................
1977 ..............................
1978 ....................................

175.45
189.00
203.70

102.90
104.13
104.30

143.30
155.19
165.39

84.05
85.50
84.69

155.87
169.93
180.71

91.42
93.63
92.53

209.32
228.90
249.27

122.77
126.12
127.63

167.83
183.80
197.40

98.43
101.27
101.08

181.32
200.06
214.87

106.35
110.23
110.02

1978: December........................

213.35

105.15

172.31

84.92

187.95

92.63

268.27

132.22

210.12

103.56

229.40

113.06

1979: January............................
February..........................
March............................

210.14
212.40
214.91

102.66
102.56
102.68

170.88
172.53
174.35

83.48
83.31
83.30

187.22
188.98
190.93

91.46
91.25
91.22

260.25
262,10
266.34

127.14
126.56
127.25

206.40
207.69
210.65

100.83
100.28
100.65

225.48
226.89
230.10

110.15
109.56
109.94

April ..............................
May ................................
June ................................

211.65
216.20
219.71

99.93
100.89
101.30

171.98
175.29
177.85

81.20
81.80
82.00

188.39
191.93
194.67

88.95
89.56
89.75

254.41
265.86
269.06

12012
124.06
124.05

202.32
210.04
212.51

95.52
98.14
97.98

221.05
229.74
232.17

104.37
107.20
107.04

July..................................
August ............................
September ................

221.76
22284
225.90

101.08
100.60
100.98

179.35
180.13
182.36

81.75
81.32
81.52

196.26
197.11
199.42

89.45
88.99
89.15

267,73
267.60
274.04

122.03
120.81
122.50

211.61
211.52
215.89

96.45
95.49
96.51

231.16
231.06
235.94

105.36
104.32
105.47

October............................
November0 ......................
December0 ................

225.62
225.70
229.04

100.01
99.17
n

182.16
182.22
184.59

80.74
80.06
(’ )

199.21
199.27
201.80

88.30
87.55
( ')

274.85
277.55
285.77

121.83
121.95
(’ )

216.44
218.27
223.85

95.94
95.90
(’ )

236.56
238.61
244.84

104.86
104 84
(' )

NOTE: The earnings expressed in 1967 dollars have been adjusted for changes in price level
as measured by the Bureau's Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers

90

average
weekly earnings


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

(revised). These series are described in "The Spendable Earnings Series: A Technical Note on its
Calculation", Employment and Earnings and Monthly Report on the Labor Force, February 1969,
pp. 6-13, See also "Spendable Earnings Formulas, 1977-79” Employment and Earnings, September
1979, pp 6 8.

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE DATA

ployed. Persons not covered by unemployment insurance (about onethird of the labor force) and those who have exhausted or not yet
earned benefit rights are excluded from the scope of the survey. Ini­
tial claims are notices filed by persons in unemployment insurance
programs to indicate they are out of work and wish to begin receiv­
ing compensation. A claimant who continued to be unemployed a
full week is then counted in the insured unemployment figure. The
rate of insured unemployment expresses the number of insured unem­
ployed as a percent of the average insured employment in a
12-month period.

U n e m p l o y m e n t i n s u r a n c e d a t a are compiled monthly by
the Employment and Training Administration of the U.S. De­
partment of Labor from records of State and Federal unem­
ployment insurance claims filed and benefits paid. Railroad
unemployment insurance data are prepared by the U.S. Rail­
road Retirement Board.

Definitions

An application for benefits is filed by a railroad worker at the be­
ginning of his first period of unemployment in a benefit year; no ap­
plication is required for subsequent periods in the same year. Num­
ber of payments are payments made in 14-day registration periods.
The average amount of benefit payment is an average for all com­
pensable periods, not adjusted for recovery of overpayments or set­
tlement of underpayments. However, total benefits paid have been
adjusted.

Data for all programs represent an unduplicated count of insured
unemployment under the State, Ex-Servicemen, and UCFE programs,
and the Railroad Insurance Act.
Under both State and Federal unemployment insurance programs
for civilian employees, insured workers must report the completion of
at least 1 week of unemployment before they are defined as unem­

21.

Unemployment Insurance and employment service operations
1978
Item

All programs:
Insured unemployment......................
State unemployment insurance
program:1
Initial claims2 ....................................
Insured unemployment (average
weekly volume) ............................
Rate of insured unemployment ..........
Weeks of unemployment
compensated ................................
Average weekly benefit amount
for total unemployment..................
Total benefits paid ............................
Unemployment compensation for exservicemen:3
Initial claims' ....................................
Insured unemployment (average
weekly volume) ............................
Weeks of unemployment
compensated ................................
Total benefits paid ............................
Unemployment compensation for
Federal civilian employees:4
Initial claims......................................
Insured unemployment (average
weekly volume) ............................
Weeks of unemployment
compensated ................................
Total benefits paid ............................
Railroad unemployment insurance:
Applications......................................
Insured unemployment (average
weekly volume) ............................
Number of payments ........................
Average amount of benefit
payment........................................
Total benefits paid ............................
Employment service:8
New applications and renewals
Nonfarm placements ........................

Apr.

Feb.

Dec.

Nov.

June

July

Aug.

Sept

2,164

Oct

2236

2,148

2,567

3,198

3,209

2,921

2,610

2,230

2,119

2,429

1,526

1,882

2,421

1,576

1,396

1,589

1,309

1,400

1,976

1219

1,640

2,300
2.8

2,024
2.4

2,057
2.4

2,009
2.7

2,421
3.2

6,744

7,907

$83.99
$550,691

$85.34
$645,084

23

24

48

50

244
$20,591

228
$21,040

16

18

32

34

135
$11,826

136
$12,174

1,991
2.5

2245
2.7

2,750
3.6

2,440
3.1

10,762

8,956

8,442

7,197

7,889

8,830

6,993

7,638

$88.28
$972,820

$90.31
$915,146

$90.28
$975,641

$89.25
$777,699

$88.37
$725,229

$87.25
$610269

$86.40
$665,687

$88.56
$767,025

$89.07
$606,095

$90.59
$673,927

262
$24,425

219
$20,489

241
$22,794

207
$19,617

214
$20,440

193
$18,623

216
$20,965

234
$22,550

211
$19,634

236
$23,323

158
$14,222

133
$12,256

143
$13,168

112
$10,345

106
$9,330

91
$8,341

96
$8,802

107
$9,829

91
$8,456

109
$10,093

$200.54
$9,871

$204.72
$10,538

$195.55
$7,276

$177.39
$5,681

$183.13
$3,314

$190.10
$3,699

$195.61
$3,767

$189.08
$5,747

$189.61
$8,003

8,059
1,991

9,180
2,291

10,452
2,616

11,907
3,051

13,186
3,482

14,479
3,935

3,037
3.9

15

10

17
33

17
30

$171.54
$5,394

$189.59
$5,678

$200.80
$9,634

3,026
827

414
1,120

5,630
1,414

3,053
4.0

'Initial claims and State insured unemployment include data under the program for Puerto Rican
sugarcane workers.
2 Includes interstate claims for the Virgin Islands. Excludes transition claims under State programs.
3 Excludes data on claims and payments made jointly with other programs.


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

May

2,078
2.6

Nov.

2,559

2,384
2.8

$183.38
$6,462

'Includes the Virgin Islands. Excludes data on claims and payments made jointly with State pro­
grams.
8Cumulative total for fiscal year (October 1 - September 30).
NOTE: Data for Puerto Rico included. Dashes indicate data not available.

91

PRICE DATA

P rice data are gathered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics
from retail and primary markets in the United States. Price
indexes are given in relation to a base period (1967 = 100,
unless otherwise noted).

Definitions
The Consumer Price Index is a monthly statistical measure of the
average change in prices in a fixed market basket of goods and ser­
vices. Effective with the January 1978 index, the Bureau of Labor Sta­
tistics began publishing CPI’s for two groups of the population. One
index, a new CPI for All Urban Consumers, covers 80 percent of the
total noninstitutional population; and the other index, a revised CPI
for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, covers about half the
new index population. The All Urban Consumers index includes, in
addition to wage earners and clerical workers, professional, manageri­
al, and technical workers, the self-employed, short-term workers, the
unemployed, retirees, and others not in the labor force.
The CPI is based on prices of food, clothing, shelter, fuel, drugs,
transportation fares, doctor’s and dentist’s fees, and other goods and
services that people buy for day-to-day living. The quantity and quali­
ty of these items is kept essentially unchanged between major revi­
sions so that only price changes will be measured. Prices are collected
from over 18,000 tenants, 24,000 retail establishments, and 18,000
housing units for property taxes in 85 urban areas across the country.
All taxes directly associated with the purchase and use of items are
included in the index. Because the CPI’s are based on the expendi­
tures of two population groups in 1972-73, they may not accurately
reflect the experience of individual families and single persons with
different buying habits.
Though the CPI is often called the “Cost-of-Living Index,” it mea­
sures only price change, which is just one of several important factors
affecting living costs. Area indexes do not measure differences in the
level of prices among cities. They only measure the average change in
prices for each area since the base period.
Producer Price Indexes measure average changes in prices received
in primary markets of the United States by producers of commodities
in all stages of processing. The sample used for calculating these in­
dexes contains about 2,800 commodities and about 10,000 quotations
per month selected to represent the movement of prices of all com­
modities produced in the manufacturing, agriculture, forestry, fishing,
mining, gas and electricity, and public utilities sectors. The universe
includes all commodities produced or imported for sale in commercial
transactions in primary markets in the United States.
Producer Price Indexes can be organized by stage of processing or
by commodity. The stage of processing structure organizes products
by degree of fabrication (that is, finished goods, intermediate or
semifinished goods, and crude materials). The commodity structure
organizes products by similarity of end-use or material composition.
To the extent possible, prices used in calculating Producer Price In­
dexes apply to the first significant commercial transaction in the Unit­
ed States, from the production or central marketing point. Price data
are generally collected monthly, primarily by mail questionnaire.

92


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Most prices are obtained directly from producing companies on a vol­
untary and confidential basis. Prices generally are reported for the
Tuesday of the week containing the 13th day of the month.
In calculating Producer Price Indexes, price changes for the vari­
ous commodities are averaged together with implicit quantity weights
representing their importance in the total net selling value of all com­
modities as of 1972. The detailed data are aggregated to obtain in­
dexes for stage of processing groupings, commodity groupings, dura­
bility of product groupings, and a number of special composite
groupings.
Price indexes for the output of selected SIC industries measure av­
erage price changes in commodities produced by particular industries,
as defined in the Standard In d u s tria l Classification M a n u a l 1972
(Washington, U.S. Office of Management and Budget, 1972). These
indexes are derived from several price series, combined to match the
economic activity of the specified industry and weighted by the value
of shipments in the industry. They use data from comprehensive in­
dustrial censuses conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census and the
U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Notes on the data
Beginning with the May 1978 issue of the Review, regional CPI’s
cross classified by population size, were introduced. These indexes will
enable users in local areas for which an index is not published to get a
better approximation of the CPI for their area by using the appropri­
ate population size class measure for their region. The cross-classified
indexes will be published bimonthly. (See table 24.)
For further details about the new and the revised indexes and a
comparison of various aspects of these indexes with the. old unrevised
CPI, see Facts A bout the Revised Consumer Price Index, a pamphlet in
the Consumer Price Index Revision 1978 series. See also The
Consumer Price Ind ex: Concepts and Content Over the Years. Report
517, revised edition (Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 1978).
For interarea comparisons of living costs at three hypothetical stan­
dards of living, see the family budget data published in the H andbook
o f L a b o r Statistics, 1977, Bulletin 1966 (Bureau of Labor Statistics,
1977), tables 122-133. Additional data and analysis on price changes
are provided in the C P I D etailed Report and Producer Prices and Price
Indexes, both monthly publications of the Bureau.
As of January 1976, the Wholesale Price Index (as it was then
called) incorporated a revised weighting structure reflecting 1972 val­
ues of shipments. From January 1967 through December 1975, 1963
values of shipments were used as weights.
For a discussion of the general method of computing consumer,
producer, and industry price indexes, see B L S Handbook o f Methods
f o r Surveys an d Studies, Bulletin 1910 (Bureau of Labor Statistics,
1976), chapters 13-15. See also John F. Early, “Improving the mea­
surement of producer price change,” M o n th ly L a b o r Review, April
1978, pp. 7-1 5 . For industry prices, see also Bennett R. Moss, “In­
dustry and Sector Price Indexes,” M o n th ly La bor Review, August
1965, pp. 974-82.

22.

Consumer Price index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, annual averages and changes, 1967-78
_____

[1967 = 100]
Food and
beverages

Other goods
and services

Transportation

1967
1968
1969
1970

100.0
104.2
109.8
116.3

4.2
5.4
5.9

100.0
103.6
108.8
114.7

3.6
5.0
5.4

100.0
104.0
110.4
118.2

4.0
6.2
7.1

100.0
105.4
111.5
116.1

5.4
5.8
4.1

100.0
103.2
107.2
112.7

1971
1972
1973
1974
1975

121.3
125.3
133.1
147.7
161.2

4.3
3.3
6.2
11.0
9.1

118,3
123.2
139.5
158.7
172.1

3.1
4.1
13.2
13.8
8.4

123.4
128.1
133.7
148.8
164.5

4.4
3.8
4.4
11.3
10.6

119.8
122.3
126.8
136.2
142.3

3.2
2.1
3.7
7.4
4.5

118.6
119.9
123.8
137.7
150.6

1976
1977
1978

170.5
181.5
195.3

5.8
6.5
7.6

177.4
188.0
206.2

3.1
6.0
9.7

174.6
186.5
202.6

6.1
6.8
8.6

147.6
154.2
159.5

3.7
4.5
3.4

165.5
177.2
185.8

Percent
change

Percent
change

Percent
change

Percent
change

Percent
change

Percent
change

Percent
change

Percent
change

Apparel and
upkeep

Housing

100 0
105.2
110.4
116.8

106.1
113.4
120.6

6.1

6.9
6.3

100.0
105.7
111.0
116.7

5.2
1.1
3.3
11.2
9.4

128.4
132.5
137.7
150.5
168.6

6.5
3.2
3.9
9.3
12.0

122.9
126.5
130.0
139.8
152.2

5.3
2,9
2.8
7,5
8.9

122.4
127.5
132.5
142.0
153.9

4,8
4.2
3.9
7.2
8.4

9.9
7.1
4.9

184.7
202.4
219.4

9.5
9.6
8.4

159.8
1677
176.2

5.0
4.9
5.1

162.7
172.2
183.2

5.7
5.8
6.4

100.0

23. Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers and revised CPI for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers,
U.S. city average— general summary and groups, subgroups, and selected items
[1967 = 100 unless otherwise specified]
Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (revised)

All Urban Consumers
General summary

1979

1979

1978

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

Nov.

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

All items

202.0

216.6

218.9

221.1

223.4

225.4

227.5

Food and beverages ..............................................
Housing..................................................................
Apparel and upkeep..............................................
Transportation......................................................
Medical care ........................................................
Entertainment ......................................................
Other goods and services......................................

212.5
210.6
164.1
191.4
227.0
179.5
188.8

229.3
225.5
165.7
212.6
237.7
188.2
194.5

230.7
228.4
164.3
216.6
239.9
189.1
195.2

230.2
231.5
166 3
219.6
241.8
190.2
197.0

231.0
234.6
169.8
221.4
243.7
191.1
201 7

232.1
237.7
171.0
2227
245.9
192.0
202.3

233.1
240.8
171.7
224.9
248.0
192.8
202.9

212.4
210.1
164.0
191.9
226.8
178.8
188.2

229.3
225.5
165.3
213.7
238.2
187.5
194.3

230.9
228.4
164.5
217.8
240.5
188.6
195.1

230.4
231.5
1662
220.7
242.6
188.9
197.2

231 2
234.5
169 3
2224
244.7
190.2
200.6

232.3
237.7
170.8
223.4
247.2
191.4
201.4

233.1
240.7
171.3
225.7
249.1
192.0
202.0

Commodities........................................................
Commodities less food and beverages ............
Nondurables less food and beverages..........
Duraoles....................................................

192.9
181.4
181.1
180.0

208.4
196.0
200.5
191.1

210.5
198.4
204.2
192.6

212.2
200.9
208.8
193.6

214.1
203.3
213.2
194.5

215.6
204.9
214.9
196.0

217.4
206.9
216.6
198.4

192.9
181.2
181.2
179.8

208.7
196.3

211.0

190.8

198.8
205.6
192.2

2126
201.3
210.5
192.9

214.4
203.5
214.8
193.5

215.8
205.0
216.6
194.8

217.4
2069
218.1
196.9

Services ..............................................................
Rent, residential..........................................
Household services less rent ......................
Transportation services................................
Medical care services..................................
Other services............................................

218.6
168.5
245.0
202.2
244.1
190.5

232.1
174.7
264.5
210.9
255.9
1984

2347
175.9
268.6
212.6
258.5
199.3

237.6
177.5
272.8
214.9
260.6
200.5

240.7
179.0
2767
216.6
262.8
204.7

243.6
181.4
280.7
2t8.5
265.3
205.7

246.2
182.1
284.6
221.5
267.6
206.5

218.3
168.4
244.8
202.5
243.6
190.5

232.3
174.7
265.6
211.6
256.1
198.7

235.1
175.8
269.8
213.3
258.8
2001

237.9
177.3
274.1
215.3
261.2
201.2

241.0
178.9
278.2
216.8
263.8
204.9

244.0
181.2
2823
2186
266.8
2064

246.7
181.9
2863
221.5
268.8
207.3

All items less food ................................................
All Items less mortgage interest costs ....................
Commodities less food..........................................
Nondurables less food ..........................................
Nondurables less food and apparel........................
Norourabies ........................................................
Services less rent ................................................
Services less medical ca re ....................................
Domestically produced farm foods ........................
Selected beef cuts................................................
Energy ................................................................
All items less energy ............................................
All Items less food and energy ....................
Commodities less food and energy............
Energy commodities ................................
Services less energy................................

197.8
197.9
180.3
179.1
190.0
197.5
227.8
214.5
205.9
213.7
2259
200.4
195.3
176.2
220.2
2174

211.8
211.0
194.7
197.6
217.0
215.7
242.6
228.0
224.9
2683
275.4
212.2
205.8
184.8
284.9
229.9

214.2
213.0
197.0
201.1
2228
218.3
245.6
230.6
2259
2678
287.1
213.8
2073
185.6
300 8
232.4

216.9
214.7
199.5
2054
228.3
220.4
248.8
2336
223.5
253.0
296.3
215.4
209.4
186.8
314.5
235.4

219.6
216.7
201.8
209.6
232.7
223.1
252 1
236.7
223.7
255.3
304.3
217.3
211.5
188.2
325.3
238.4

221 8
2183
203.4
211.3
234.8
224.5
255.1
239.6
224.1
257 3
307.5
219.2
213.6
189 6
329.0
241,3

224.1
219.8
205.4
212.9
236.8
225.8
258.2
242.3
224.5
256.5
307.8
221.4
216.1
191.4
332.5
244.6

197.5
197.7
180.1
179.2
190.1
197.6
227.4
214.2
205.8
215.6
226,0
200.2
195.0
175.9
220.5
217.1

212.0
211.5
194.9
198.6
218.0
216,3
243.0
228.2
2246
269.9
277.3
212.3
205.5
184.5
286.2
230.1

214.6
213.7
. 197.4
202.5
223.9
219.2
246.1
231 0
2258
270.1
2892
2139
207.2
185.4
301.9
232.7

217.3
215.3
199.9
207.0
229.7
221.3
249.2
233.9
223.4
255.5
298.8
215.3
209.0
186.4
315.8
235.7

219.8
217.2
202.0
211.0
234.2
223.9
252.6
236.9
223.6
258.0
3070
2170
211.0
187.5
326.5
2387

222.0
218.7
203.5
212.9
236.3
225.3
255.7
2399
224.0
259.1
310.2
218.8
213.0
188.7
330.2
241.7

224.2
220.1
205.4
214.4
238.2
226.5
258.8
242.6
224.4
259.2
310.7
221.0
2154
190.4
3338
245.1

Purchasing power of the consumer dollar, 1967 = $1

$0,495

$0,462

$0,457

$0,452

$0448

$0,444

$0,440

$0,496

$0,461

$0456

$0,451

$0,447

$0,443

$0,439

227.6

201.6

Special Indexes:


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

93

M O N T H L Y LA BO R REV IEW February 1980 •

23.

Continued

[1 9 6 7

7 100 u nless o th e rw ise specified]

Consumer Price Index

C u r r e n t L a b o r S ta tis tic s :

C o n s u m e r P r ic e s

U.S. city average
All Urban Consumers

General summary

1978

Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (revised)

1979

1978

Nov,

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

BEVERAGES

212.5

229.3

230.7

230.2

231.0

232.1

Food

217,8

235.4

236.9

236,3

237 1

238.2

Food at home ...................
Cereals and bakery products . .
Cereals and cereal products (12/77

100)

Flour and prepared flour mixes (12/77
Cereal (12/77

100)

100) ...................

Rice, pasta, and cornmeal (12/77 - 100)
Bakery products (12/77

100)

,

White b r e a d ..........................
Other breads (12/77

7

100)

............

Fresh biscuits, rolls, and muffins (12/77
Fresh cakes and cupcakes (12/77
Cookies (12/77
100) ..............

100)

100)
100)
100) ,

.

1979

Nov.

June

233.1

212.4

229.3

230.9

230.4

231.2

232.3

233.1

239.1

217.7

235.4

237.1

236.5

237.3

238.3

239.1

July

Aug.

100)

7

Meats, poultry, fish, and e g g s .................
Meats, poultry, and f i s h ..........................
Meats ...........................................
Beef and v e a l..................................

Oct.

Nov.

216.1

234.2

235.5

233.9

234.7

235.4

236.0

215.9

233.6

235.0

233,5

234.2

234 8

235 4

217.8

220.1

223.7

225.6

227.0

228.7

207.6

218.2

221.1

224.1

226 6

227 9

229 7

110.6

115.5

116.6

118.5

120.0

120.8

121.1

110.6

115.4

117.0

119.0

1 2 0 .6

121 4

122 1

111.0

117.8

119.4

122.5

123.4

124.0

122.8

111.8

118.4

120.3

123.3

125.1

125.0

124 6

109.6

115.8

117.0

118.0

118.8

119.7

118.7

119.3

111.7

112.8

113.6

115.7

118.6

119.2
120,4

121.6

110.9

111.8

113.4

115.8

119.1

120.8

122 7

108.9

115.2

116.4

118.3

119.2

119.9

121.0

109.6

115.5

117.0

118.5

119.7

1 2 0 .3

1 2 1 .3

181.1

190.3

194.2

202.5

204.5

203 9

109.6

116.0

117.4

118.5

1199

198.4

200.7

198.0

200.5

2 0 2 .3

109.7

115.3

116.2

118.6

119.6

120.5

121.3

111.0

117.1

118.5

120.8

122.5

123 8

109.3

115.8

116.1

118.1

119.0

119.4

121.2

109.8

115.4

115.8

117.7

1186

1187

120 8

107.9

114.0
114.1

114.8

116.6

116.7

117.6

119.4

108.6

114.8

115.9

116,3

116.8

118 1

119 1

114.8

115.6

115.9

116.6

117.1

181.7

108.9

189.5

116.2

194.3

117.2

117.2

1178

1183

107.2

112.2

112.7

114.7

114.8

115.0

114,5

107.3

112.7

112.9

114.9

114.9

1150

107.3

115.9

116.0

117.5

118.8

118.9

119.9

108.8

117.8

117.8

119.3

121 6

120 7

109.7

117.6

119.8

120.8

121.7

122.5

123.7

109.9

113.9

116.5

117.1

118.6

118.8

214.0

239.8

239.0

■ 230.2

231.0

230.3

230.2

213.9

239.0

238.3

229.6

230.5

229.7

235.2
237.4

Frozen and refrigerated bakery products
and fresh pies, tarts, and turnovers (12/77

Sept.

206.6

107 8

Crackers and bread and cracker products (12/77
Fresh sweetrolls, coffeecake, and donuts (12/77

Nov.

218.0

246,1

245.0

235.8

236.0

235.9

217.6
212.5

249.6
266.9

248.0
266.4

237.8
251.9

238.1
254.2

238.6
256.2

274.5

260.3

124 2

1 2 0 .8

230 0

217.8

245.3

244.2

235.3

235.4

235.3

235.0

248.8

255.5

217.5
214.4

268.2

247.4
268.4

237.6
254.1

237.7
256.4

238.1
257.5

237.3
257 7

Ground beef other than canned , ..
Chuck roast ...............................

261.4

263.4

264.2

213.9

278.8

274.7

261.9

263.5

265.8

266.0

215.1

279.7

280.5

257.5

261.0

263.3

263.1

221.5

286.0

288.7

Round roast

264.0

267.9

268.3

273.1

193.0

236.8

239.1

222.2

229.2

212.2

.........................................

278.7

230.3

Round steak ...............................

200.5

250.0

248.1

238.1

239.2

242.2

229.1
241.9

201.6

247.5

Sirloin steak

246.4

235.4

235.7

239.4

239.7

214.9

259.8

260.7

247,5

251.0

250,4

247.0

213.8

261.1

260.7

247.3

253.9

249 6

247 4

124.2

151.3

151.8

145.0

145.6

147.1

146.3

124.9

151.6

152.8

146.0

146.6

147.0

146.6

204.7

201.5

.................

Other beef and veal (12/77
P o r k .............................

100) ,

194.7

240.0

242.7

225.9

231.0

233.0

232.7

222.6

217.2

215.1

207,4

206.5

204.3

201.0

221.5

217.2

Bacon ................................................

214.9

207,6

206.1

222 1

203.9

200.0

192.5

194.0

190.5

186.3

222.1

206.0

201.6

195.0

195.6

194.4

188.7

196.2
94.9

196.1

194.9

188 1

9 4 .0

9 5 .4

258.1

255.8

215.8

214.6

Pork chops .............................

209.7

206.4

207.7

195.3

198.1

195.1

188.8

208.9

207.4

209.2

Ham other than canned (12/77 7 100) .
Sausage ..................................................

108 8

99.5

97.2

96.4

95.2

94.8

95.9

108.3

97.0

96.1

269.8

276.1

270.4

263.8

258.4

257.6

254.5

Canned ham ..........................

263.2

224.4

221.1

214.8

222.3

218.9

215.3

124.2

118.3

216.6
117.4

218.2

120.7

226.0
124.4

276.0
226.4

269.5

227.8

266.3
226.4

94,3
258.4

115.2

112.9

120.1

124.4

123.2

118.4

117.5

115.1

112.7

219.4

248.9

245.1

240.2

240.7

242.0

241.0

239 9

236.6

238.0

238.5

249.3

243.2

235.9

236.8

238.9

216.6
214,6

245.2

215.1

243.5
241.9

249.0

243.0

242.6

236.1

237 7

237 2

122.2

136.7

135.4

134.3

133.2

134.2

133.4

120.3

133.4

132.3

129.7

129.5

130 7

130 4

113.9

123.1

122.0

122.7

121.6

120.3

121.6

111.7

120.6

119.4

120.8

119.0

1188

1195

118.5

143.9

141.0

137.6

135.6

137.9

136.9

138.8

1 3 9 .8

176.0

187.2

186.2

177.1

174.8

170.3

171.6

174.9

185.1

184.0

174.3

172.8

175.5

185.8

184.1

171.3

169.9

159.7

166 7

172 6

181.5

179.6

166.7

165.8

168.3
157 7

163 3

112.3

120.3

119.4

112.1

111.8

110.1

110.8

112.3

120.1

119.1

111.1

110.9

108.4

1107

Other pork (12/77

1 0 0 ) ............

Other m e a ts ........................
Frankfurters

........................

Bologna. Iiverwurst, and salami (12/77
Other lunchmeats (12/77

100)

1 0 0 ) .........

Lamb and organ meats (12/77 - 100)
Poultry ........................
Fresh whole chicken

..

........................

Fresh and frozen chicken parts (12/77
Other poultry (12/77
100) . .
Fish and seafood ........................
Canned fish and seafood (12/77

100)

100) , . .

7

Fresh and frozen fish and seafood (12/77
100)
E g g s .........................................................................................
Dairy P r o d u c ts ...............................

137.7

138.3

117.7

145.9

141.1

170 1

116.3

123.4

123.6

123.0

119.2

120.3

115.9

116.4

122.7

123,2

122,1

119.8

119.8

1160

285.4

301.0

306.5

309.7

311.5

312,2

2825

295.9

298 3

301.4

304.4

110.3

112.7

113.9

116.8

106.6

109.2

110.2

111.5

1135

306 5
114 5

307 5

107.3

304.3
111.4

120.1

108.2

114.9

115.7

116.9

117.5

118.1

117.8

170.1

167.8

161.6

165.4

160.5

170.5

160.3

169.6

109.5

117.2

118.6

119.2

120.4

115.2
120.7

167.0

161.9

165.8

161.8

170.7

161,3

193.2

205.5

206.3

213.3

1160

208.6

211.3

216.0

193.5

205.9

206.7

Fresh milk and cream (12/77 77 100)
Fresh whole m ilk ........................

208.9

212.0

214 0

216 3

108.9

115.7

116.1

117.7

119.0

120.3

121.9

108.8

116.0

116.3

117.9

119.5

1 2 0 .4

121 8

178.4

189.4

190.0

192.8

195.4

197.6

200.4

178.3

189.8

190.3

193.0

Other fresh milk and cream (12/77 7 1 0 0 )
Processed dairy products (12/77 7 100) . .
B u tte r.........................................

195.6

197 4

199 7

108.5

115.6

116.3

117.4

118.1

119.2

120.6

108.4

1160

116.5

117.7

1193

1198

109.7

116.8

117.3

118.2

120.1

120.9

122.3

110.2

117.0

117.6

118.4

120.5

1 2 1 .7

190.7

199.9

200.6

213.3

214.4

191.1

202.0

212.3

216.6

117.7

120.1

121.0

122.7

109.6

116.3

202.6
117.4

205.7

116.9

203.0
118.4

209.9

109.4

Cheese (12/77

1 0 0 ) ..............

123.0
217 1

118.4

120.2

121 1

122 5

109.4

116,9

117.0

117.8

120.1

120.4

121.4

110.7

117.8

118,4

118.1

120 7

1219

123 4

107.7

114.5

114.5

115.4

115.5

116.4

117.8

108.0

114.6

114.3

115.4

115.6

116.9

118.2

210.4

233.8

238.1

237.8

231.8

232.0

229.5

208.2

231.5

Fresh fruits and v e g e ta b le s............

236.6

230 2

226 7

243.3

249.4

247.5

234.7

235.5

230.1

205.0

240.4

248.1

237.0
247.9

229.6

207.7

Fresh f r u it s ...............................

232.9

233 6

226.7

215.9
197.4

266.0

278.2

286.9

271.6

260.4

242.7

212.4

261.1

288.9

271.2

260.6

238.3

232.9

250.2

275.2

244.7

212.7

207.2

192.2

233.7

278.2
248.4

Bananas .....................

275.9

243.1

212.9

207.7

175.4

225.3

221.0

202.3

210.3

206.6

209.0

221.7

Oranges ........................

218.5

202.5 ■

208.4

199.7

206.5

274.5

311.5
141.4

313.5

316.2

312.3

306.7

293.9

176.3
261.2

293.0

306.1

298.6

291.8

290 3

283 3

157.5

147.1

143.9

109.5

140.7

154.2

163.5

149.7

125.7

209.4

216.4

Ice cream and related products (12/77
Other dairy products (12/77

7

100)

100)

7

.........

Fruits and vegetables ......................

Apples

......................................

Other fresh fruits (12/77
100)
Fresh vegetables .................

109.1
200.1

222.0

151.3
222.4

210.7

200.3

212.2

127.5
218.4

198.4

221.8

221.0

211.0

152.3
198.4

221.5

225.7

211.4

199.3

191.1

195.7

191.8

224,3

L e ttu c e ................................................

191.3
2232

227.9

212.1

1934

183.8

191.7

193.1

200.0

235.7

219.6

262.9

244.2

221.0

186.0

T o m a to e s ..................................

195.9

240.3

222.9

182.7

222.0

185.8

187.0

178,5

194.4

225.3

181.9

223.0

189.4

185.6

179.2

264,2
194 1

225 4

110.0

128.1

132.1

113.8

109.5

114.0

119.1

108.4

128,7

130.2

113.3

108.0

1 1 2 .5

118.9

215.3

225.4

227.8

2292

230.6

231.0

225.8

226.9

2279

118.5

114,3

114.3

115.5

116.3

116.3

121.2
116.6

110.1

117.0
114.4

113.6

119.0
114.4

228 3
120 3

228 6

117.6

213.6
110.4

223.5

110.5
110.5

230.1
120.4

114.9

1152

108.5

115.6

117.0

117.9

119.3

119.8

122.1

109.3

115.1

117.4

118.2

1197

120 7

122 4

112.7

123.8
110.4

125.0
110.7

125.5
111.2

124.6
1109

124.2.
110.9

111.9

123.8

124 0

109.3

109.5

123.9
109.9

124 0

104.5

121.2
108.1

122.7

105.7

122.5
108.9

109.8

109 4

106.0

107.1

109.6

109.7

109.8

110.2

110.2

105.3

107.7

109.7 I

109.9

109.4

110.2

109.6

Potatoes

......................................

Other fresh vegetables (12/77
Processed fruits and vegetables , ,
Processed fruits (12/77

77

100) . . . .
,

100) .

Frozen fruit and fruit juices (12/77

77

100)

Fruit juices and other than frozen (12/77
Canned and dried fruits (12/77 77 1 0 0 )
Processed vegetables (12/77
100)
Frozen vegetables (12/77 = 100)

94


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

..

.,

100)

119.7

120.6

I

118.1

119.8

239.0

115 7

23.

Continued

Consumer Price Index — U.S. city average

[1967 - 100 unless otherwise specified]
Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (revised)

All Urban Consumers
General summary

1979

1978

1979

1978
Nov.

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

Nov.

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

Fruits and vegetables Continued
Cut corn and canned beans except lima (12/77 100) . . .
Other canned and dried vegetables (12/77 -1 0 0 ) ............
Other foods at hom e......................................................................
Sugar and sweets..........................................................................
Candy and chewing gum (12/77 - 100) ....................................
Sugar and artificial sweeteners (12/77 -1 0 0 )......................
Other sweets (12/77 =100) ..............................................
Fats and oils (12/77 -100) ......................................................
Margarine ........................................................................
Nondairy substitutes and peanut butter (12/77 100) ..........
Other fats, oils, and salad dressings (12/77 100) ..............
Nonalcoholic beverages ..........................................................
Cola drinks, excluding diet c o la ..........................................
Carbonated drinks, including diet cola (12/77 " 1 0 0 )............
Roasted coffee ................................................................
Freeze dried and instant coffee..........................................
Other noncarbonated drinks (12/77 --100)..........................
Other prepared foods ..............................................................
Canned and packaged soup (12/77 100)..........................
Frozen prepared foods (12/77 100)..................................
Snacks (12/77 ’ 0 0 )........................................................
Seasonings, olives, pickles, arid relish (12/77 100)............
Other condiments (12/77 -100) ........................................
Miscellaneous prepared foods (12/77 100) ......................
Other canned and packaged prepared foods (12/77 100) . .

108.0
104.5
255.9
263.8
110 9
110.8
107.5
216.9
232.1
107.6
112.3
340.9
224.0
109.8
370.6
345.0
108.5
195.6
105.0
110,3
105.2
110.8
107.7
109.3
109.3

113.2
107.7
267.1
277.4
117.4
115.4
112.6
226.3
239.1
112.8
117.8
350.4
237.9
115.3
347.3
3302
113.4
207.8
112.6
119.2
113.3
114.4
113 6
115.1
115.6

114.3
108.8
269.5
279.4
118.5
115.4
113.8
227.4
240.2
113.7
118.3
354.6
238.3
115.6
376.5
335.6
113.1
209.1
113.2
121.4
114.0
115.0
114.3
115.3
115.8

113.9
109.7
272.8
281.0
119.4
115.6
114.6
228,9
240.3
114.0
119.7
361.8
239.2
116.2
411.7
349.5
114.2
210.5
113.2
120.7
115.7
115.9
115.2
116.3
116.8

114.7
110.1
276.0
282.0
119.7
115.9
115.3
231.5
245.5
114.6
120.6
367.7
242.7
117.9
425.9
359.9
114.0
212.6
113.1
123.1
118.4
117.4
115.9
116.8
116.7

113.6
109.9
278.0
283.1
119.9
119.0
115.9
231.9
244.4
115.1
121.1
372.1
246.4
118.5
432.4
366.5
114.8
213.4
113.4
123.1
119.6
118.8
115.8
117.2
116.7

113.4
110.0
279.6
2832
120.1
116.2
116.4
232.3
246.2
115.1
121.0
374.3
247.5
118.4
438.1
370.2
115.7
215.3
114.3
124.5
120.4
118.9
116.8
119,0
117.7

106.7
103.1
255.4
263.4
111.1
110.8
106.4
217.1
232.1
107.2
112.7
339.8
222.9
107.3
369,9
344.7
108.0
195.6
104.9
110.3
105.6
110.7
107.7
109.6
108.8

112.0
106.3
266.2
276.6
117.0
115.3
111.9
226.6
238.4
112.5
118.2
348.5
234.7
112.5
347.3
328.9
112.3
207.9
112.6
118,6
113.7
114.0
114.9
114.8
115.3

112.4
107.5
268.7
278.3
118.1
115.4
112.6
227.6
239.7
113.6
118.5
3536
236.5
113.0
375.1
336.2
112.2
208.8
113.1
119.5
114.8
114.2
115.2
115.2
115.3

112.0
108.1
271.8
279.9
c 119.0
115.5
113.6
228.9
239.8
114.0
119.6
360.0
236.9
114.2
406.1
349.4
113.0
210.4
113.3
118.7
116.4
115.4
116.2
116.3
116.7

112.6
108.7
274.7
281.2
119.3
116.4
114.0
230.7
242.8
114.5
120.4
365.0
240.1
115.7
418.2
358.9
112.7
212.4
113.3
121.1
119.0
116.3
117.5
116.3
116.7

111.9
108.5
276.5
282.2
119.6
116.9
114.8
231.9
244.9
114.6
121.0
368.2
242.0
116.1
424.4
365.3
113.5
213.4
113.3
122.0
120.6
117.6
117.0
116.7
116.9

111.8
108.1
278.3
281.9
119.8
116.2
114.6
232.8
246.7
115.0
121.3
370.7
243.6
115.6
430.8
369.3
114.8
215.7
114.8
122.9
121.7
118.2
118.5
118.6
118.0

Food away from home..........................................................................
Lunch (12/77 =•100) ......................................................................
Dinner (12/77 100) ......................................................................
Other meals and snacks (12/77 100)............................................

2259
110.1
109.4
109.1

242.7
118.5
117.7
116.6

244.9
119.6
118.9
117.3

246.5
120.3
119.8
117.8

247.6
120.7
120.3
118.6

249.6
121.3
121.6
119.5

251.3
122.3
122 4
120.2

226.0
110.0
109.5
109,2

244,4
119.6
118 2
117.4

246.5
120.4
119.7
118.2

248.3
121.3
120.5
119.1

249.3
121.7
120.9
119.9

251.3
122.2
122.4
120.5

252.7
123.2
123.0
120.9

Alcoholic beverages

163.9

172.1

172.7

173.3

174.2

176.0

177.4

164.3

172.4

173.3

173.6

174.9

176.9

178.0

113.3
172.3
129 0
195.2
105.5
115.1

114.6
175.1
129.4
198.0
105.9
115.9

115.6
1769
130.7
198.1
107.0
116.4

107.2
159.5
124.6
186.1
102.7
107.1

112.7
169.8
128.2
196.2
104.9
111.7

113.3
170.5
129,2
197.8
105.0
112.3

113.4
170 3
129,9
199.4
105.1
112.8

114.3
171.8
130.4
202.7
105.3
113.4

115.7
175.2
131.0
202.5
105.9
114.2

116.5
176.9
131.9
201.5
106.2
114.9

FOOD AND BEVERAGES
Food

Continued

Continued

Food at home

Continued

Other alcoholic beverages (12/77 - 100)..........................................
Alcoholic beverages away from home (12/77 100)................................

106.5
158.6
123.9
182.7
103.5
108.8

111.9
170.0
126.8
193.2
105.2
113.9

112.2
170.3
127.4
194.1
105 2
114.5

112.7
170.6
128.4
196.0
105.4
1146

HOUSING

2106

2255

228.4

231.5

2346

237.7

2408

210.1

225,5

228,4

231.5

234.5

237.7

240.7

Shelter................................................................................................

220.1

236.7

2401

2439

247.4

251.5

255.9

220.0

237.2

240.7

244.5

248.2

252.4

256.9

182.1

168.4

174.7

175.8

177.3

178.9

181.2

181.9

Alcoholic beverages at home (12/77 100)............................................

Rent, residents ....................................................................................

168 5

174.7

175.9

177.5

179.0

181.4

Other rental costs ................................................................................
Lodging while out of town................................................................
Tenants' insurance (12/77 100) ....................................................

215.1
221.9
103.7

2323
244.3
108.0

236.0
248.8
110.9

238.2
251.2
1120

239.3
251.8
113.7

241,6
254.2
114.1

243.1
256.2
114.6

214.9
221.2
103.8

231.8
243.1
108.2

235.2
246.7
111.5

237.6
249.5
112.6

238.6
249.9
114.1

241.3
253.0
114.7

242.6
254.6
115.0

Homeownership....................................................................................
Home purchase..............................................................................
Financing, taxes, and insurance ......................................................
Property insurance ..................................................................
Property taxes ........................................................................
Contracted mortgage interest c o s t............................................
Mortgage interest rates......................................................
Maintenance and repairs ................................................................
Maintenance and repair services ..............................................
Maintenance and repair commodities ........................................
Paint and wallpaper, supplies, tools, and
equipment (12/77-100) ................................................
Lumber, awnings, glass, and masonry (12/77 = 100)............
Plumbing, electrical, heating, and cooling
supplies (12/77 = 100)....................................................
Miscellaneous supplies and equipment (12/77 - 100) ..........

2388
204.8
274.7
288.5
196.3
317.9
152.8
242.3
261.9
196.7

2588
220.9
302.2
3106
181.3
366.0
163.0
255.5
277.4
204 4

263.0
224.0
3086
312.6
181.8
375.6
164.9
257.9
280.0
206.1

267.6
226.9
316.4
314.6
1831
387.2
167.7
259.7
281.8
208.1

271.9
229.8
323.0
316.7
184.7
3967
169.7
262.5
284 4
211.5

276.7
233.4
330.5
319.9
185.1
408 1
172.0
264.7
287.0
212.5

2824
237.3
340.1
320.8
185.1
423.1
175.4
266.4
288.8
214.0

238.7
204.6
275.4
288.2
197.0
317.7
152.8
240.1
259.4
196 3

259.9
220.8
304.2
310.1
182.8
366.2
163.1
256.7
280.2
204 9

264.2
224.0
310.6
312.1
183.3
375.8
164.9
259.1
282.8
206.5

268.9
227.0
318.7
314.2
184.6
387.4
167.8
260.8
284.2
209.0

273.3
2300
325.6
318.5
186.1
397.1
169.7
263.4
287.2
210.8

278.3
233.6
333.5
321.9
186.5
408.8
172.0
265.3
289.4
211.9

284.1
237.7
343.5
322.6
186.6
424.2
175,6
266.5
290.3
213.6

107.2
108,5

111.8
1129

112.5
113.7

114.3
1137

117.0
115.2

117.4
116.0

118.8
115.5

106.6
109.7

112.1
113.9

112.8
114.4

115.0
114.8

116.1
115.7

116.6
116.2

118.1
117.2

104 4
106 0

108.6
109 3

110.1
110.3

110.8
111.1

111.9
112.9

112.8
113.3

113.4
113.8

105.0
104.1

109.3
107.6

110.2
109.5

111.5
110.3

112.6
111.2

113.8
111.9

114.0
112.2

Fuel and other utilities........................................................................

218.5

239.0

243.5

247.2

251.2

252.9

252.0

218.7

239.4

244.1

247.7

251.7

2534

252.4

2861
391.6
406.1
102.6
2598
224.3
300.1

2939
413.5
430.0
106.5
264.6
228.0
306.5

299.8
439,0
458.5
109.4
266.5
299.7
308.5

306.6
462.5
483.3
114.6
269.9
231.1
315.8

310.1
471.7
491.9
118 8
272,2
2288
327.4

306.9
478.2
497.7
122.2
267.1
221.5
3278

Fuel oil, coal, and bottled gas..........................................................
Other fuels (6/78 - 100) ........................................................
Gas (piped) and electricity ..............................................................
Utility (piped) gas ....................................................................


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

250.6
306 1
307.2
987
234.9
201.9
273.3

286.2
391.2
405.9
102.6
259.9
2237
301.8

2938
412.9
4295
106.2
264.5
227.4
307.7

299.7
438.6
4582
109 3
266.5
229.2
309.7

3066
461.6
482.5
114.4
270.1
230,6
317.5

310.3
470.8
491.2
118.5
272.5
228.7
329.1

307.0
477.4
497.2
121.7
267.3
221.5
328.9

250.8
306.4
307.4
98.9
235.0
2022
272.8

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Current Labor Statistics: Consumer Prices
23.

Continued

Consumer Price Index — U.S. city average

[1967 = 100 unless otherwise specified]
All Urban Consumers
General summary

HOUSING

Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (revised)

1979

1978

1979

Nov.

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

Nov.

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

159.7
133.0
101.5
99.2
100.3
240.4

159.2
132.0
100,0
98.4
101.2
243.1

159.4
132.1
100.1
98.4
101.3
244.0

159.8
132.5
100.5
98.5
101.5
244.6

159.8
132.4
100.4
98.4
101.4
245.3

158.8
131.2
98.7
98.4
101.7
2456

161.0
133.3
101.8
98.4
101.5
247.1

159.6
133.1
101.6
99.2
100.1
240.2

159.2
132.0
100.1
98.5
101.1
243.3

159.4
132.2
100.2
98.5
101.2
244.0

159.8
132.5
100.6
98.5
101.4
244.6

159.8
132.4
100.5
98.4
101.3
245.5

158.9
131.3
98.8
98.4
101.5
245.8

160.9
133.3
101 8
98 4
101 3
247.2

Continued

Fuel and other utilities

Continued

Other utilities and public services ................
Telephone services ........................
Local charges (12/77 = 100) ....................
Interstate toll calls (12/77 = 10 0 ) ..................
Intrastate toll calls (12/77 = 100) ............
Water and sewerage maintenance ............
Household furnishings and operations

1830

190.1

190.4

191.2

192.2

193.3

195.1

181.8

188.8

189.0

189.8

190.6

191.7

193.2

Housefurnishings ........................
Textile housefurnishings......................
Household linens (12/77 = 100)
Curtains, drapes, slipcovers, and sewing materials (12/77 = 100) .
Furniture and bedding ............................
Bedroom furniture (12/77 = 100) . . . .
Sofas (12/77 = 100) ....................
Living room chairs and tables (12/77 = 100)
Other furniture (12/77 = 100)................
Appliances including TV and sound equipment......................
Television and sound equipment (12/77 = 100) ............
Television ..............................................
Sound equipment (12/77 = 100) ..............
Household appliances..........................
Refrigerators and home freezer....................................
Laundry equipment (12/77 = 1 0 0 )..............
Other household appliances (12/77 = 100)..............
Stoves, dishwashers, vacuums, and sewing
machines (12/77 = 100) ....................................
Office machines, small electric appliances,
and air conditioners (12/77 = 100)................
Other household equipment (12/77 = 100)................
Floor and window coverings, infants' laundry
cleaning and outdoor equipment (12/77 = 100) ........
Clocks, lamps, and decor items (12/77 = 100) . . .
Tableware, serving pieces, and nonelectric
kitchenware (12/77 = 100) ....................
Lawn equipment, power tools, and other hardware (12/77 = 100) .

158.3
167.1
102.9
105.5
171.9
108.6
104.3
103.2
109.7
133.1
103.3
102.4
105.1
150.8
149.5
105.7
106.3

163.1
174.9
106.8
111.4
177.5
112.9
107.8
103.5
114.7
135.6
104.0
102.7
106.3
155.4
151.9
110.8
109.5

162.9
173.6
104.3
112.4
176.8
113.2
106.2
104.5
113.3
135.4
103.9
102,6
106.1
155.1
152.9
110.7
108.7

163.2
172.8
103.6
112.0
177.1
114,0
106.3
104.9
112.7
135.8
104.3
102.8
106.8
155.5
154.6
110.7
108.6

164.1
175.3
106.7
112.0
178.3
114.8
107.1
105.1
113.9
136.2
104.7
102.9
107.5
155.8
154.1
110.9
109.1

165.2
177.8
107.7
114.2
180.0
116.4
107.3
106.2
115.0
136.9
104.9
103.4
107.4
156.9
155.3
112.1
109.8

166.6
178.9
108.8
114.4
182.2
117.7
107.9
107.7
116.8
137.5
105.0
103.6
107.4
158,2
156,0
113.1
110.8

157.5
167.7
103.6
105.7
170.2
106.8
104.7
102.8
108.2
132.5
102.2
101.4
103.8
151.0
152.9
105.7
105.3

162.8
174.0
105.1
112.3
177.6
111.7
110.1
105.4
113.3
135.3
103.3
102.0
105,5
155.6
156.0
110.5
108.3

162.5
171.6
103.1
111.4
177.2
112.1
108.7
106.2
112.5
135.0
103.3
101.6
105.8
154.9
157.3
110.1
107.1

163.0
173.0
103.7
112.7
177,3
112.7
108.2
106.1
112.5
135.5
104.0
101.9
106.7
155.1
157.9
110.2
107,1

163.5
174.9
106.3
112.2
178.5
113.0
108.6
106.7
114.2
135.7
104.4
101.9
107.4
155.2
156.5
111.2
107.2

164.4
177.2
107.4
114 1
180.3
114.8
109.6
107.5
114.7
135.7
104.1
102.0
106.9
155.6
157.9
111 3
107.2

165.5
178.4
108.3
114.5
182 1
115.9
111.7
108.6
115.3
136.2
104.4
102.4
107.1
156.2
158.1
1122
107.6

108,1

109.8

109.0

108.5

108.6

109.0

109.7

106.3

108.9

107.6

107.7

107.7

106.9

107.1

104.3
105.8

109.2
109.5

108.5
110.3

108.8
110.7

109.7
110.9

110.7
111.2

112.1
112.4

104.0
105.3

107.6
109.6

106.5
110.4

106.4
110.6

106.8
110.3

107.6
110.8

108.2
111.6

105.2
102.7

108.5
105.9

109.1
107.5

109.5
107.1

111.1
108.0

109.8
108.6

111.1
110.0

100.9
104.0

104.2
106.3

104.6
107.2

105.9
106.7

105.8
107.0

105.5
107,1

107 7
108.2

108.6
104.6

113.2
107.9

114.4
107.6

115.1
108.5

114.7
107.6

115.4
108.5

116.8
109.0

107,5
105.9

112.9
110.6

114.1
111.0

113,9
111.5

114.5
109.5

114.7
111.0

115.2
111.1

Housekeeping supplies..........................
Soaps and detergents........................................
Other laundry and cleaning products (12/77 = 100)
Cleansing and toilet tissue, paper towels and napkins (12/77 = 100) . .
Stationery, stationery supplies, and gift wrap (12/77 = 100) ..........
Miscellaneous household products (12/77 = 100) . . .
Lawn and garden supplies (12/77 = 100)..................

212.0
206.9
107.3
109.5
103.7
107.5
103.6

221.5
210.2
110.7
116.7
108.2
111.8
112.3

222.3
210.9
111.3
116.5
108.9
112.3
113.0

223.4
212.5
112.0
116.2
109.5
112.9
113.8

224.1
215.1
112.3
116.4
109.9
113.3
112.7

224.8
217.9
113.7
117.2
109.5
114.3
110.0

228.3
220.6
114.1
119.2
111.3
115.6
113.8

211.0
204.8
107.1
110.1
103.7
106.0
101.7

219.9
208.8
110.8
117.2
107.0
110.1
110.3

220.7
210.5
111.3
116.9
107.5
110.5
110.4

221.6
210.9
111.9
116.3
108.5
111.3
111.3

222.6
214.5
112.4
117.1"
108.3
Í11.6
109.9

223.9
216.3
113.5
117.9
108 6
112.7
108.8

226.7
218.2
1137
1196
109 2
114.1
113.2

Housekeeping services..................................
Postage ..................................................
Moving, storage, freight, household laundry, and
drycleaning services (12/77 = 100) ..............
Appliance and furniture repair (12/77 = 100) .

235.7
257.3

248.0
257.3

249.7
257.3

251.6
257.3

253.4
257.3

254.6
257.3

256.6
257.3

235.3
257.2

247.0
257.2

248.6
257.2

250.4
257.2

252.1
257.2

253.9
257.2

255.9
257.2

108.3
105.2

115.1
109.1

116.3
109 5

117,3
110.7

118.1
111.7

118.8
112.3

120.4
112.9

109.0
104.7

115.5
108.8

116.5
109.4

117.7
110.3

118.6
111.1

119.7
112.1

121 2
112.9

APPAREL AND UPKEEP

164.1

165.7

164.3

166.3

169.8

171.0

171.7

164.0

165.3

164.5

166.2

169.3

170.8

171.3

Apparel commodities

160.0

160.2

158.6

160.6

164.2

165.2

1659

160.0

160.0

159.1

160.7

163.9

165.3

165.7

158.4
160.1
101.5
100.1
99.6
104.1
103.1
100.8
101.3
969
106.0
102.8
154.1
102.8
169.7
167.7
101.3
102.7
98.5
101.2
99.7
101.9

157.4
160.4
101.1
98.5
94.5
108.1
103.5
99.9
103.5
100.0
108.3
104.4
150.8
100.8
162.4
163.5
98.4
105.6
91.7
98.0
95.8
95.7

155.6
159.2
100.0
96,8
94.4
108 4
100.9
99.0
104.2
101.7
108.0
104.8
147.8
984
162.1
157.2
950
105.6
87.3
98.1
98.7
93.9

157.7
159.6
100.6
97.1
95.5
109.3
103.2
98.1
103.3
101.1
107.9
103.1
151.3
100.7
170,4
162.8
96.3
106.2
89.8
100.5
100.8
98.3

161.5
162.7
102.7
100.0
965
110.6
107.2
99.0
104.8
102.7
109.4
104.5
i 55.9
103.9
174.1
171.1
99.8
106.2
96.7
102.4
102.8
100.3

162.3
164.2
103.5
101.6
978
109.9
108.5
99.5
106.3
103.9
110.8
106.5
155.5
103.4
173.9
167.2
99.6
106.6
97.1
103.6
102.8
102.5

162.9
165.4
104.3
101.2
98.1
112.4
109.7
100.5
106.6
103.2
111.5
107.4
155.1
103.0
173.3
164.3
99.2
108.1
95.2
103.9
102.2
103.6

158.4
160.5
102.1
990
101.3
103.9
104.6
102.0
100.5
960
104.7
102.3
153.8
102.6
172.0
166.8
99.9
103.4
98.0
100.9
98.8
102.5

157.2
160.9
101.6
96.8
97.8
106.2
104.5
101.7
103.1
99.4
107.8
104.1
149.9
100.6
166.9
156.6
98.5
106.5
92,4
95.9
93.4
93.8

156,0
160.6
101.3
95.8
97,6
106.6
104.1
101.5
103.5
101.3
107.1
103.9
147.5
98.7
166.8
152.8
98.7
106.1
87.9
95.5
94.6
92.5

157.9
161.1
101.9
96,2
99.2
107.0
104.9
101.9
102.7
100.3
107.0
102.9
150.5
100.4
173.1
152.8
97.7
107.0
91.0
98.8
95.9
99.7

161.2
163.2
103.2
98.3
99.1
108.6
107.1
102.5
103.9
102.0
108.8
103.5
154.4
103.0
175.7
158.5
100.4
107.4
98.1
101.1
98.5
102.1

162.4
164.4
103.8
99.1
99.5
109.1
108.3
102.8
105.3
103.8
110.1
104.7
154.8
103.3
174.1
159.1
100.4
107.9
99.9
101.5
97.9
103.5

162.7
165.3
104.5
98 7
99.7
110.0
109.4
104.0
105.6
103.4
109.7
105.8
154.5
103.0
172.4
156.8
100.7
108.9
97.5
101.7
97.5
104.3

102.4

105.7

104.6

104.1

105.7

106.7

107.2

101.8

103.4

102.0

101.8

103.5

103.9

104.2

Apparel commodities less footwear..........
Men's and boys' ................................
Men's (12/77 = 100) ........................................
Suits, sport coats, and jackets (12/77 = 1 0 0 )..........
Coats and jackets (12/77 = 100)............
Furnishings and special clothing (12/77 = 100) ..............
Shirts (12/77 = 100)..........................
Dungarees, jeans, and trousers (12/77 = 100) ................
Boys' (12/77 = 100) ....................
Coats, jackets, sweaters, and shirts (12/77 = 100) ............
Furnishings (12/77 = 100)................
Suits, trousers, sport coats, and jackets (12/77 = 100)
Women’s and girls’ ........................................
Women's (12/77 = 100)..............................
Coats and jackets ..........................................
Dresses ................................................
Separates and sportswear (12/77 = 100)....................
Underwear, nightwear, and hosiery (12/77 = 100)............
Suits (12/77 = 100)............................
Girls (12/77 = 100) ..............................
Coats, jackets, dresses, and suits (12/77 = 100)................
Separates and sportswear (12/77 = 10 0 ) ................
Underwear, nightwear, hosiery, and
accessories (12/77 = 100)..............................

96

1978


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

23.

Continued— Consumer Price Index— U.S. city average

[1967 = 100 unless otherwise specified]

________________
Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (revised)

All Urban Consumers

1979

1979

General summary
July

Aug.

Sept

Oct

July

Aug.

Sept

Oct

APPAREL AND UPKEEP — Continued
Apparel commodities— Continued
Apparel commodities less footwear — Continued
Infants’ and toddlers’ ........................................
Other apparel commodities ..............................
Sewing materials and notions (12/77 = 100)
Jewelry and luggage (12/77 = 100) ..........

220.9
163.4
98.7
108.6

220.9
167.3
101.0
111.3

219.0
167.9
101.3
111.7

221.2
169.8
102.3
113.0

223.4
172.6
102.3
115.6

224.8
175.5
102.2
118.3

226.3
177.8
100.8
121.0

219.1
164.7
98.3
110.3

223.9
167.8
95.7
114.3

221.9
168.4
95.6
114.9

224.2
170.2
96.8
116.1

226.0
174.9
100.4
118.9

228.7
178.7
100.8
122.3

228.7
179.8
99.7
123.8

Footwear......................................
Men's (12/77 = 100) ............
Boys’ and girls’ (12/77 = 100)
Womens' (12/77 = 100)........

169.1
106.7
104.7
106.2

176.7
114.0
110.3
108.4

176.6
113.4
111.0
108.3

177.5
114.5

112.0

183.8
117.7
114.0
113.9

168.4
106.2
106.1
104.5

176.0
113.2
110.0
107.9

176.9
115.2
111.4
106.5

179.4
116.3
111.6
109.6

181.9
118.0
113.0
111.1

183.2
119.0
114.5

108.1

182.6
116.7
113.0
113.5

176.6
114.5

112.0

180.1
115.0
111.6

191.3
109.8
107.6

204.8
119.7
111.4

205.7
120.6
111.2

207.7
122.1
111.9

210.2
123.6
113.0

212.5
125.2
114.0

214.2
126.3
114.7

191.1
110.4
106.5

203.6
119.2

204.9
120.3

206.7

Apparel services
Laundry and drycleaning other than coin operated (12/77 = 100)
Other apparel services (12/77 = 100) ....................................

111.1

111.2

111.5

208.7
123.2
112.3

210.8
124.7
112.9

212.0
125.7
113.3

191.4

212.6

216.6

219.6

221.4

2227

224.9

191.9

213.7

217.8

220.7

222.4

223.4

2257

TRANSPORTATION

2237

225.7

111.2
106.9

121.8

111.2

213.3

217.4

220.4

222.0

223.1

225.0

191.5

214.1

218.3

221.2

Private

191.1

222.7

New cars ......................................................................................
Used c a rs ......................................................................................
Gasoline ........................................................................................
Automobile maintenance and repair..................................................
Body work (12/77 = 100)........................................................
Automobile drive train, brake, and miscellaneous
mechanical repair (12/77 = 100) ..........................................
Maintenance and servicing (12/77 = 100) ................................
Power plant repair (12/77 = 100) ............................................
Other private transportation ............................................................
Other private transportation commodities ..................................
Motor oil, coolant, and other products (12/77 = 100) ..........
Automobile parts and equipment (12/77 = 100)..................
T ires..........................................................................
Other parts and equipment (12/77 = 100) ..................
Other private transportation services..........................................
Automobile insurance ........................................................
Automobile finance charges (12/77 = 100) ........................
Automobile rental, registration, and other fees (12/77 = 100)
State registration ........................................................
Drivers’ license (12/77 = 100) ....................................
Vehicle inspection (12/77 = 100) ................................
Other vehicle related fees (12/77 = 100) ....................

158.5
194.7
203.5
228.2
108.6

166.3
208.9
265.0
242.0
116.0

166.7
209.2
280.0
244.0
117.4

166.6
207.0
292.0
245.7
118.6

166.1
202.9
301.0
247.1
119.4

167.5
199.9
303.8
249.1
120.6

170.6
198.4
306.9
250.8
121.6

158.1
194.7
203.7
228.4
109.2

165.9
208.9
266.2
242.3
116.0

166.6
209.2
281.0
244.2
117.6

166.3
207.0
293.3
246.0
118.6

165.9
2029
302.3
247.5
119.2

167.4
199.9
305.2
249.4
120.4

170.9
198.4
308.3
251.1
121.7

109.4
108.4
107.8
189.0
162.9
104.5
105.4
144.9
106.8
197.7
220.6
107.6
103.8
143.8
104.5
110.2
106.8

115.8
115.0
113.9
197.3
171.8
110.3

116.7
115.9
114.8
198.5
173.3
110.5
112.3
153.7
114.8
207.1
229.1
116.8
106.9
144.0
104.5
114.6
114.0

117.4
116.3
116.0
200.5
175.1

118.1
116.9
116.7
201.7
177.7
114.4
114.9
156.4
119.1
210.1
233.5
117.7
107.8
144.0
104.5
114.6
116.1

119.4
117.5
117.8
203.7
182.0
115.9
117.9
160.7

120.1
118.4
118.5
205.5
183.4
117.4
118.7
161.5
123.0
213.4
233.9
124.6
108.3
144.1
104.5
115.6
117.1

110.1
107.7
108.2
189.5
165.8
104.9
107.5
148.4
107.7
197.7
220.5
107.0
104.1
143.6
104.3
111.4
108.5

116.7
114.6
114.3
197.7
172.6
109.3
111.9
153.7
113.4
206.3
227.2
115.6
107.2
143.9
104.3
115.5
116.6

117.5
115.3
115.2
199.1
174.4
109.9
113.2
155.7
114.3
207.6
229.0
116.4
107.3
143.9
104.3
115.5
116.9

118.2
116.0
116.3
201.0
176.1
112.0
114.1
156.1
116.8
209.6
232.3
116.4
108.1
143.9
104.3
115.5
119.3

119.0
116.8
117.0
202.3
178.7
114.5
115.7
158.1
118.6
210.6
233.5
117.0
108.4
143.9
104.3
115.5
120.3

120.2
117.3
118.0
204.0
181.6
115.9
117.6
161.1
120.0
211.9
233.7
119.4
108.6
143.9
104.2
115.5

120.8

120.8

118.2
118.6
206.3
183.9
118.1
119.0
163.0
121.5
214.3
233.9
124.1
108.9
144.0
104.2
116.5
121.3

190.4

194.8

197.6

200.6

204.1

207.3

214.0

205.2
263.0
190.2
230.3
220.8

214.2
268.0
190.2
233.9
221.3

220.7
275.5
191.0
238.7
221.4

232.4
2799
195.1
242.4
232.1

242.6

244.7

247.2

249.1

156.2

156.7

157.4

158.5

145.2
114.8
115.6
110.6

146.2
115.5
116.9
111.6

189.7

Public

111.2
151.9
114.1
206.0
227.3
116.3
106.8
144.0
104.5
114.6
113.6
194.0

197.1

Nonprescription drugs and medical supplies (12/77 = 100) ............
Eyeglasses (12/77 = 100) ....................................................
Internal and respiratory over-the-counter drugs ........................
Nonprescription medical equipment and supplies (12/77 = 100).
Medical care services
Professional services ....................................
Physicians' services................................
Dental services......................................
Other professional services (12/77 = 100)
Other medical care services........................................
Hospital and other medical services (12/77 = 100)
Hospital room..............................................
Other hospital and medical care s e rv ic e s ------


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

154.1

226.8

238.2

240.5

155.0

155.8

156.6

110.9

111.3

111.7
107.2

118.0
113.4

119.3
114.7

120.4
115.2

120.8

122.2

122.6

116.0

116.3

117.5

110.9

111.0

111.7

112.2

112.6

112.8

112.5
108.9
174.3
111.3

112.8
109.3
174.7

113.2
110.0
175.2

111.2

173.7
111.0

106.4
104.1
163.4
106.5

107.7
172.0
110.3

111.2

111.8

114.0
110.4
176.6
112.7

262.8

265.3

267.6

243.6

256.1

258.8

261.2

263.8

266.8

268.8

230.3
248.4
217.2
112.4

231.6
249.7
218.5
112.7

233.0
250.8
220.7

215.7
230.1
205.7
106.2

227.3
243.6
216.5
110.0

229.3
246.8
217.1

233.1
251.5
220.7
111.7

234.9
254.4
221.2
112.1

235.9
255.5
222.7

111.0

231.1
2487
219.0
111.5

277.8
110.6
348.2
109.7

291.2
115.3
362.9
114.3

294.9
116.6
367.5
115.6

298.1
117.8
371.7
116.7

301.3
118.9
374.1
118.0

305.9
120.5
379.4
119.

309.3

112.5

255.9

258.5

260.6

227.6
224.7
215.2
111.5

228.9
246.6
216.0
111.9
299.0
118.6
374.
117.

106.4

113.4
110.9
175.4
111.8

112.0
109.2
173.0
110.8

295.8
117.3
369.7
116.

111.9

111.9
108.5
173.2
110.7

111.4
108.7
172.2
110.4

292.5
116.2
366.0
115.2

123.2
116.8

122.5
115.6

110.8
108.2
171.3
109.7

110.6

143.7
113.2
114.8
109.7

120.9
114.8

107.4
170.3
109.1

225.7
241.8
214.3

111.0

143.0
113.0
114.4
109.1

120.3
113.7
110.3

155.3

142.4
112.9
114.2
109.2

118.9
113.1
109.5

154.5

135.7
107.4
108.7
105.4

114.0
108.6

112.0

147.6

144.4
114.1
115.0
110.0

145.5
113.9
117.1

117.9
112.1

110.2

157.8

144.5
113.5
115.8
109.7

111.2
106.4

278.7
110.9
349
109.9

248.0

143.5
113.1
114.9
109.3

141.9

215.5
230.0
203.9
108.7

245.9

142.8
112.5
114.6
109.3

141.3
112.0
113.7
108.3

244.1

193.8
253.2
188.4
223.3
205.2

2437

134.9
106.4
109.0
104.5

106.0
103.8
162.9
106.0

189.6
244.2
185.4
211.9
193.0

221.0

MEDICAL CARE

109.4

221.1

232.1
279.8
195.6
237.0
231.0

241.8

2377

220.6

216.5

198.4
258.5
189.7
226.5
217.1

239.9

227.0

105.7

209.1

216.1

198.5
258.8
189.8

Prescription drugs ................................................
Anti-infective drugs (12/77 = 100)..................
Tranquillizers and sedatives (12/77 = 1 0 0 )....
Circulatorias and diuretics (12/77 = 100)........
Hormones, diabetic drugs, biologicals, and
prescription and supplies (12/77 = 100)
Pain and symptom control drugs (12/77 = 100)
Supplements, cough and cold preparations, and
respiratory agents (12/77 = 100)................

205.2

220.6
276.0
191.3
233.6

194.3
253.9
188.4
217.2
205.3

153.3

200.8

121.8
211.4
233.8
120.4
107.9
144.0
104.5
114.6
116.4

214.1
268.0
190.5
228.5

190.0
244.0
185.6
207.8
193.1

147.0

113.4
154.7
116.7
209.1
232.3
117.2
107.5
144.0
104.5
114.6
115.5

205.2
263.2
190.5
224.7
220.6

Airline fare..............
Intercity bus fare . .
Intracity mass transit
Taxi fa re ................
Intercity train fare . . .

Medical care commodities

112.2

302.0
119.
376.4
118.8

110.2

112.8

306.2
121.3
380.2

309.5
122.6
385.

120.8

122.0

112.2
121.8
383.6
120.8

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Current Labor Statistics: Consumer Prices
23.

Continued— Consumer Price Index — U.S. city average

[1967 = 100 unless otherwise specified]
Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (revised)

All Urban Consumers
General summary

1979

1978
Nov.

June

1979

1978

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

Nov.

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

ENTERTAINMENT

179.5

188.2

189.1

190.2

191.1

192.0

192.8

178.8

187.5

188.6

188.9

190.2

191.4

192.0

Entertainment commodities................................................................

180.0

188.7

189.7

191.0

192.0

193.1

194.0

178.7

187.4

188.2

188.4

189.9

190.7

191.3

Reading materials (12/77 - 100)..........................................................
Newspapers ..................................................................................
Magazines, periodicals, and books (12/77 - 100)............................

104.3
203.3
105.3

109.5
211.6
111.6

110.0
212.6
112.0

111.1
214.0
113.7

111.9
214.5
115.0

113.8
217.7
117.2

114.5
222.4
116.0

104.1
202.9
105.3

109.1
211.1
111.6

109.5
212.2
111.7

110.7
213.7
113.5

111.4
214.2
114.8

113.3
217.4
117.2

114.2
2222
115.8

Sporting goods and equipment (12/77 - 100)........................................
Sport vehicles (12/77 - 100) ........................................................
Indoor and warm weather sport equipment (12/77 - 100)................
Bicycles ........................................................................................
Other sporting goods and equipment (12/77 = 100) ........................

103.6
103.2
104.0
154.1
103.0

109.3
110.3
106.1
160.1
106.9

110.0
110.8
106.7
1622
107.8

110.4
111.3
105.9
163.8
108.6

111.3
112.3
106.1
165.6
109.3

111.2
111.5
107.5
167.1
110.0

111.7
112.2
107.8
167.1
110.3

101.4
100.7
101.6
152.4
101.7

106.6
107.0
103.3
160.0
105.4

107.0
106.9
104.7
161.8
106.5

105.4
103.9
104.7
162.9
107.2

107.5
106.7
104.7
164.7
108.5

106.7
104.6
106.0
166.9
109.8

106.9
104.8
106.1
167.4
110.2

Toys, hobbies and other entertainment (12/77 - 100) ............................
Toys, hobbies and music equipment (12/77 - 100)..........................
Photographic supplies and equipment (12/77 - 100)........................
Pet supplies and expense (12/77 - 100) ........................................

104.2
104.8
103.9
103.4

108.9
109.2
107.6
109.2

109.4
109.3
108.4
110.3

110.2
110.0
108.2
111.8

110.4
110.4
108,9
111.6

110.8
110.7
109.4
112.1

111.2
110.5
109.9
113.5

104.2
103.7
104.0
105.3

109.0
109.0
107.3
110,0

109.6
109.1
107.7
111.6

110.2
109.8
107.6
112.6

110.4
109.6
108.8
112.9

111.0
110.1
109.3
113.9

111.2
109.8
109.6
114.6

Entertainment services

179.3

187.9

188.6

189.4

190.2

190.8

191.5

179.7

188,8

190.1

190.7

191.8

193.5

194.3

114.9
116.8
111.4

115.2
117.3
112.0

201.4

202.0

Fees for participant sports (12/77 - 100)..............................................
Admissions (12/77 -1 0 0 ) ....................................................................
Other entertainment services (12/77 = 100)..........................................

106.1
107.4
105.8

111.6
113.3
109,0

111.9
114.3
109.1

112.3
114.7
109.7

113.0
115.2
109.4

113.2
115.7
110.0

113.8
116.1
110.0

106.9
108.3
103.4

111.5
113.2
111.0

112.1
115.3
110.5

112.3
115.9
110.9

113.4
116.3
110.9

OTHER GOODS AND SERVICES

188.8

194,5

195.2

197.0

201.7

202.3

202.9

188.2

194.3

195.1

197.2

200.6

Tobacco products

180.9

186.4

186.8

189.9

190.9

191.3

191.5

180.7

186.5

186.9

190.1

190.9

191.2

191.4

Cigarettes............................................................................................
Other tobacco products and smoking accessories (12/77 = 100)............

183.5
105.8

188.8
110.3

189.2
110.8

192.6
111.1

193.6
112.2

193.8
113.0

194.0
112.8

183.3
105.8

189.0
109.8

189.4
110.3

193.1
110.0

193.7
111.0

193.9
112.3

194.1
112.4

Personal care

186.8

195.0

196.4

197.5

199.0

199.8

200.9

186.3

194.6

196.0

197.6

198.4

199.4

200.5

Toilet goods and personal care appliances..............................................
Products for the hair, hairpieces and wigs (12/77 = 100)..................
Dental and shaving products (12/77
100) ....................................
Cosmetics, bath and nail preparations, manicure
and eye makeup implements (12/77 - 100) ................................
Other toilet goods and small personal care appliances (12/77 = 100)

181.1
105.0
106.5

187.9
108.8
1126

188 6
109.4
113.2

189.7
111.1
113.6

191.4
111.6
114.3

192.5
111.9
114.1

193.1
112.2
115.6

180.6
103.8
106.2

187.8
108.9
110.2

188.1
108.5
111.0

190.2
110.5
112.1

191.0
110.6
112.5

191.6
111.1
112.7

192.4
111.4
113.9

104.8
104,6

108.6
106.9

109.5
106.2

108.9
107.6

110.4
108.6

110.7
110.9

111.4
109,9

104.2
106.0

107.8
109.8

109.0
108 8

110.0
109.7

110.6
110.3

110.1
111.7

110.2
112.3

Personal care services..........................................................................
Beauty parlor services for women....................................................
Haircuts and other barber shop services for men (12/77 = 100) . . . .

192.5
194.0
107.4

202.0
203.7
112.6

203.9
205.2
114.1

205.0
206.1
115.1

206.4
207.7
115.5

207.0
208.3
115.9

208.5
210.3
116.1

192.2
194.6
106.2

201.4
203.6
111.7

204.0
205.9
113,6

205.0
206.7
114.2

2058
207.4
114.7

207.3
209,1
115.4

208.6
210.2
116.3

Personal and educational expenses

2065

209 1

209.3

210.8

223.3

224.0

224.2

206.6

209.6

209.8

211.2

223.5

224.2

224.4

194.2
213.7
108.7
109.1
107.4
112.6

194.2
214.0
108.8
109.2
107.4
113.0

195.2
215.5
109.4
109.7
108.4
114.4

205.0
228.4
117.9
116.8
120.7
114.4

205.8
229.0
118.2
117.3
120.7
114.9

205.9
229.3
118.2
117.3
120.7
115.5

263.1
267.9
213.2
271.4

277.5
272.5
215.9
273.7

289.5
278.3
217.4
275.3

298.3
283.1
219.5
277.8

301.2
228.5
220.7
279.9

304.3
295.8
220.3
281.3

School books and supplies....................................................................
Personal and educational services..........................................................
Tuition and other school fees ..........................................................
College tuition (12/77 - 100) ..................................................
Elementary and high school tuition (12/77 = 100) ....................
Personal expenses (12/77 - 100)..................................................

187 8
211.1
108.4
108.6
107.5
107.8

191.6
213.6
108.8
109.1
107.5
112.6

191.6
213.8
108.9
109.2
107.5
113.0

192.6
215.4
109.4
109.7
108.3
114.8

201.5
228.6
117.7
116.9
120.9
115.1

202.3
229.4
118.1
117.3
120.9
115.8

202.3
229.6
118.1
117.3
120.9
116.3

189.7
211.1
108.3
108.6
107.4
108.0

201.9
247.1
201.1
255.9

261.9
268.2
2127
270.2

276.6
2728
215.3
272.5

288.2
278.7
217.0
274.4

297.1
283.5
219.3
276.6

299.8
288.9
220.7
278.7

302.9
296.0
220.5
2806

202.1
246.5
201.4
254.3

Special Indexes:
Gasoline, motor oil, coolant and other products ......................................
Insurance and finance ..........................................................................
Utilities and public transportation............................................................
Housekeeping and home maintenance services ......................................

98


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

24. Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: Cross classification of region and population size class by expenditure
category and commodity and service group
[December 1977 = 100]
Size class A
(1.25 million or more)
Category and group

Aug.

Oct.

June

Aug.

1979

1979

1979

1979
June

Size class D
(75,000 or less)

Size class C
(75,000 385,000)

Size class B
(385,000- 1.250 million)

Oct.

June

Aug.

Oct.

June

Aug.

Oct.

Northeast
EXPENDITURE CATEGORY
Food and beverages ....................................................................................
Housing ......................................................................................................
Apparel and upkeep ....................................................................................
Transportation..............................................................................................
Medical care................................................................................................
Entertainment ..............................................................................................
Other goods and services ............................................................................

113.2
117.3
112.9
103.8
115.6
112.0
109.2
107.1

115.0
117.9
114.8
104.9
119.6
113.6
110.6
108.3

117,3
119.2
117.9
107.7
121.1
115.4
111.4
111.7

115.3
118.5
114.5
106.2
119.6
112.5
108.3
110.0

117.3
118.9
116.7
106.1
123.4
115.3
110.9
111.4

120.2
119.6
121.3
109.2
125.0
118.5
113.6
114.1

117.2
120.8
118.7
102.8
119.1
112.8
108.4
111.4

120.2
121.7
122.5
104.3
1236
114.8
110.4
113.0

123.0
121.9
127*7
107 8
124.9
117,0
110.0
115.6

115.5
119.3
114.9
106.2
118.5
114.0
112.4
108.5

116.9
120.4
116.1
103.4
122.5
114.8
113.6
109.2

119.2
1-19.4
119.9
108.3
124.5
116.3
114.1
112.5

COMMODITY AND SERVICE GROUP
Commodities......................................................................................................
Commodities less food and beverages ..........................................................
Services ............................................................................................................

114.7
113.2
111.2

116.6
115.8
113.0

118.6
118.3
115.6

116.7
115.9
112.9

119.0
119.0
114.6

121.8
122.8
117.8

117.6
116.1
116.5

120.8
120.4
119.1

122.8
123.2
123.3

116.0
114.4
114.8

117.7
116.5
115.7

120.0
120.4
117.9

North Central
EXPENDITURE CATEGORY
All items ............................................................................................................
Food and beverages .......... ......................................................................
Housing ......................................................................................................
Apparel and upkeep ....................................................................................
Transportation..............................................................................................
Medical care .................................................................................................
Entertainment ..............................................................................................
Other goods and services ............................................................................

118.2
120.0
121.8
101.7
118.8
112.9
110.8
108.0

121.0
120.2
125.8
102.8
122.8
115.0
111.9
109.0

123.2
121.2
128.7
105.3
125.0
115.9
112.6
112.5

118.0
117.6
121.2
104.0
118.8
114.5
108.2
114.4

120.5
118.6
124.1
104.6
122.9
117.2
109.2
114.9

122.3
119.2
125.7
109.9
125.2
118.6
110.7
117.8

116.8
120.2
117.3
104.0
120.5
114.1
110.9
108.5

119.0
120.4
120.3
105.3
123.7
116.4
110.5
110.0

121.9
121.6
124.5
107.4
126.0
117.5
112.7
112.3

116.6
121.4
115.9
103.7
120.1
115.7
110.8
110.5

119.5
122.0
120.5
104.0
123.2
117.5
111.3
112.7

122.0
122.8
124.0
110.0
124.3
119.1
112.7
115.7

COMMODITY AND SERVICE GROUP
Commodities......................................................................................................
Commodities less food and beverage ............................................................
Services ............................................................................................................

118.2
117.3
118.4

120.7
120.9
121.5

122.5
123.0
124.3

117.0
116.7
119,7

119.4
119.7
122.4

120.8
121.5
124.7

117.1
115.8
116.3

119.1
118.5
118.8

121.7
121.7
122.2

116.2
114.0
117.2

118.9
117,6
120.4

121.1
120.4
123.3

South
EXPENDITURE CATEGORY
All items ............................................................................................................
Food and beverages ....................................................................................
Housing ......................................................................................................
Apparel and upkeep ....................................................................................
Transportation..............................................................................................
Medical care................................................................................................
Entertainment ..............................................................................................
Other goods and servides ............................................................................

1169
120.6
118.0
108.0
118.7
111.6
107.7
110.2

118.7
121.1
119.9
107.5
122.6
113.3
108.1
111.5

120.7
122.2
122.0
111.2
124.2
116.0
109.4
114.4

117.5
119.5
118.8
107.2
119.8
114.0
111.5
109.9

120.1
120.3
122.4
107.3
123.5
115.7
111.9
110.8

122.4
121.3
125.8
110.8
124.5
116.9
113.2
114.0

117.5
120.5
119.7
103.3
118.2
114.1
111.1
109.6

119.9
121.6
122.7
104.5
121.8
115.5
111.8
111.4

122.1
122.1
125.9
106.4
123.2
117.6
113.6
114.2

115.6
119.7
115.1
103.8
118.2
115.9
112.4
111.7

118.5
120.0
119.3
102.8
122.4
118.5
115.9
114.3

120.6
121.0
121.6
103.9
124.4
122.5
117.1
117.3

COMMODITY AND SERVICE GROUP
Commodities......................................................................................................
Commodities less food and beverages ..........................................................
Services ............................................................................................................

117.3
115.8
116.5

118.9
118.0
118.4

120.5
1198
121.0

117.1
116.1
118.1

119.3
118.9
121.2

121.2
121.2
124.3

116.9
115.3
118.5

119.3
118.3
120.8

120.7
120.1
124.2

115.9
114.3
115.1

118.6
118.0
118.5

120.2
119.9
121.1

West
EXPENDITURE CATEGORY
All items ............................................................................................................
Food and beverages ....................................................................................
Housing ......................................................................................................
Apparel and upkeep ....................................................................................
Transportation..............................................................................................
Medical care................................................................................................
Entertainment ..............................................................................................
Other goods and services ............................................................................

116.0
119.8
115.3
106.0
120.5
114.7
108.2
110.2

118,7
119.4
119.0
104.8
125.3
116,8
109.3
112.4

120.8
121.2
121.2
107.9
127.2
119.8
109.3
115.2

118.7
121.6
119.5
108.3
121.0
114.6
113.2
1109

120.9
121.4
122.4
108.8
124.8
116 6
114.4
112.5

123.6
123.1
126.2
111.0
126.7
117.8
115.6
115.3

116.9
1196
117.4
103.4
121.4
113.8
109.9
109.4

119.5
120.1
120.5
103.9
125.0
116.5
112.6
110.7

122.2
121.1
124.8
104.4
126.3
118.4
113.8
113.0

115.1
119.2
112.6
109.4
119.2
116 9
114.5
113.0

118.8
121.6
117.8
109.5
123.1
1190
115.7
114.4

122.8
121.5
124.8
114.0
124.6
120.7
1178
116.0

COMMODITY AND SERVICE GROUP
Commodities......................................................................................................
Commodities less food and beverage............................................................
Services ............................................................................................................

117.1
116.0
114.5

118.7
118.3
118.8

120.5
120.2
121.3

119.3
118.3
117.9

120.8
120.6
121.0

123.1
123.1
124.4

117.4
116.5
116.3

119.4
119.1
119.6

121.7
121.9
122.8

116.1
114.8
113.6

119.1
118.0
118.5

120.7
120.4
125.9


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

99

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Current Labor Statistics: Consumer Prices
25.

Consumer Price Index — U.S. city average, and selected areas

[1967 - 100 unless otherwise specified]
All Urban Consumers
Area'

1978

Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (revised)

1979

1978

1979

Nov.

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

Nov.

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

U.S. city average2 ..............................................................

202.0

216.6

218.9

221.1

223.4

225.4

227.5

201.8

216.9

219.4

221.5

223.7

225.6

227.6

Anchorage, Alaska (10/67 .100) ......................................
Atlanta, Ga...........................................................................
Baltimore, Md.......................................................................
Boston, Mass.......................................................................
Buffalo, N Y..........................................................................

194.7

213.7

194.8

207.4
212.6

203.0
199.7

221.0
214.2
209.3

Chicago, Ill -Northwestern Ind................................................
Cincinnati. Ohio-Ky.-Ind.........................................................
Cleveland, O h o ..................................................................
Dallas-Ft. Worth. Tex............................................................
Denver-Boulder, Colo............................................................

198.1
207.0

Detroit, Mich.........................................................................
Honolulu, Hawaii ................................................................
Houston, Tex........................................................................
Kansas City, Mo -Kansas ....................................................
Los Angeles-Long Beach, Anaheim, Calif...............................

202.0

Miami, Fla. (11/77 = 100) ..................................................
Milwaukee, Wis....................................................................
Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn.-Wis.............................................
New York, N.Y.-Northeastern N.J...........................................
Northeast, Pa. (Scranton)....................................................

107.4
199.0
200.9
197.1

Philadelphia, Pa.-N.J.............................................................
Pittsburgh, Pa.......................................................................
Portland, Oreg.-Wash...........................................................
St. Louis, Mo - II....................................................................
San Diego, Calif...................................................................

207.1
199.3
209.8

San Francisco-Oakland, Calif............ ................................
Seattle-Everett, Wash...........................................................
Washington, D.C.-Md.-Va......................................................

203.6
203.9

213.5

211.4

199.7

217.4
224.8

218.6

219.5

214.7

213.8
214.5

214.0
211.7
2161

217.7
219.1

223.7

220.7

218.1
215.4
219.5

221.8

227.2
210.5
244.2
229.9
221.8

231.2
219.9

220.1
226.0

2322
2222
240.4
218.3

217.5
220.4

203.0
199.2

2259
233.4

197.6
207.5

245.9

212.9
201.7

224.2

197.5

119.4
229.8

107.9
200.7

221.3
220.0

199.8
198.5

222.4

200.6

236.6
225.7
247.8

207.8
197.6
208,5

227.6
225.4

202 1
205.3

221.5
222.6
222.9

221.4
213.7

213.2

216.8
226.5

218.2

219.8

216.8

214.5
215.0

2206
230.8

214.1
213.4
216.9

223.5

218.1
220.0

2256
2356

223.0

248.6
226.9
211.1
241.8
227.9
224.0

118.7
228.7
228.5
215.3

227.9
217.4
233.1

217.8
217.1
220.3

230.8

225.8
120.5
232.5

233.0
219.3

221.3
226.1

2326
222.5
2377
218.6

215.9
221.9

221.7
225.5
228.0

243,6
222.6
207.2
239.0
223.1
219.6

116.9
225.0
223.4
212.2

227.9
2225
218.6

222.6
2230

213.7

2 Average of 85 cities.

224.9
217.9

239.3
215.5
203.6
234.5
218.4
214.5

211.8
223.5

215.3

221.2
218.0

231.3

210.9
219.0

209.7

224.7
228.2

117.4
226.0
227.0
215.4

227.4
216.9
236.1
212.5

227.2
222.7

240.8
222.2
207.2
240.6
224.6
217.5

115.7
222.7
222.3
212.5

221.3
2290

206.4
214.5

218.7

221.4
222.9

’ The areas listed include not only the central city but the entire portion of the Standard
Metropolitan Statistical Area, as defined for the 1970 Census of Population, except that the
Standard Consolidated Area is used for New York and Chicago.


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

224.9
218.1

2365
215.4
204.4
235.5
219.5
212.9

220.8

214.6

219.9
217.5

198.1

213.2
216.9

220.7
221.1
223.8
236.7
226.3
244.8

2208
221.0
224.4

225.5
2267

26.

Producer Price Indexes, by stage of processing

[1967 = 100]
Annual
average
1978

1978

Finished goods....................................................................

194.6

202.5

205.4

207.7

209.1

211.4

Finished consumer goods..............................................
Finished consumer foods ..........................................
Crude ..................................................................
Processed ............................................................
Other nondurable goods............................................
Durable goods..........................................................

192.6
206.7
215.5
204.1
195.4
165.8

200.5
215.8
232.1
212.5
202.7
173.0

203.7
220.2
236.7
216.9
205.4
175.2

206.3
225.1
257.2
220.5
207.2
176.2

207.9
226.3
244.6
222.8
209.8
176.8

210.2
227.8
241.8
224.6
213.1
178.4

Capital Equipment........................................................

199.1

207.0

209.3

210.8

211.7

214.0

Intermediate materials, supplies, and components..................

215.5

223.0

225.7

228.5

231.5

Materials and components for manufacturing..................
Materials for food manufacturing................................
Materials for nondurable manufacturing ......................
Materials for durable manufacturing............................
Components for manufacturing ..................................

208.3
202.3
195.8
237.2
189.1

215.6
210.7
201.2
246.4
196.2

218.6
214.4
203.2
252.0
197.2

221.6
217.3
205.3
256.8
199.0

Materials and components for construction ....................

224.4

232.5

236.1

Processed fuels and lubricants......................................
Manufacturing industries............................................
Nonmanufacturing industries......................................

296.4
270.4
320.0

300.4
268.7
330.3

302.0
268.3
334.0

Containers ..................................................................

212.5

222.6

223.9

224.3

229.3

231.8

234.5

234.9

235.4

Supplies......................................................................
Manufacturing industries............................................
Nonmanufacturing industries......................................
Manufactured animal feeds ....................................
Other supplies ......................................................

196.9
183.6
204.0
200.2
201.9

206.1
192.0
213.6
216.9
209.7

207.4
193.1
215.0
215.9
211.6

209.6
194.3
217.7
221.6
213.6

211.1
197.4
218.4
219.3
215.0

212.8
199.4
219.9
219.5
216.8

213.7
201.5
220.3
214.6
218.3

216.1
202.7
223.2
226.2
219.2

219.6
204.2
227.8
241.3
221.5

240.1

252.5

260.2

270.4

276.6

279.9

282.3

283.0

287.1

Commodity grouping

Dec.

1979
Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

May

June

July

Aug.

212.7

213.7

216.2

217.3

211.6
226.6
226.7
224.4
217.1
179.5

212.7
223.6
227.1
221.3
221.7
180.4

215.6
224.9
224.9
222.8
227.1
181.6

217.5
223.5
231.7
220.7
233.4
181.6

215.1

215.8

217.2

216.5

235.8

238.2

240.3

244.6

224.5
219.6
208.7
r 260.0
200.3

229.0
222.2
213.7
266.0
203.1

230.9
222.5
216.7
267.2
204.5

232.1
222.3
218.1
268.9
205.3

239.0

241.3

244.5

245.2

304.8
269.0
339.1

312.9
275.4
348.9

323.9
280.7
365.9

336.8
287.4
385.5

Sept.

Oct

Nov.

Dec.

220.4

223.7

225.9

227.8

221.3
227.8
213.9
226.8
238.9
182.0

224.1
226.7
215.4
225.4
243.0
187.4

226.6
230.5
228.0
228.6
245.2
188.5

228.8
232.0
227.8
230.1
247.8
191.2

217.7

222.5

223.8

225.1

247.5

250.7

254.6

256.1

258.4

236.0
226.7
222.5
273.3
207.7

238.0
225.1
225.3
275.2
209.3

240.5
228.6
227.3
278.7
210.9

243.9
225.3
231.2
284.5
212.5

245.2
227.7
233.1
284.2
214.5

247.5
230.5
235.1
287.5
215.9

245.6

247.4

249.2

251.6

254.4

253.8

253.6

349.5
293.8
404.9

364.8
304.0
425.5

384.6
311.2
458.8

399.4
317.2
483.0

410.5
322.5
500.4

416.5
325.3
509.7

424.6
332.3
518.8

237.6

237.1

240.8

243.5

246.1

219.6
2086
225.4
220.8
223.1

220.8
209.1
227.0
224.3
224.3

224.4
211.8
231.1
229.2
228.1

226.0
213.1
232.9
227.3
230.7

228.4
215.3
235.3
230.8
232.9

281.7

287.9

289.2

290.8

2967

FINISHED GOODS

INTERMEDIATE MATERIALS

CRUDE MATERIALS
Crude materials for further processing..................................
Foodstuffs and feedstuffs..............................................

215.3

224.8

233.0

243.7

247.4

251.5

251.9

248.2

254.1

243.7

248.7

247.1

246.4

249.7

Nonfood materials........................................................

286.7

304.6

311.5

320.7

331.6

333.3

339.6

348.7

349.3

353.6

362.1

368.9

374.8

385.8

Nonfood materials except fuel....................................
Manufacturing industries ........................................
Construction..........................................................

235.4
240.8
185.7

249.6
255.9
192.1

255.6
261.8
198.8

264.7
271.9
200.4

275.5
283.8
201.9

276.5
284.8
203.6

276.6
284.7
204.5

286.6
295.9
205.4

285.2
294.0
207.2

286.1
294.9
208.6

293.3
302.8
209.9

298.6
308.5
212.2

304.6
314.9
214.6

311.5
322.5
216.6

Crude fu e l................................................................
Manufacturing industries ........................................
Nonmanufacturing industries ..................................

463.7
481.9
459.6

495.1
518.0
487.2

504.3
529.6
494.9

513.9
541.6
502.7

525.2
555.4
512.1

529.2
560.0
515.8

556.8
593.8
538.8

563.1
601.3
544.3

570.7
610.4
550.7

586.2
629.2
563.6

599.4
646.0
574.2

611.4
660.5
584.4

616.8
667.0
5890

641.8
697.7
609.7

188.9

196.4

198.8

200.2

201.7

204.2

206.3

208.5

211.4

213.2

215.9

220.6

222.2

224.3

183.7

191.0

193.3

194.9

196.7

199 3

202.1

205.2

208.4

212.3

215.9

220.6

222.4

225.0

Intermediate materials, supplies, and
Components, excluding intermediate
materials for food manufacturing
and manufactured animal feeds ....................................

216.4

223.7

226.5

229.1

232.3

236.7

238.8

241.3

245.4

249.0

252.1

256.4

257.8

260.5

Intermediate foods and feeds ..............................................

201.0

212.2

214.3

218.2

218.9

220.7

219.3

223.0

231.0

223.1

226.6

226.0

227.0

230.0

Crude materials for further processing
excluding crude foodstuffs and
feedstuffs, plant and animal fibers,
oilseeds, and leaf tobacco ............................................

316.6

335.9

344.2

356.4

370.6

372.4

379.2

389.5

391.7

396.9

407.6

416.5

423.9

437.1

SPECIAL GROUPINGS
Finished goods excluding foods............................................
Finished consumer goods excluding
Foods ......................................................................

NOTE: Data for Aug. 1979 have been revised to reflect the availability of late reports and correc­
tions by respondents. All data are subject to revision 4 months after original publication.


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

101

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Current Labor Statistics: Producer Prices
27.

Producer Price Indexes, by commodity groupings1

[1967 = 100 unless otherwise specified]
Annual

1978

1978

Dec.

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

All commodities
All commodities (1957 - 59 = 100)

209.3
222.1

217,5
230.8

220.8
234.2

224.1
237.7

226.7
240.5

230.0
243.7

232.0
245.7

233.5
247.7

236.9
251.4

238.3
252.8

241.7
256.1

245.2
260.2

246.9
262.0

249.4
264.6

Farm products and processed foods and feeds
Industrial commodities

206.6
209.4

216.2
217.2

221.1
220.0

227.2
222.5

229.0
225.4

244.0
229.0

230.8
231.6

229.0
234.0

232.2
237.5

227.5
240.6

231.7
243.8

230.6
248.5

232.3
250.2

234.5
252.8

0101-8
01 -9

FARM PRODUCTS AND PROCESSED FOODS
AND FEEDS
Farm products ................................................................
Fresh and dried fruits and vegetables ............................
Grains..........................................................................
Livestock ..................................................
Live poultry..................................................................
Plant and animal fibers..................................................
Fluid milk ....................................................................
7
Eggs............................................................................
Hay, hayseeds, and oilseeds ........................................
Other farm products ....................................................

212.5
216.5
182.5
220.1
199.8
193 4
219.7
158.6
215.8
274.9

222.7
221.6
184.7
230.1
198,5
212.8
241.2
189.0
234.0
271.0

230.4
233.7
184.4
247.3
206.0
213.6
241.8
178.5
240.1
269.7

240.9
263.0
189.3
266.5
217.8
205.1
244.6
176.7
246.1
253.6

242.8
235.7
192.0
275.8
217.6
197.8
243.7
199.9
249.5
254.6

223.3
234.7
198.3
284.0
209.4
197.8
242.4
185.5
248.3
255.1

245.4
228.2
210.3
280.7
216.3
207.6
242.0
163.8
240.7
264.1

242.8
226.4
218.7
264,0
182.9
219.5
243.8
170.7
258.4
281.0

246.8
226.7
247.4
256.0
183.8
207.6
247.6
167.6
260.1
311.9

238.5
241.7
229.1
240.2
171.9
207.9
250.0
166.8
251.9
310.8

241.0
208.2
224.4
256.4
173.5
211.3
258.5
175.4
240.6
315.9

239.5
217.8
229.0
251.7
162.0
212.9
258.5
155.9
235.1
317.6

240.2
216.4
226.6
248.3
195.5
215.4
262.5
178.7
229.8
318.3

242.5
210.5
227.9
252.5
194.7
222.0
264.0
198,4
230.3
319.4

02
02 - 1
02-2
02-3
02-4
02-5

Processed foods and feeds............
Cereal and bakery products........
Meats, poultry, and fish ..............
Dairy products............................
Processed fruits and vegetables ..
Sugar and confectionery ............

202.6
190.3
217.1
188.4
202.6
197.8
200.0
225.3
199.0
197.4

211.8
196.8
229.2
202.8
218.4
204.5
201.0
227.6
204.1
211.9

215.2 - 218.9
197.2
199.1
240.3
248.5
203.5
203.2
218.5
219.5
204.8
208.4
200.9
201.1
229.7
237.5
206.7
208.0
211.3
217.2

220.5
200.1
250.6
204.9
219.6
208.4
201.2
238.6
217.5
215.7

222.3
203.0
253.0
207.1
220.5
208.7
201.5
246.2
219.3
215.6

222.0
204.9
250.4
207.9
221.4
207.6
205.3
241.8
220.2
210.8

220.6
206.3
241.4
208.4
221.5
211.1
208.5
243.6
211.1
220.5

223.3
212.4
237.7
209.0
223.6
215.7
214.1
253.2
212.7
234.9

220.5
216.0
225.5
215.2
224,6
218.3
216.5
251.7
217.6
216.2

225.7
217.7
239.8
218.3
225.0
217.3
217.9
253.5
218.8
219.5

224.8
219.2
234.4
218.2
223.3
218.6
219.2
246.2
220.6
224.3

227.1
222.3
239.5
219.0
222.5

229.2
223.7
242.8
219.6
222.3

Code

01

01-1
01-2
01-3
01-4
01-5

01-6

Commodity group and subgroup

02- 6

Beverages and beverage materials

02-7
02-8
02-9

Fats and o ils ................................
Miscellaneous processed foods ..
Manufactured animal feeds ..........

1979

222.7

234.4

221.4
242.1
222.1
222.7

221.9
235.8
222.0
225.3

172.8
124.5
113.1
132.5
109.3
162.3
197.0

Textile products and apparel ..........................
Synthetic fibers (12/75 = 100)....................
Processed yarns and threads (12/75 = 100)
Gray fabrics (12/75 = 100)........................
Finished fabrics (12/75 = 100) ..................
Apparel......................................................
82 housefurnishings..............................
Textile

159.8
109.6
102.4
118.6
103.8
152.4
178.6

163.6
110.6
104.7
125.9
106.0
155.5
183,4

164.1
113.0
105.3
125.6
103.5
157.4
181.8

164.2
113.5
105.3
123.2
104.1
157.6
186.0

165.2
113.6
107.0
123.1
105.4
158.3
187.4

166.4
115.1
106.8
124,5
105.9
159.8
188.0

167.2
117.4
107.8
124.7
107.0
159.8
188.0

168.4
118.5
108.6
125.4
107,6
160.2
189.3

169.3
119.5
109.5
128.3
108.2
160.3
189.9

170.5
120.6
110.6
128.7
109.0
161.4
190.5

171.3
123.9
111.7
128.7
109.0
161.6
193.9

129.8
108.7
162.1
194.6

172.4
124.9
113.0
130.6
108.5
162.9
194.8

04
0404-2
04-3
04-

Hides, skins, leather, and related products
1 and skins..................................
Hides
Leather ..............................................
Footwear ..........................................
4 leather and related products . . . .
Other

200.0
360.5
238.6
183.0
177.0

216.2
401.3
279.6
194.3
185.3

223.4
452.8
292.8
196,4
190.7

232.2
497.8
309.2
203.0
192.2

253.3
639.6
371.9
209.9
195.9

258.9
642.2
393.6
212.0
200.4

269.6
666.9
429.4
216.3
209.1

268.0
611.0
414.6
221.1
212.3

261.9
566.5
385.2
221.8
212.1

257.9
511.9
365.9
225.4
210.9

250.7
465.3
330.0
226.2
210.2

253.6
478.8
343.6
226.9
209.8

248.5
447.6
319.8
227.3
208.5

248.9
443.9
324.8
227.3
208.1

05
05-1
05-2
05-3
05-4
05-61
05-7

Fuels and related products and power
Coal............................................
Coke . . . : ..................................
Gas fuels1 ....................................
Electric power..............................
Crude petroleum2 ........................
Petroleum products, refined3 ........

322.5
430.0
411.8
428.7
250.6
300.1
321.0

334.3
443.7
418.8
444.6
250.7
312.4
338.2

338.1
443.6
421.2
449.9
251.0
316.4
343.9

342.5
444.0
423.7
458.1
251.1
322.3
350.0

350.9
445.3
428.5
471.0
257.3
324.2
360.3

361.5
447.1
430.1
477.4
260.6
326.2
378.6

377.6
450.8
430.6
507.2
265.9
335.7
400.0

393.7
452.0
430.6
522.3
269.9
356.4
4236

411.8
452.5
430.6
548.4
274.8
370.6
449.8

432.8
454.2
430.6
570.4
278.8
385.7
482.8

454.4
452.8
430.6
599.7
280.5
422.1
513.6

468.Í
454.9
431.2
619.1
283.6
436.7
534.4

476.7
455.4
431.2
637.1
282.1
450.4
544.9

488.7
457.8
431.2
670.5
287.2
470.8
554.8

o><5>o>o>§>a>o><5>o>

INDUSTRIAL COMMODITIES
03
03-1
03-2
03-3
03-4
03-81
03-

Chemicals and allied products........................
Industrial chemicals4 ..................................
Prepared paint............................................
Paint materials ..........................................
Drugs and pharmaceuticals ........................
Fats and oils, inedible ................................
Agricultural chemicals and chemical products
Plastic resins and materials ........................
Other chemicals and allied products............

198.8
225.6
192.3
212.7
148.1
315.8
198 4
199.8
181.8

202.3
229.1
198.7
220.7
153.2
332.9
201.9
201.1
1823

205.0
234.0
198.9
222.5
155.4
336.1
201.7
204.2
184.3

207.3
237.4
202.3
224.3
156.2
367.9
203.1
2063
184,7

209.9
239.7
202.3
227.0
156.6
398.5
206.3
210.9
186.5

215.1
248.2
203.3
231.6
157.5
4487
209.8
220.6
186.9

218.0
255.6
201.3
236.1
157.7
418.3
210.0
228.5
188.9

219.2
259.3
201.3
239.5
159.0
374.1
209.2
230.1
190.5

225.0
270.4
205.3
246.7
159.2
381.6
211.2
244.5
191.8

228.5
277.1
205.3
247.9
159.6
376.4
215.3
250.1
194.4

230.3
278.9
206.0
251.2
161.1
379.9
217.9
252.2
195.8

233.5
284.2
206.7
253.5
162.9
366.9
223.7
259.2
196.5

235.6
287.2
206.9
254.8
163.0
344.3
229.2
261.7
199.3

238.1
291.6
210.7
255.4
164.4
327.1
232.7
262.7
201.9

07
07-1
07-11
07-12
07-13
07-

Rubber and plastic products . ..
Rubber and rubber products ..
Crude rubber ......................
Tires and tubes....................
Miscellaneous rubber products
2 products (6/78 = 100)
Plastic

174.8
185.3
187.2
179.2
189.6

179.7
192.8
197.3
188.8
193.7
102.0

180.8
194.7
197.9
191.5
195.1
102.3

183.2
197.6
201.1
194.1
198.1
103.5

185.9
199.4
204,8
195.0
200.3
105.7

188.8
201.2
211.6
196.1
201.3
108.0

190.8
202.6
214.2
197.3
202.6
109.5

193.1
204.8
222.0
198.9
203.5
111.0

195.5
209.5
226.1
206.2
205.4
111.2

198.5
2160
233.0
211.6
213.4
112.2

200.3
216.7
231.2
214.6
211.7
112.8

202.4
219.7
235.2
217.9
214.2
113.6

204.3
223.3
236.4
222.7
216.9
113.8

205.7
223.9
239.4
222.7
217.4
115.2

08
0808-2
08-3
3-4

Lumber and wood products
1
Lumber........................
Millwork ......................
Plywood ......................
Other wood products . ..

276.0
322.4
235.4
235.6
211.8

288.6
339.1
241.6
249.0
222.1

290.2
336,6
244.5
257.4
223.2

293.9
339.9
251.5
257.1
226.2

300.5
350.5
257.8
254.7
232.2

304.9
355.4
266.0
252.4
235.5

302,8
354.8
261.6
249.3
238.4

299.8
354.8
258.9
238.6
238.5

300.1
355.0
252.5
249.7
2376

304.7
3653
249.6
254.3
237.4

309.7
373.8
250.9
258.1
238.0

308.8
370.2
255.6
254.4
237.7

299.0
355.5
252.3
242.9
239.9

289.8
338.9
250.3
237.7
240.5

-1

-21

-22
-3
-4
-5
-6
-7

See footnetes at end of table.

102

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

171.9
125.6

112.2

27.

Continued— Producer Price Indexes, by commodity groupings1

[1967 = 100 unless otherwise specified]___________________________ _________________________
Code

Commodity groups and subgroups

1979

Annual
average
1978

1978
Dec.

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

May

June

July

Aug.

S ept

O ct

Nov.

Dec.

INDUSTRIAL COMM ODITIES-Continued

09
09-1
09-11
09-12
09-13
09-14
09-15
09-

Pulp, paper, and allied products....................................................
Pulp, paper, and products, excluding building paper and board . .
Woodpulp.................................................................................
Wastepaper ............................................................................
Paper .......................................................................................
Paperboard..............................................................................
Converted paper and paperboard products................................
Building
paper and board..........................................................
2

195.6
195.6
266.5
191.2
206.1
179.6
185.6
187.4

205.2
205.7
281.6
192.2
214.6
187.4
197.4
186.6

207.0
207.7
291.3
192.9
217.9
188.5
198.3
184.1

208.8
209.5
291.4
194.1
221.2
190.2
199.8
183.6

212.3
213.2
294.3
203.2
223.3
192.9
204.1
182.6

215.0
216.0
303.8
206.5
226.3
197.9
205.8
183.4

216.2
217.2
306.9
206.2
227.2
199.2
207.0
183.3

216.6
217.8
308.3
207.2
227.5
199.8
207.6
180.8

218.3
219.6
320.3
207.9
228.2
201.7
209.0
178.0

222.2
223.6
320.6
206.6
229.5
206.4
214.4
179.1

222.8
224.1
322.5
206.7
230.6
209.5
213.9
184.4

227.2
228.6
339.4
206.7
239.0
211.2
216.5
185.5

229.3
230.9
339.9
220.0
242.1
212.8
218.4
183.6

231.0
232.6
339.9
221.2
243.0
215.4
220.3
184.4

10
1010-13
10-2
10-3
10-4
10-5
10-6
1010-8

Metals and metal products ..........................................................
Iron1and steel ........................................................ ..............
Steel mill products....................................................................
Nonferrous metals....................................................................
Metal containers ......................................................................
Hardware .................................................................................
Plumbing fixtures and brass fittings............................................
Heating equipment....................................................................
Fabricated
structural metal products..........................................
7
Miscellaneous metal products....................................................

227.1
253.6
254.5
207.8
243.4
200.4
199.1
174.4
226.4
212.0

236.6
263.2
262.1
219.0
254.4
210.7
203.6
179.1
233.5
220.8

241.9
272.4
271.5
223.5
256.8
211.7
204.3
180.1
238.4
222.0

247.3
274.9
271.8
239.2
256.8
213.3
207.8
180.9
240.5
223.4

251.7
279.9
272.5
246.6
264.5
214.2
209.7
183.4
241.3
225.2

256.0
280.2
275.0
259.6
270.1
215.8
212.0
183.8
243.8
227.0

256.2
279.5
276.7
258.2
268.5
216.9
213.8
185.7
247.0
228.5

258.2
283.2
277.3
259.7
267.3
217.1
217.0
185.2
248.2
230.1

260.8
286.8
284.6
262.3
267.2
218.5
219.6
186.0
250.5
231.8

261.8
286.1
284.7
263.1
268.4
220.1
222.4
188.1
252.2
235.6

263.6
285.3
284.8
269.3
267.0
221.4
222.9
191.3
253.2
237.4

269.4
289.0
288.4
282.6
276.7
223.8
223.4
191.9
255.6
239.1

270.9
291.6
288.7
283.7
280.7
225.4
225.4
192.7
256.6
239.4

273.5
292.7
289.3
291.2
280.7
226.5
226.4
195.2
257.7
239.9

11
1111-2
11-3
11-4
11-6
11-7
11-

Machinery and equipment ............................................................
Agricultural
machinery and equipment........................................
1
Construction machinery and equipment......................................
Metalworking machinery and equipment ....................................
General purpose machinery and equipment................................
Special industry machinery and equipment ................................
Electrical machinery and equipment ..........................................
Miscellaneous
machinery..........................................................
9

196.1
213.1
232.9
217.0
216.6
223.0
164.9
194.7

203.8
221.9
243.8
228.2
225.1
233.9
170.5
200.6

205.1
222.8
245.5
230.4
226.3
236.2
171.2
202.7

206.5
223.9
247.9
232.0
227.7
237.0
172.8
203.4

207.9
'224.8
248.7
233.0
230.4
239.1
173.8
204.0

209.8
226.4
251.7
235.3
232.6
243.4
175.0
205.4

211.4
228.3
253.7
237.6
234.0
245.1
176.5
207.1

212.4
229.4
254.0
239.1
235.1
246.1
177.6
207.4

214.8
231.2
257.0
241.4
237.1
249.8
179.9
209.7

216.0
233.3
258.5
243.5
238.3
251.0
181.2
209.7

217.6
236.6
258.5
246.1
239.6
251.5
182.7
211.8

219.6
238.8
262.9
249.1
242.1
253.9
184.1
212.9

221.0
241.4
264.5
251.4
243.7
255.3
185.0
214.5

222.9
243.2
268.2
254.6
246.1
256.2
186.5
215.7

12
1212-2
12-3
12-4
1212-6

Furniture and household durables ................................................
Household
furniture ..................................................................
1
Commercial furniture................................................................
Floor covenngs ........................................................................
Household appliances ..............................................................
Home
5 electronic equipment ......................................................
Other household durable goods ................................................

160.4
173.5
201.5
141.6
153.0
90.2
203.1

164.6
179.3
207.3
142.3
155.7
92.3
212.3

166.6
181.0
214.4
143.4
157.0
92.2
216.0

167.9
181.3
221.2
143.6
158.3
92.3
216.6

168.3
181.8
221.2
144.0
158.8
92.3
217.9

168.7
182.7
221.7
144.4
158.7
92.3
218.6

169.6
184.8
221.9
146.0
159.3
92.4
219.5

170.2
185.3
221.8
146.5
160.0
92.8
220.6

170.7
185.8
222.7
149.1
161.1
90.2
223.7

171.5
186.2
222.7
150.0
162.2
90.2
226.6

171.7
188.0
222.7
150.3
162.7
87.8
227.4

174.1
189.3
223.3
151.8
163.2
87.8
244.1

175.6
192.4
223.3
152.8
164.5
87.9
246.6

177.0
194.3
225.1
152.9
165.2
88.1
252.1

13
1313-2
13-3
13-4
13-5
13-6
13-7
13-8
13-

Nonmetallic mineral products........................................................
Rat11glass ................................................................................
Concrete ingredients ................................................................
Concrete products....................................................................
Structural clay products excluding refractories............................
Refractories ............................................................................
Asphalt roofing ........................................................................
Gypsum products ....................................................................
Glass containers .............................................................. •
Other
9 nonmetallic minerals........................................................

222.8
172.8
217.7
214.0
197.2
216.5
292.0
229.1
244.4
275.6

231.1
178.7
223.5
224.2
206.5
226.1
305.2
242.7
250.7
283.6

238.3
181.1
235.9
235.6
209.7
227.5
306.8
247.6
250.7
288.8

240.5
183.1
238.2
236.4
210.7
227.8
317.8
250.6
250.7
293.7

240.8
183.1
239.8
237.8
212.8
228.3
303.1
251.0
250.7
294.5

243.4
183.1
242.0
240.5
214.8
228.4
316.4
252.2
250.7
300.0

245.6
183.1
242.5
241.6
215.7
228.5
317.9
248.8
265.2
303.0

246.9
184.0
243.3
243.7
216.5
232.6
323.0
251.3
265.2
302.0

249.5
184.1
245.1
245.2
220.3
240.8
328.4
251.8
265.2
310.5

249.9
184.1
242.9
246.3
222.3
241.7
325.9
252.3
265.2
309.9

252.2
184.5
245.6
248.6
223.8
243.1
332.7
254.9
265.5
318.8

255.6
184.7
246.9
249.4
221.1
245.0
334.0
255.3
265.5
341.2

257.1
185.4
248.4
250.5
221.1
248.2
345.9
256.2
265.5
342.2

259.2
186.4
249.9
253.2
226.8
248.7
342.9
255.0
273.6
342.2

14
1414-

Transportation equipment (12/68 = 100)......................................
Motor
1 vehicles and equipment ..................................................
Railroad
equipment ..................................................................
4

173.5
176.0
252.8

180.5
182.8
261.8

182.7
185.0
266.4

183.5
185.9
268.0

183.8
186.1
268.9

186.8
189.4
271.7

187.2
189.8
271.6

187.5
190.1
274.7

188.4
190.8
280.6

185.9
187.8
280.9

186.2
188.1
281.6

193.6
196.3
286.3

194.4
197.0
288.2

195.1
197.6
289.0

15
1515-2
15-3
15-4
15-51
15-9

Miscellaneous products................................................................
Toys,
1 sporting goods, small arms, ammunition............................
Tobacco products ....................................................................
Notions....................................................................................
Photographic equipment and supplies ........................................
Mobile Homes (12/74 = 100) ..................................................
Other miscellaneous products ..................................................

184.3
163.2
198.5
182.0
145.7
126.4
210.6

193.6
164.8
204.0
183.4
148.7
130.8
234.8

197.7
170.4
213.5
188.2
150.1
131.7
237.8

199.8
171.0
213.6
188.2
150.2
132.5
244.0

200.6
171.5
214.0
190.2
150.2
133.8
245.5

201.4
173.2
214.4
190.2
150.1
135.2
246.1

203.3
174.3
214.4
190.6
150.6
137.2
250.6

205.2
174.7
214.4
190.6
151.6
137.9
255.8

207.0
176.9
214.8
192.0
152.0
138.2
261.4

208.9
177.6
221.3
191.9
152.2
139.5
260.1

212.3
179.9
221.7
192.1
154.1
139.5
270.5

216.8
181.2
221.9
195.8
157.3
142.5
280.9

219.0
181.7
221.9
196.0
161.3
143.5
284.9

227.2
183.5
226.3
197.0
164.5
143.6
307.9

1Prices for natural gas are lagged 1 month.
2 Includes only domestic production.
3 Most prices for refined petroleum products are lagged 1 month.
* Some prices for industrial chemicals are lagged 1 month.


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

5 Not available.
NOTE: Data for August 1979 have been revised to reflect the availability of late reports and
corrections by respondents. All data are subject to revision 4 months after original publication.

103

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • C u rre n t L a b o r S ta tistics: P ro d u cer P rices
28.

Producer Price Indexes, for special commodity groupings

[1967 = 100 unless otherwise specified]
Annual

1978

1978

Dec.

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept

O ct

Nov.

Dec.

208.4
206.4
206.7
197.2
108.8
106.3
158.9

216.3
215.5
215.7
204.6
110.9
108.7
162.5

219.3
219.9
219.8
207.3
109.1
110.1
164.6

222.0
225.0
223.5
209.6
110.8
109.9
166.3

224.7
225.9
225.6
211.9
111.6
110.5
167.1

228.0
227.7
227.8
214.7
112.3
112.5
167.3

230.1
226.4
227.5
216.0
112.8
112.5
167.7

232.0
223.8
224.7
217.0
113.5
112.7
168.3

235.4
225.4
226.4
219.0
114.0
114.1
168.5
%

237.5
224.7
224.8
220.3
115.1
113.0
170.8

241.0
228.2
230.6
221.6
115.7
112.7
170.8

244.9
226.8
228 9
225 4
116.0
113.0
171.2

246.7
229.9
231 8
226 4
116.1
1146
171.6

249.2
232 1
234 1

190.5
140.6

193.6
145.8

196.3
148.1

198.0
149.0

200.0
149.4

204.1
150.0

207.6
150.1

209.5
151.7

215.0
151.7

218.6
152.0

220.5
153.6

223 7
155.6

226 0
155.4

228 6
156.9

298.3
209.6
216.2
155.6
190.4

314.1
217.9
224.5
164.1
197.7

314.8
220.0
227.0
168.8
199.6

317.0
225.6
228.6
188.2
200.8

323.7
228.2
230.6
197.9
201.7

326.4
232.7
232.9
212.1
204.1

325.1
232.4
234.6
199.0
205.3

321.7
233.7
235.7
193.0
206.0

325.3
235.5
237.4
191.9
207.7

333.9
234.9
239.8
197.1
207.2

341.0
236.1
241.0
200.5
208.3

337 4
242 9
243.7
211 5
212.8

323 5
244 2
244 8
2136
214.0

245 9
245 6
216 1
215.4

214.3
216.3
228.8
179.1
228.7
212.7
216.1
216.7
232.3
232.7
208.1
228.3

223.0
225.2
242.5
186.3
238.3
221.2
224.6
225.9
240.7
244.5
220.2
237.0

224.9
227.6
245.2
188.9
240.8
223.5
225.6
229.5
245.4
249.9
220.2
241.4

226.1
228.5
247.4
190.9
242.5
224.4
225.8
230.9
247.8
249.9
220.2
244.1

227.7
229.6
248.9
192.6
243.1
225.5
226.7
232.1
249.5
252.0
220.3
246.9

230.0
230.8
251.2
192.7
245.4
226.7
228.5
233.0
252.4
255.5
220.3
250.0

231.8
232.1
254.3
195.7
247.7
228.1
230.5
233.6
255.0
259.3
221.6
250.3

232.6
233.8
256.8
195.8
248.2
229.5
231.8
235.7
255.8
260.4
222.8
250.3

235.1
235.8
260.1
202.2
251.2
231.4
233.9
237.6
257.0
260.8
222.8
252.3

236.2
238.4
261.7
204.2
253.8
233.7
237.6
239.2
258.2
262.3
224.6
254.3

237.8
242.6
265 3
206.6
254.8
237.5
243.4
242.2
259.1
262.8
224.6
256.6

2402
244.7
269 5
208.7
2594
239 5
246 3
243.7
260.3
271.7
235.3
258.2

242 0
247 9
272 5
209 0
2609
242 4
248 8
247.4
261.1
276 8
235 3
256.5

2500
265 2
276 8
239 0
255.3

Commodity grouping

All commodities — less farm products . . . .
Processed foods

Industrial commodities less fuels ..........
Selected te x tile mill products (Dec. 1975 = 100)
Underwear and nightwear....................
Chemicals and allied products, including synthetic rubber
and manmade fibers and yams . . . .
Pharmaceutical preparations....................
Lumber and wood products, excluding millwork and
other wood products ......................
Special metals and metal products ..........
Fabricated metal products....................
Copper and copper products..............................
Machinery and motive products..................
Machinery and equipment, except electrical ............
Agricultural machinery, including tractors ............
Metalworking machinery ..................
Numerically controlled machine tools (Dec. 1971 = 100) ___
Total tractors..................................
Agricultural machinery and equipment less parts ..
Farm and garden tractors less parts ........................
Agricultural machinery excluding tractors less parts................ '
Industrial fittings ......................................
Abrasive grinding wheels................................
Construction materials ........................

1979

1170
115 3
172.9

250 0
211 3
264 9

NOTE: Data for August 1979 have been revised to reflect the availability of late reports and
corrections by respondents. All data are subject to revision 4 months after original publication.

29.

Producer Price Indexes, by durability of product

[1967 = 100]
Annual
average
1978

Dec.

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept

O ct

Nov.

Dec.

Total durable goods ......................
Total nondurable goods..............

204.9
211.9

213.0
219.9

216.3
223.4

218.9
227.3

221.0
230.4

223.9
234.1

224.7
236.9

225.8
238.8

227.6
243.7

228.0
245.8

229.7
250.8

234.0
253.5

234 9
256.0

236 6
259.2

Total manufactures..........................
Durable......................................................................
Nondurable ............................

204.2
204.7
203.0

212.0
212.7
210.5

215.0
215.8
213.4

217.5
218.0
216.1

219.7
219.8
219.0

223.1
222.7
222.8

225.0
223.8
225.6

226.5
224.6
227.8

229.8
226.6
232.5

231.7
227.2
235.9

234.9
229.0
240.9

238.6
233.3
243.7

240.2
234.1
246.3

242.3
235 8
248.8

Total raw or slightly processed goods ............
Durable..........................................
Nondurable..................................

234.6
209.6
235.6

244.3
225.0
244.9

250.2
235.4
250.4

258.5
253.9
258.0

263.3
273.6
261.6

266.1
272.5
264.7

268.2
262.9
267.6

269.7
272.8
268.5

274.3
265.4
274.0

272.1
259.8
272.0

276.6
255.7
277.2

278.6
259.0
279.1

281.1
265.8
281.3

286 4
267 8
286.8

Commodity grouping

1978

1979

NOTE: Data for August 1979 have been revised to reflect the availability of late reports and
corrections by respondents. All data are subject to revision 4 months after original publication.

30.

Producer Price Indexes for the output of selected SIC Industries

[1967 = 100 unless otherwise specified]
1972
SIC
code

Annual

1978

1978*

Dec.

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept

O ct

Nov.

Dec.

121.9
126.6
430.2
358.2
194.6
111.8

127.3
136.2
441.0
380.6
200.2
123.2

127.3
153.3
444.0
388.2
208.0
125.4

127.3
168.7
444.4
397.2
210.4
125.4

127.3
178.3
445.7
403.8
210.9
125.4

131.9
202.1
447.5
407.6
214.1
125.4

131.9
237.5
451.3
427.2
216.0
125.4

136.0
277.0
452.5
444.1
217.0
125.5

136.0
270.8
453.1
457.5
219.3
125.5

138.8
245.8
454.8
476.0
220.1
125.5

138.1
252.1
453.2
506.8
220.9
125.5

140.2
275.0
455.4
522.0
223.5
126.7

140.2
252.1
455.8
533.5
224.3
114.7

142 0
3000
458 1
553 3
225 7
119.7

216.7
215.2
192.5
205.2

226.8
228.7
192.1
227.0

243.6
223.8
194.6
211.9

250.8
230.4
204.6
211.1

256.6
235.6
206.1
216.1

265.0
224.4
199.7
224.7

259.2
227.7
203.5
225.3

249.1
217.1
177.8
225.3

243.8
214.7
178.4
227.5

229.3
203.4
169.6
237.9

247.2
211.6
171.2
240.6

239.1
213.0
163.1
240.1

241.6
214.2
188.3
241.7

243 9
219 9
1885
243.1

Industry Description

1979

MINING

1011
1092
1211
1311
1442
1455

Iron ores (12/75 = 100)..................
Mercury ores (12/75 = 100)......................
Bituminous coal and lignite ................
Crude petroleum and natural gas..............
Construction sand and gravel ........................
Kaolin and ball day (6/76 = 100 )............

2011
2013
2016
2021

Meat packing plants ..................................
Sausages and other prepared meats ..........................
Poultry dressing plants ........................
Creamery butter..............................

MANUFACTURING

See footnotes at end of table.

104


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

30.

Continued— Producer Price Indexes for the output of selected SIC Industries

[1967 = 100 unless otherwise specified]
1972
SIC
code

Industry description

MANUFACTURING

Annual
average
1978

1978
Dec.

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

May

June

July

Aug.

S ept

O ct

Nov.

Dec.

1979

Continued

2022
2024
2033
2034
2041
2044
2048
2061
2063
2067

Cheese natural and processed (12/72- 100)................
Ice cream and frozen desserts (12/72 = 100) ..............
Canned fruits and vegetables........................................
Dehydrated food products (12/73 = 100)......................
Flour mills (12/71 - 100) ............................................
Rice milling..................................................................
Prepared foods, n.e.c. (12/75 - 100)............................
Raw cane sugar ..........................................................
Beet sugar ..................................................................
Chewing gum ..............................................................

169.6
154.8
193.2
131.3
147.0
207.6
107.3
190.7
188.5
218.0

184.4
162.1
202.8
179.6
156.8
168.6
114.7
196.2
194.4
241.5

184.2
166.2
203.3
179.6
155.8
163.6
115.6
191.6
197.0
241.6

179.4
166.7
204.4
181.2
160.5
166.6
118.4
198.2
197.0
242.5

182.5
166.7
205.2
180.9
157.5
171.0
118.3
195.7
198.6
242.5

186.8
167.3
206.2
181.7
158.1
206.8
117.5
197.5
199.3
242.6

185.2
171.0
207.2
182.1
166.7
206.8
115.2
195.6
199.7
242.2

185.6
171.5
207.5
181.0
174.6
206.8
118.9
207.0
199.7
242.2

186.3
171.5
209.9
182.0
190.9
206.8
128.1
209.0
202.0
242.9

195.4
175.0
210.5
180.7
176.9
218.7
119.4
216.8
199.4
242.9

200.8
176.1
211.9
170.0
183.4
223.5
121.2
216.7
200.2
242.9

196.8
177.5
213.0
158.2
184.6
227.3
123.9
224.3
202.6
242.9

193.4
178.4
212.4
156.3
184.9
231.8
124.6
223.3
209.6
262.2

192.6
180.2
212.0
157.3
184.9
218.1
125.3
248.4
223.4
262.2

2074
2075
2077
2083
2085
2091
2092
2095
2098
2111

Cottonseed oil m ills......................................................
Soybean oil m ills..........................................................
Animal and marine fats and oils ....................................
Malt ............................................................................
Distilled liquor, except brandy (12/75 - 100) ................
Canned and cured seafoods (12/73 = 100) ..................
Fresh or frozen packaged fish ......................................
Roasted coffee (12/72 - 100)......................................
Macaroni and spaghetti ................................................
Cigarettes....................................................................

183.1
225.6
287.9
181.5
106.7
136.4
303.8
262.3
176.9
204.6

196.4
237.7
305.1
190.8
108.9
137.4
339.0
235.7
184.7
210.7

198.7
233.1
305.0
190.8
108.9
137.3
338.1
229.4
184.7
221.1

204.5
241.2
344.5
190.8
109.4
137.9
361.9
222.5
184.7
221.2

202.8
242.0
362.6
190.8
109.4
138.5
359.4
221.6
184.7
221.3

198.5
244.7
393.1
190.8
109.4
139.2
375.8
220.5
184.7
221.4

192.5
237.7
363.8
190.8
113.6
140.9
382.4
231.7
186.6
221.4

210.4
251.1
335.3
201.4
113.6
142.1
397.6
244.2
188.6
221.4

224.5
262.8
352.0
201.4
113.6
148.5
403.7
271.0
203.5
221.5

214.1
250.0
321.4
201.4
115.7
148.2
391.5
279.2
210.4
228.9

217.9
248.4
333.8
201.4
117.1
150.8
390.1
279.2
199.5
229.1

214.9
244.8
333.7
214.9
117.1
151.1
400.9
280.0
210.4
229.2

204.7
242.6
315.2
228.2
118.1
155.6
392.4
287.5
221.5
229.2

205.6
241.8
300.7
228.2
118.1
159.8
389.3
287.5
227.7
234.3

2121
2131
2211
2221
2251
2254
2257
2261
2262
2271

Cigars ........................................................................
Chewing and smoking tobacco......................................
Weaving mills, cotton (12/72 = 100) ............................
Weaving mills, synthetic (12/77 = 100) ........................
Women’s hosiery, except socks (12/75 = 100)..............
Knit underwear mills ....................................................
Circular knit fabric mills (6/76 - 100)............................
Finishing plants, cotton (6/76 - 100) ............................
Finishing plants, synthetics, silk (6/76 = 100) ................
Woven carpets and rugs (12/75 - 100)........................

141.4
222.0
181.1
109.0
91.5
164.1
98.5
111.0
101.4
114.7

141.7
225.1
187.9
115.5
94.8
166.9
99.2
115.9
105.4
115.8

142.8
235.3
188.8
114.5
95.1
169.3
91.2
116.5
104.6
115.8

143.0
236.4
190.1
112.7
94.3
169.9
91.7
117.4
105.0
115.8

145.0
240.9
190.4
112.4
94.4
172.6
93.9
118.2
105.2
116.0

145.4
245.9
191.8
113.3
97.3
172.8
93.2
119.0
105.9
116.0

145.4
245.9
192.7
113.6
97.3
173.1
94.1
120.8
106.3
116.7

145.3
245.9
194.3
114.1
97.6
173.3
95.8
120.9
107.0
117.1

149.8
246.4
196.1
116.2
99.6
172.9
96.1
122.5
107.5
(’ )

150.1
246.4
196.5
116.3
98.1
174.0
96.4
123.2
108.2
( 1)

147.6
255.8
198.6
116.3
97.5
174.0
96.0
124.0
108.3
(’ )

147.4
260.4
200.7
116.9
98.0
174.3
96.4
126.1
109.2
( 1)

147.2
260.8
200.1
116.9
100.3
174.6
96.4
123.1
108.9

147.2
260.8
200.8
117.3
100.2
178.2
98.4
123.4
109.2

2272
2281
2282
2284
2298
2311
2321
2322
2323
2327

Tufted carpets and rugs................................................
Yarn mills, except wool (12/71 - 100) ..........................
Throwing and winding mills (6/76 - 100) ......................
Thread mills (6/76 - 100)............................................
Cordage and twine (12/77 - 100)................................
Men's and boys’ suits and coats....................................
Men’s and boys’ shirts and nightwear............................
Men’s and boys’ underwear..........................................
Men’s and boys' neckwear (12/75 - 100) ....................
Men’s and boys’ separate trousers................................

125.3
167.4
99.2
114.6
99.3
194.3
180.8
180.6
102.3
152.7

125.8
170.5
101.7
119.2
98.4
200.5
187.7
182.6
103.4
157.4

125.8
170.9
103.1
120.3
98.5
199.3
191.2
184.5
103.4
157.7

126.0
171.4
102.7
120.3
98.6
199.6
191.4
184.6
103.4
157.8

126.5
172.3
106.0
120.3
98.6
199.9
191.6
188.7
103.4
157.8

127.0
173.1
104.4
120.4
101.7
203.9
191.8
188.7
103.4
162.3

127.7
174.5
106.3
120.4
102.8
204.2
192.4
188.7
103.4
162.3

128.1
175.7
107.5
120.4
105.4
204.5
193.5
188.7
103.4
162.5

127.6
177.5
108.5
120.5
105.4
205.8
194.7
188.7
103.4
162.5

128.6
177.4
109.7
128.1
113.5
206.5
195.9
190.0
110.9
162.7

129.0
179.4
111.3
128.1
115.1
206.4
195.8
190.0
110.9
162.7

129.5
181.2
111.0
128.3
114.9
206.6
194.5
190.0
110.9
162.9

130.0
182.9
111.0
128.4
114.9
206.8
194.7
190.0
110.9
163.4

130.1
184.6
109.2
128.5
115.0
206.6
194.5
194.0
110.9
163.4

2328
2331
2335
2341
2342
2361
2381
2394
2396
2421

Men's and boys’ work clothing ......................................
Women’s and misses’ blouses and waists (6/78 = 100) .
Women’s and misses’ dresses (12/77 - 100)................
Women’s and children's underwear (12/72 = 100) ........
Brassieres and allied garments (12/75 = 100) ..............
Children’s dresses and blouses (12/77 = 100)..............
Fabric dress and work gloves........................................
Canvas and related products (12/77 = 100)..................
Automotive and apparel trimmings (12/77 = 100)..........
Sawmills and planing mills (12/71 - 100)......................

195.2
100.7
132.1
111.7
(’ )
214.4
99.6
106.3
228.9

195.7
102.3
101.1
138.7
112.5
105.4
226.4
99.6
107.1
240.1

198,5
102.6
105.0
141.2
113.5
105.4
227.3
105.9
107.1
239.5

199.8
99.1
104.9
142.3
116.0
105.4
232.2
105.9
107.1
241.9

200.0
99.2
106.6
142.3
116.0
105.5
232.2
105.9
107.1
249.5

206.5
99.1
106.6
142.6
116.1
106.7
241.5
105.9
107.1
252.5

206.5
100.3
105.9
143.3
116.2
106.7
243.9
105.9
107.1
251.6

209.0
100.5
105.9
143.3
117.5
102.1
243.9
106.9
114.3
250.9

208.9
102.6
106.4
144.2
117.5
102.4
245.4
108.4
114.3
251.3

210.7
102.7
108.3
145.3
117.8
102.4
245.4
111.0
114.3
259.1

210.7
102.8
108.3
145.3
117.8
103.7
245.4
111.4
114.3
265.6

213.1
103.0
108.7
146.7
117.8
105.7
245.4
111.4
114.3
262.2

218.9
105.9
108.8
147.4
117.8
105.7
246.9
112.1
114.3
2501

219.4
106.8
108.8
147.7
118.8
105.6
246.9
120.1
114.3
237.5

2436
2439
2448
2451
2492
2511
2512
2515
2521
2611

Softwood veneer and plywood (12/75 - 100)................
Structural wood members, n.e.c. (12/75 - 100) ............
Wood pallets and skids (12/75 = 100)..........................
Mobile homes (12/74 - 100)........................................
Particleboard (12/75 - 100) ........................................
Wood household furniture (12/71 =100) ......................
Upholstered household furniture (12/71 = 100)..............
Mattresses and bedsprings............................................
Wood office furniture ....................................................
Pulp mills (12/73 - 100)..............................................

150.1
136.2
149.4
126.5
159.7
152.4
143.1
156.3
194.4
178.5

157.6
142.3
159.8
130.8
146.9
158.5
145.8
160.0
200.5
183.7

164.2
142.3
160.6
131.8
143.0
160.3
146.9
162.3
207.2
187.1

162.2
148.1
161.8
132.5
141.9
160.3
146.9
162.9
213.1
187.3

160.1
148.3
163.8
133.8
142.7
160.9
147.6
162.9
213.1
189.9

157.3
150.1
166.8
135.3
143.8
162.7
147.4
163.1
214.2
192.5

151.1
150.1
166.7
137.3
141.6
164.6
149.2
163.2
214.3
195.2

140.7
150.0
167.0
138.0
137.4
164.0
149.4
164.1
214.2
196.6

148.1
150.0
166.9
138.2
134.3
164.5
150.0
164.5
216.8
205.4

153.4
149.9
166.8
139.6
134.7
164.6
150.2
165.8
216.8
205.7

156.2
150.8
167.9
139.6
138.5
167.1
151.6
165.7
216.8
207.5

153.3
158.2
167.9
142.5
139.6
168.1
151.8
168.8
217.6
215.2

143.3
158.2
171.0
143.5
136.9
171.3
153.9
172.1
217.6
215.6

138.7
158.2
170.5
143.6
134.1
173.6
155.8
172.1
221.9
215.6

2621
2631
2647
2654
2655
2812
2821
2822
2824
2873

Paper mills, except building (12/74 = 100)....................
Paperboard mills (12/74 = 100) ..................................
Sanitary paper products................................................
Sanitary food containers ..............................................
Fiber cans, drums, and similar products (12/75 = 100) ..
Alkalies and chlorine (12/73 = 100)..............................
Plastics materials and resins (6/76 = 100)....................
Synthetic rubber ..........................................................
Organic fiber, noncellulosic............................................
Nitrogenous fertilizers (12/75 - 100) ............................

115.7
106.4
251.4
170.8
123.0
198.8
103.8
180.5
107.6
96.6

121.5
111.1
267.3
177.1
127.4
203.0
104.5
187.8
108.3
95.3

123.7
112.0
267.4
178.8
130.0
202.4
106.0
189.4
110.7
95.4

124.7
112.9
267.6
179.4
130.4
203.2
106.9
191.4
111.0
96.6

126.0
114.4
269.2
179.5
130.8
201.8
109.2
192.7
111.5
98.0

128.5
117.1
270.8
184.1
130.9
203.7
113.8
196.5
113.1
101.5

129.3
118.1
271.7
189.1
132.2
204.9
117.7
200.9
115.9
101.9

129.5
118.5
271.9
189.1
134.0
206.3
118.6
206.6
117.4
101.4

130.2
119.7
276.4
189.6
136.6
209.5
124.9
214.2
118.6
102.8

131.0
121.9
285.9
189.6
136.6
212.2
127.8
223.4
119.8
104.1

131.6
123.6
283.6
191.0
135.8
212.2
129.0
222.8
123.8
106.1

135.2
125.4
286.4
195.8
136.6
213.6
132.5
224.4
124.7
107.9

136.7
126.4
286.5
198.1
137.2
216.5
133.9
227.0
124.1
111.7

137.0
127.7
289.1
199.9
140.9
217.1
134.3
229.4
123.5
113.6

2874
2875
2892
2911
2951
2952
3011

Phosphatic fertilizers ....................................................
Fertilizers, mixing only ..................................................
Explosives ..................................................................
Petroleum refining (6/76 - 100) ..................................
Paving mixtures and blocks (12/75 - 100)....................
Asphalt felts and coatings (12/75) - 100) ....................
Tires and inner tubes (12/73 - 100) ............................

166.0
181.9
217.3
119.6
117.1
128.2
154.0

168.7
185.2
226.3
125.4
120.2
134.0
161.8

167.8
185.2
226.6
127.3
123.5
134.7
164.0

173.3
187.5
227.1
129.3
124.8
139.3
166.2

179.1
192.8
226.9
132.8
125.9
132.8
167.1

185.2
197.3
227.9
138.8
128.5
138.6
168.0

185.1
197.8
239.0
146.6
130.1
139.3
169.2

184.2
197.8
239.3
155.1
131.2
141.6
170.6

188.9
198.1
240.1
165.5
134.4
143.6
176.8

199.4
205.6
240.7
176.6
134.9
142.7
181.2

201.5
210.7
250.1
188.4
138.3
145.7
183.9

211.9
218.4
250.6
196.3
145.5
146.1
186.5

221.2
226.9
251.8
200.9
145.6
151.6
190.9

223.4
227.1
252.7
204.8
145.7
150.4
191.0


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

105

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Current Labor Statistics: Producer Prices
30.

Continued— Producer Price Indexes for the output of selected SIC Industries

[1967 = 100 unless otherwise specified]
1972
SIC
code

Annual

1978

1978*

Dec.

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept

O ct

Nov.

Dec.

158.7
154.3

168.7
161.3
102.1
135.9
129.6
135.2
176.3
123.0
149.0
250.7

169.0
161.3
103.4
143.7
134.7
141.0
178.4
123.0
150.8
250.7

169.0
162.1
105.4
173.8
136.3
145.6
189.2
123.0
150.8
250.7

169.0
164.5
107.5
182.9
136.3
147.6
190.3
123.0
150.8
250.7

169.5
167.6
109.0
201.3
138.5
152.8
192.2
131.7
150.8
265.2

169.6
169.1
110.7
195.8
142.0
155.4
195.4
131.8
151.8
265.2

171.0
169.2
111.4
181.8
135.0
155.4
198.7
131.8
151.9
265.2

173.4
169.2
112.3
172.9
135.0
158.2
201.5
131.8
151.9
265.2

173.4
170.5
112.9
155.2
136.2
159.0
201.6
131.8
152.3
265.4

173.4
171.7
113.9
161.9
136.9
159.3
202.3
131.8
152.6
265.4

173.4
177.1
114.1
150.8
137.0
159.2
204.0
131.8
153.3
265.5

173.4
177.4
115.6
153.5
137.0
159.2
204.0
131.8
153.9
273.6

Industry description

1979

3021
3031
3079
3111
3142
3143
3144
3171
3211
3221

Rubber and plastic footwear (12/71 = 100) ......................
Reclaimed rubber (12/73 = 100) ..............
Miscellaneous plastic products (6/78 = 100)..................
Leather tanning and finishing (12/77 = 100) ............
House slippers (12/75 = 100) ....................................
Men's footwear, except athletic (12/75 = 100) ..................
Women's footwear, except athletic ........................
Women’s handbags and purses (12/75 = 100) ......................
Flat glass (12/71 = 100) ................................
Glass containers ......................................

119.1
122.5
127.1
164.1
111.4
142.7
244.3

164.1
156.4
102.0
140.1
127.1
133.9
173.7
114.3
147.5
250.6

3241
3251
3253
3255
3259
3261
3262
3263
3269
3271

Cement, hydraulic ................................................
Brick and structural clay tile ..............................
Ceramic wall and floor tile (12/75 = 100)........
Clay refractories ......................................
Structural clay products, n.e.c..............................
Vitreous plumbing fixtures....................................
Vitreous china food utensils................................................
Fine earthenware food utensils ....................
Pottery products, n.e.c. (12/75 = 100) ................................
Concrete block and brick ................................

251.2
230.8
107.7
221.4
176.3
189.7
268.8
228.1
122.2
202.0

256.0
243.9
111.5
231.7
179.6
194.3
284.4
242.4
129.6
211.9

275.4
248.9
111.6
233.4
184.1
195.1
284.4
242.4
129.6
223.0

278.8
250.9
111.6
233.2
184.4
198.6
290.6
237.0
129.2
223.1

280.3
252.8
113.0
234.1
186.7
198.9
290.6
237.1
129.2
227.0

283.1
256.7
113.0
234.4
186.8
201.6
290.6
237.1
129.2
230.6

283.2
258.3
113.0
234.6
186.8
204.6
290.6
237.1
129.2
232.6

283.7
259.7
113.0
236.9
187.8
206.4
290.6
236.4
129.0
232.7

285.4
261.0
120.2
246.5
188.2
210.1
297.5
238.8
131.0
232.7

285.4
263.3
120.2
246.7
192.1
212.4
297.5
238.8
131.0
235.7

282.8
265.9120.2
248.5
192.5
212.8
297.5
238.6
130.9
237.8

282.8
260.4
120.1
251.7
193.2
214.5
297.9
245.8
133.2
240.0

282.9
261.3
120.2
254.4
192.6
215.7
305.3
246.9
135.0
240.0

283.6
262.7
130.3
255.4
196.9
217.3
307.9
290.3
148.8
240.1

3273
3274
3275
3291
3297
3312
3313
3316
3317
3321

Ready-mixed concrete ................................
Lime'(12/75 = 100)..................................................
Gypsum products......................................................
Abrasive products (12/71 = 1 0 0 ) ..........................................
Nonclay refractories (12/74 = 100) ............................
Blast furnaces and steel mills ......................................
Electrometallurgical products (12/75 = 100 )........................
Cold finishing of steel shapes ......................................
Steel pipes and tubes..........................................................
Gray iron foundries (12/68 = 100) ................................................

217.6
129.5
229.5
172.3
133.6
262.3
94.8
241.0
255.2
233.5

227.7
133.1
243.1
178.9
139.0
270.7
98.4
247.4
258.7
240.0

240.0
136.2
248.1
181.1
139.8
279.9
103.5
258.1
265.0
244.9

241.1
136.6
251.1
182.2
140.3
280.3
104.0
258.3
265.1
244.7

241.7
137.5
251.5
182.4
140.4
281.1
104.0
258.4
265.8
249.4

244.5
139.9
252.7
184.0
140.5
283.5
106.8
259.1
265.0
253.9

245.2
139.8
249.4
185.1
140.5
285.3
111.7
259.8
264.5
253.3

247.5
140.1
251.9
185.8
143.9
285.8
112.3
261.3
264.5
254.5

249.6
141.8
252.3
187.7
148.1
292.8
116.5
270.6
271.9
253.9

250.5
142.9
252.8
188.6
149.1
293.0
116.5
270.8
271.3
253.8

252.2
144.3
255.4
190.3
149.7
293.2
116.0
271.0
271.4
253.6

253.0
144.7
255.9
193.9
150.1
296.3
116.2
271.9
272.8
265.6

254.5
144.4
256.8
194.7
152.3
297.0
117.5
273.2
272.8
266.0

257.0
144.7
255.6
197.1
152.4
297.6
117.6
273.9
273.0
268.3

3333
3334
3351
3353
3354
3355
3411
3425
3431
3465

Pnmary zinc..................................................
Primary aluminum ....................................................
Copper rolling and drawing....................................
Aluminum sheet plate and foil (12/75 = 100) ....................
Aluminum extruded products (12/75 = 100) ......................
Aluminum rolling, drawing, n.e.c. (12/75 = 100) . . . .
Meta cans ..................................................................
Hand saws and saw blades (12/72 = 100)..........................
Metal sanitary ware ..............................................
Automotive stampings (12/75 = 100 )............................

223.2
217.4
170.2
137.6
134.3
119.7
238.5
147.9
209.1
118.8

243.2
220.3
179.0
143.2
138.6
122.8
248.3
155.5
214.1
123.0

243.2
220.3
184.2
145.8
141.1
125.2
252.7
157.7
214.7
123.6

260.6
226.1
199.9
146.4
141.6
126.5
253.9
157.8
217.4
125.0

260.9
232.4
211.0
146.5
142.5
127.5
260.9
157.9
219.2
125.7

274.2
235.8
220.1
148.0
146.1
129.6
264.4
159.6
220.8
126.2

274.5
237.4
215.6
148.7
147.5
131.5
263.8
161.9
222.2
127.0

275.2
238.5
211.7
148.8
147.6
131.6
262.2
162.5
224.1
127.1

281.4
244.9
211.2
149.6
150.3
132.7
262.2
162.8
226.4
127.8

265.5
247.4
213.6
149.8
151.9
133.1
262.9
166.3
228.9
130.9

264.2
248.2
216.8
150.0
152.2
133.5
261.5
166.2
229.2
131.9

265.2
256.0
223.3
150.8
153.5
136.8
270.2
166.9
230.1
132.7

257.9
263.2
222.7
151.5
157.3
139.9
273.8
169.4
231.7
132.7

265.7
266.6
225.1
151.9
157.8
140.3
273.9
169.6
232.9
132.7

3482
3493
3494
3498
3519
3531
3532
3533
3534
3542

Small arms ammunition (12/75 = 100)............
Steel springs, except w ire..................................................
Valves and pipe fittings (12/71 =100) ............................
Fabricated pipe and fittings....................................
Internal combustion engines, n.e.c..............................
Construction machinery (12/76 = 100)............
Mining machinery (12/72 = 100) ..........................
Oilfield machinery and equipment ....................
Elevators and moving stairways ......................
Machine tools, metal forming types (12/71 = 100)..........

119.5
204.6
185.5
265.5
220.1
114.0
209.5
246.2
204.2
213.6

124.2
210.7
193.4
276.4
228.4
119.2
218.1
275.6
211.5
228.8

129.3
210.9
196.1
276.6
232.7
120.0
222.5
279.5
211.7
231.6

129.3
212.6
197.6
276.7
233.8
121.1
223.4
281.4
214.1
233.3

125.9
216.7
199.0
276.8
234.0
121.6
224.2
281.8
213.4
234.1

128.3
218.1
201.4
284.9
237.1
123.0
228.0
283.5
213.8
237.9

130.4
218.7
203.6
288.2
239.0
123.9
228.4
288.4
213.6
238.8

131.4
220.5
204.2
290.7
239.2
124.0
226.4
290.0
214.2
240.6

134.0
221.6
205.3
294.8
242.3
125.6
231.2
292.0
215.4
244.6

134.0
222.1
206.2
294.8
245.7
126.3
231.5
293.3
214.6
245.1

138.3
222.7
206.4
294.9
249.5
126.3
232.7
296.7
216.5
247.9

137.5
223.5
209.5
297.0
252.8
128.4
233.1
300.5
216.8
249.6

137.9
223.9
211.6
297.4
253.7
129.0
234.7
301.3
220.6
253.5

149.2
225.4
213.9
297.4
253.7
130.7
235.8
308.0
220.9
256.7

3546
3552
3553
3576
3592
3612
3623
3631
3632
3633

Power driven hand tools' (12/76 = 100) ................
Textile machinery (12/69 = 100) ............................
Woodworking machinery (12/72 = 100) ..............
Scales and balances, excluding laboratory..................
Carburetors, pistons, rings, valves (6/76 = 100) ............
Transformers................................
Welding apparatus, electric (12/72 = 100) ..............
Household cooking equipment (12/75 = 100) ............
Household refrigerators, freezers (6/76 = 100)............
Household laundry equipment (12/73 = 100) ................

111.1
179.9
168.1
179.7
128.2
158.3
178.1
114.8
109.6
141.0

114.4
186.4
174.1
188.4
134.3
163.1
184.0
118.3
110.7
144.4

115.4
189.0
177.9
188.8
135.0
163.2
184.8
119.1
111.4
145.4

116.3
189.6
177.3
191.1
135.7
165.4
186.0
119.2
112.5
146.3

116.9
190.4
179.2
191.1
136.9
167.0
186.6
,120.2
112.7
146.9

117.7
191.6
181.0
191.3
137.6
168.5
187.3
120.3
111.8
146.9

117.8
191.7
183.2
192.8
138.6
168.0
191.5
120.7
111.9
147.0

118.7
192.6
184.5
193.7
138.7
168.5
191.9
120.9
112.6
147.2

119.2
195.0
185.9
194.8
139.2
167.9
193.5
122.0
113.6
148.8

120.2
197.5
187.7
195.4
139.6
167.6
194.1
123.4
114.3
149.9

120.3
198.2
188.4
195.4
140.3
168.6
194.9
124.2
114.7
151.8

121.9
199.2
193.0
192.9
141.5
171.4
196.2
124.3
114.8
152.1

122.7
200.6
193.1
196.6
143.5
170.5
197.9
125.8
115.3
153.5

124.2
200.6
193.3
197.7
144.6
171.7
1996
126.1
115.9
154.7

3635
3636
3641
3644
3646
3648
3671
3674
3675
3676

Household vacuum cleaners........................
Sewing machines (12/75 = 100) ..................
Electric lamps ............................................
Noncurrent-carrylng wiring devices (12/72 = 100)
Commercial lighting fixtures (12/75 - 100) ..................
Lighting equipment, n.e.c. (12/75 = 100)..................
Electron tubes receiving type ............................
Semiconductors and related devices..............................
Electronic capacitors (12/75 = 100)........................
Electronic resistors (12/75 = 100) ............................

135.5
111.2
214.7
185.8
112.7
114.6
200.9
85.3
111.5
118.3

137.6
115.4
226.1
195.4
117.2
118.3
210.6
84.4
112.2
122.7

138.1
119.8
226.6
196.1
117.6
121.2
210.8
84.1
112.7
122.7

138.1
119.8
226.8
197.1
119.6
121.9
210.9
84.2
114.4
122.8

140.4
119.8
227.1
198.0
121.2
122.3
211.0
84.4
115.9
123.1

140.4
121.1
229.8
200.4
124.3
123.5
211.2
84.7
119.8
123.2

141.2
121.1
229.8
202.6
126.8
124.0
211.3
84.7
120.1
123.2

141.5
121.1
229.7
203.0
127.4
124.6
226.4
84.7
122.1
123.2

141.6
121.8
240.8
203.3
127.9
127.6
226.5
84.2
126.7
124.0

141.7
122.2
244.3
207.7
127.9
128.2
226.6
84.3
129.3
124.6

141.9
121.6
242.7
211.4
129.5
128.3
227.2
84.4
133.6
130.2

144.3
122.0
244.8
212.8
130.3
129.3
227.2
84.7
134.0
127.8

144.7
122.0
240.8
214.2
132.0
129.8
227.3
85.0
134.9
127.8

145.8
122.0
240.5
217.3
132.3
130.5
227.6
86.0
137.9
127.3

3678
3692
3711
3942
3944
3955
3995
3996

Electronic connectors (12/75 = 100) ............................
Primary batteries, dry and wet ..........................
Motor vehicles and car bodies (12/75 = 100) ....................
Dolls (12/75 = 100) ............................
Games, toys, and children's vehicles........................
Carbon paper and inked ribbons (12/75 = 100)............
Burial caskets (6/76 = 100)..................................
Hard surface floor coverings (12/75 = 100) ............

118.9
162.0
115.9
103.2
172.3
105.1
113.0
116.3

123.6
162.1
120.2
104.5
174.0
106.2
117.8
117.0

123.7
162.4
122.0
107.8
177.3
109.3
117.8
120.7

125.4
162.7
122.3
109.0
178.8
114.3
120.9
120.7

125.6
164.8
122.3
108.6
179.2
115.5
120.9
120.7

125.8
167.9
124.5
109.3
179.6
119.6
121.0
120.7

126.6
172.1
124.6
109.3
182.3
120.2
121.7
123.7

126.9
172.7
124.8
109.3
183.1
116.7
121.7
124.5

133.4
172.8
125.1
111.8
183.5
117.1
123.3
128.3

134.1
172.8
122.1
112.6
184.4
118.3
123.8
128.3

137.6
172.8
122.3
112.9
184.7
1187
124.8
128.3

138.4
173.1
129.6
112.9
185.7
121.5
124.8
131.0

140.7
173.1
129.8
113.0
186.3
125.5
124.8
134.1

141.0
174.1
130.0
113.0
186.6
125.6
124.8
134.1


106
https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

NOTE: Data for Aug. 1979 have been revised to reflect the availability of late reports and
corrections by respondents. All data are subject to revision 4 months after original publication.

PRODUCTIVITY DATA

P r o d u c t i v i t y d a t a are compiled by the Bureau of Labor
Statistics from establishment data and from estimates of com­
pensation and output supplied by the U.S. Department of
Commerce and the Federal Reserve Board.

Definitions
Output is the constant dollar gross domestic product produced in a
given period. Indexes of output per hour of labor input, or labor pro­
ductivity, measure the value of goods and services produced per hour
of labor. Compensation per hour includes wages and salaries of em­
ployees plus employers' contributions for social insurance and private
benefit plans. The data also include an estimate of wages, salaries, and
supplementary payments for the self-employed, except for nonfinancial corporations, in which there are no self-employed. Real com­
pensation per hour is compensation per hour adjusted by the
Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers.
Unit labor cost measures the labor compensation cost required to
produce one unit of output and is derived by dividing compensation
by output. Unit nonlabor payments include profits, depreciation, in­
terest, and indirect taxes per unit of output. They are computed by
subtracting compensation of all persons from the current dollar gross
domestic product and dividing by output. In these tables, Unit
nonlabor costs contain all the components of unit nonlabor payments
except unit profits. Unit profits include corporate profits and invento­
ry valuation adjustments per unit of output.
The implicit price deflator is derived by dividing the current dollar
estimate of gross product by the constant dollar estimate, making the
deflator, in effect, a price index for gross product of the sector reported.

31.

The use of the term “man-hours” to identify the labor component
of productivity and costs, in tables 31 through 34, has been discontin­
ued. Hours of all persons is now used to describe the labor input of
payroll workers, self-employed persons, and unpaid family workers.
Output per all-employee hour is now used to describe labor productiv­
ity in nonfinancial corporations where there are no self-employed.

Notes on the data
In the private business sector and the nonfarm business sector, the
basis for the output measure employed in the computation of output
per hour is Gross Domestic Product rather than Gross National
Product. Computation of hours includes estimates of nonfarm and
farm proprietor hours.
Output data are supplied by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S.
Department of Commerce, and the Federal Reserve Board. Quarterly
manufacturing output indexes are adjusted by the Bureau of Labor
Statistics to annual estimates of output (gross product originating)
from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Compensation and hours data
are from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Bureau of Labor
Statistics.
Beginning with the September 1976 issue of the Review, tables 3 134 were revised to reflect changeover to the new series — private busi­
ness sector and nonfarm business sector — which differ from the
previously published total private economy and nonfarm sector in
that output imputed for owner-occupied dwellings and the household
and institutions sectors, as well as the statistical discrepancy, are
omitted. For a detailed explanation, see J. R. Norsworthy and L. J.
Fulco, “New sector definitions for productivity series," M o n th ly La bor
Review, October 1976, pages 40-42.

Indexes of productivity and related data, selected years, 1950-79

[1967 = 100]
Item
Private business sector:
Output per hour of all persons .
Compensation per hour ..........
Real compensation per hour . . .
Unit labor c o st........................
Unit nonlabor payments ..........
Implicit price deflator ..............
Nonfarm business sector:
Output per hour of all persons .
Compensation per hour ..........
Real compensation per hour . . .
Unit labor c o s t........................
Unit nonlabor payments ..........
Implicit price deflator ..............
Nonfinancial corporations:
Output per hour of all employees
Compensation per hour ..........
Real compensation per hour . . .
Unit labor co s t........................
Unit nonlabor payments ..........
Implicit price deflator ..............
Manufacturing:
Output per hour of all persons .
Compensation per hour ..........
Real compensation per hour . . .
Unit labor co s t........................
Unit nonlabor payments ..........
Implicit price deflator ..............

1950

1955

1960

1965

1970

1972

1973

1974

1975

1976

1977

1978

1979

61.0
42.4
58,9
69.6
73.2
70.8

70.3
55.8
696
79,4
80.5
798

78.7
71.9
81.1
91.3
855
89.3

95.0
88.7
93.8
933
95.9
94.2

104.2
123.1
105.8
118.2
105.8
113.9

111.4
139.7
111.5
125.4
119.0
123.2

113.6
151.2
113.6
133.1
124.9
130.3

110.1
164.9
111.7
149.8
130.4
143.1

112.4
181.3
112.5
161.3
150.4
157.5

116.4
197.2
115.6
169.4
158.0
165.5

118.6
213.0
117.3
179.6
165.6
174.8

119.2
231.2
118.3
194.0
174.3
187.2

»118.1
»252.8
»116.3
»214.1
»184,4
»203.8

66.9
45.4
63.0
67.9
71.5
69.1

74.3
58.7
73.2
79.1
80.1
79.4

80.9
74.2
83.7
91.7
84.5
89.2

95.9
89.4
94.6
93.2
958
94.1

103.0
121.7
104.6
118.1
106.0
114.0

110.1
138.4
110.4
125.7
117.5
122.9

112.0
149.2
112.1
133.2
117.8
127.9

108.5
162.8
110.2
150.0
124.7
141.4

110.5
178.9
111.0
161.8
146.0
156.4

114.4
193.8
113.7
169.4
156.0
164.8

116.2
209.3
115.3
180.1
163 9
174.5

116.8
227.3
116.3
194.5
169.9
186.1

»115.5.
»247.6
»113.9
»214.4
»178.8
p202.2

(’ )
(’ )
(’ )
(’ )
(’ )

( ')
(’ )
(’ )
(’ )
(’ )
(’ )

80.2
75.7
85.4
94.3
90.8
93.1

96.8
90.0
95.3
93.0
100.1
95.5

103,5
121.5
104.4
117.4
103.5
112.5

110.5
136.7
109.1
123 7
114.8
120.5

112.8
147.5
110.8
130.7
116.8
125.8

108.5
161.4
109.3
148.8
124,8
140.2

111.9
177.4
110.1
158.6
148.1
154.9

115.5
192.2
112.7
166.4
156.8
163.0

116.8
2076
114.4
177.7
164.4
173.0

117.9
224.8
115.0
190.6
170.6
183.5

( ')
(’ )
<’ )
(’ )
(’ )
(’ )

65.0
45.1
625
694
82.4
73.3

74.1
60.5
75.4
81,6
886
83.8

78.9
77.1
87.0
97.7
92.4
96.1

98.3
91.0
96.3
926
103.3
95.9

104 5
121.8
104 7
116.5
96.2
1103

115.7
136.6
109.0
118.1
107.4
114.8

118.8
146 4
110.0
123.2
106.4
118.0

112.6
161.1
109.1
143.1
105.6
131.6

118.2
180.2
111.8
152 4
128.4
145.1

123.4
195.1
114.5
158 2
139.6
152.5

127.2
212.0
116.8
166.6
147.4
160.7

128.0
229.5
117.5
179.4
152.4
171.1

»130.2
»250.5
»115.2
»192.4
C)
(’ )

(')

1Not available.


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

107

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW February 1980 • Current Labor Statistics: Productivity
32.

Annual percent change in productivity and related data, 1969-79

Private business sector:
Output per hour of all persons ..............
Compensation per hour ....................
Real compensation per hour..........
Unit labor cost..............................
Unit nonlabor payments..................
Implicit price deflator ......................
Nonfarm business sector:
Output per hour of all persons....................
Compensation per h o u r........................
Real compensation per hour......................
Unit labor cost..................................
Unit nonlabor payments................
Implicit price deflator ..........................
Nonfinancial corporations:
Output per hour of all employees . . . .
Compensation per h o u r........................
Real compensation per hour..................
Unit labor cost..................................
Unit nonlabor payments..................
Implicit price deflator ....................................
Manufacturing:
Output per hour of all persons ......................
Compensation per hour ............................
Real compensation per hour............................
Unit labor cost................................
Unit nonlabor payments......................
Implicit price deflator ..........................

Annual rate
of change

Year

Item
1969

1970

1971

1972

1973

1974

1975

1976

1977

1978

1979

0.2
6.8
1.4
6.6
1.0
4.7

0.7
7.1
1.1
6.4
1.2
4.7

3.3
6.7
2.4
3.3
6.8
4.4

3.5
6.3
2.9
2.8
5.2
3.6

1.9
8.2
1.9
6.2
5.0
5.8

-3.0
9.1
-1.7
12.5
4,4
9.8

2.1
9.9
.7
7.7
15.3
10.1

3.5
8.8
2.8
5.0
5.1
5.0

1,9
8.0
1.5
6.0
4.8
5.6

0.5
8.5
0.8
8,0
5.3
7.1

p 09
p9 3
p -1.7
p 10.4
p5.8
p8.9

26
58
26
32
28
3.1

22
68
21
45
40
4.3

-.3
6.3
.9
6.7
.4
4.5

.1
6.7
.7
6.5
1.6
4.9

3.1
6.7
2.3
3.5
6.7
4.5

3.7
6.5
3.1
2.8
3.8
3.1

1.7
7.8
1.5
6.0
.3
4.1

-3.1
9.1
1.7
12.7
5.9
10.5

1.9
9.9
.7
7.9
17.1
10.6

3.5
8.3
2.4
4.7
6.9
5.4

1.6
8.0
1.4
6.3
5.0
5.9

0.5
8.6
0.9
8.0
3.7
6.6

p —1.2
p8 9
p -2,1
p 10.2
p5.2
p8.7

22
55
2.3
32
28
3.1

20
65
19
45
39
4.3

.3
6.7
1.2
6.3
0
4.1

-.1
6.7
.7
6.8
.5
4.6

3.4
6.2
1.9
2.7
7.3
4.2

3.3
5.9
2.5
2.5
3.3
2.8

2.1
7.9
1.6
5.7
1.8
4.4

-3.8
9.4
-1.4
13.8
6.8
11.5

3.1
10.0
.7
6.6
18.7
10.5

3.2
8.3
2.4
4.9
5.8
5.2

1.1
8.0
1.5
6.8
4.9
6.1

10
8.3
0.6
7.3
3.8
6.1

( 1)
( 1)
( ')

( ')

(’ )

1.1
6.4
1.0
5.2
-4.4
2.3

.3
6.9
,9
7.2
-3.2
4.2

5.3
6.3
2.0
9
9.2
3.1

5.1
5.5
2.1
4
2.3
1.0

2.7
7.2
9
4.3
-1.0
2.8

-5.2
10.1
-.8
16.1
-.7
11.5

4.9
11.8
2.4
6.6
21.6
10.2

4.4
8.3
2.4
3.8
8.8
5.1

3.1
8.6
2.0
5.3
5.5
5.4

.6
8.3
.6
7.7
3.4
6.5

P1 8
p9 1
p 19
p7.2
PN.A.
PN.A.

26
54
22
2.7
1.8
2.5

.

1950-78

( 1)
( 1)
( 1)
( 1)

( ')
( ')

1960-78

42
34
3.9
2i>
63
16
23
3.3

’ Not available.

33.

Indexes of productivity, hourly compensation, unit costs, and prices, seasonally adjusted

[1967 = 100]

Item

Private business sector:
Output per hour of all persons..................
Compensation per hour ..............................
Real compensation per hour..........
Unit labor cost..................................
Unit nonlabor payments............................
Implicit price deflator ..................
Nonfarm business sector:
Output per hour of all persons ..........................
Compensation per ho u r........................
Real compensation per hour..................
Unit labor cost............................
Unit nonlabor payments..........................
Implicit price deflator..........................
Nonfinancial corporations:
Output per hour of all employees..................
Compensation per ho u r..................
Real compensation per hour....................
Total unit c o sts..............................
Unit labor cost ........................
Unit nonlabor costs..................
•Unit profits ..........................................
Implicit price deflator ..........................
Manufacturing:
Output per hour for all persons..............
Compensation per hour ......................
Real compensation per hour............................
Unit labor cost................................

108


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Quarterly Indexes

Annual
average

1977

1978

1979

1978

1979

II

III

IV

1

II

III

IV

1

II

III

IV

119.2
231.2
118.3
194.0
174.3
187.2

118.1
252.8
116.3
214.1
184.4
203.8

117.9
210.8
116.7
178.8
164.7
173.9

119.4
215.3
117.6
180.2
167.9
176.0

118.8
218.5
117.9
183.8
168.6
178.6

118.4
224.2
118.7
189.4
164.8
180.9

119.0
228.5
118.1
192.1
173.9
185.8

119.7
233.6
118.2
195.2
177.0
188.9

119.8
238.4
118.0
199.0
181.3
192.9

118.9
244.8
118.0
205.9
180.8
197.2

118.2
250.3
116.9
211,7
183.7*
202.0

r 117.8
255.6
115.8
r 217.0
'185.6
’ 206.1

p 117 3
p260 0
p 114.2
p214 1
p 184 4
p203 8

116.8
227.3
116.3
194.5
1699
186.1

115.5
247.6
113.9
214.4
178.8
202.2

115.8
207.3
114.7
179.0
163.2
173.6

116.7
211.2
115.4
180.9
167.1
176.2

116.3
214.8
115.9
184.7
166.0
178.3

116.0
220.6
116.8
190.2
161.1
180.2

116.5
224.6
116.1
192.7
169.2
184.7

117.3
229.4
116.1
195.6
173.0
1878

117.6
234.3
116.0
199.3
176.1
191.4

116.6
240.2
115.8
206.0
174.3
195.1

115.4
244.8
114.3
212.1
177.6
200.3

'115.0
'249.9
113.2
'217.3
'180.5
’ 204 7

p 114 9
p 255.2
p 112.1
p222 2
p 183.3
p 208.9

117,9
224.8
115.0
1933
190.6
201.8
127.2
183.5

(’ )
n
<’ )
(’ )
( 1)
(’ )
(’ )
( 1)

116.5
205.7
113.8
180.5
176.6
192.4
123.3
172.0

117.4
209.5
114.5
182.4
178.4
194.8
130,9
174.7

116.7
212.8
114.8
186.3
182.3
198.7
122.2
176.8

116.7
218.5
115.7
190.8
187.3
201.5
107.1
178.3

117.8
222.3
114.9
191.6
1887
200.8
129.2
182.3

118.4
2269
114.8
194.0
191.5
201.6
132.7
184.9

118.8
231.3
114,5
196.8
194.8
203.1
138.7
188.2

118.1
237,4
114.5
202.3
201.0
206.5
130.3
191.6

117.3
242 1
113.1
208.0
206.4
213.2
129.2
196.3

117.5
2471
111 9
212.6
2103
219.9
129 0
200.2

( 1)
( 1)
( 1)
¡’ J

128.0
229.5
117.5
179.4

130.2
250.5
115.2
192.4

127.3
209.7
116.1
164.7

128.4
214.1
117.0
166.7

127.8
217.5
117.4
170.2

125.7
223.2
118.1
177.5

127.2
226.6
117.1
178.1

129.2
231.4
117.0
179.1

1298
236.5
117.1
182.2

129.0
242.4
116.9
187.9

130.0
2482
115.9
190.9

'131.1
'253.0
114.6
'193.0

( 1)
<1)
( 1)
( 1)
p 130 6
p258 0
p 113.3
p 197.6

34. Percent change from preceding quarter and year in productivity, hourly compensation, unit costs, and prices,
seasonally adjusted at annual rate
[1967 = 100]
Percent change from same quarter a year ago

Quarterly percent change at annual rate
I11978
to
III 1978

Private business sector:
Output per hour of all persons ....................
Compensation per hour ..............................
Real compensation per hour........................
Unit labor c o s t............................................
Unit nonlabor payments ..............................
Implicit price deflator ..................................
Nonfarm business sector:
Output per hour of all persons ....................
Compensation per hour ..............................
Real compensation per hour........................
Unit labor c o s t............................................
Unit nonlabor payments ..............................
Implicit price deflator ..................................
Nonfinandal corporations:
Output per hour of all employees ................
Compensation per hour ..............................
Real compensation per hour........................
Total unit costs ..........................................
Unit labor costs ......................................
Unit nonlabor costs..................................
Unit profits..................................................
Implicit price deflator ..................................
Manufacturing:
Output per hour of all persons ....................
Compensation per hour ..............................
Real compensation per hour........................
Unit labor c o s t............................................


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

III 1978
to
IV 1978

IV 1978
to
11979

1 1979
to
I11979

I11979
to
III 1979

III 1979
to
IV 1979

p —1.6

III 1977
to
III 1978

IV 1977
to
IV 1978

11978
to
11979

I11978
to
I11979

III 1978
to
III 1979

IV 1978
to
IV 1979

2.4
9.2
.3
6.6
7.4
6.9

0.3
8.5
-.7
8.1
9.9
8.7

-3.0
11.1
.1
14.6
-1.0
9.3

-2.2
9.3
-3.8
11.8
6.5
10.1

r -1.3
8.8
-3.6
'10.3
r4.1
r8.3

»6.9
P-5.6
p8.7
»5.9
»7.8

0.2
8.5
0.4
8.3
5.4
7.4

0.8
9.1
.1
8.3
7.5
8.0

0.4
9.2
-.6
8.7
9.7
9.0

-0.6
9.5
-1.0
10.2
5.6
8.7

' -1.6
9.4
-2.0
r 11.2
4.8
'9.1

P-2.0
»9.0
»-3.2
»11.3
»3.9
»8.9

2.7
8.8
.0
6.0
9.4
7.0

.8
8.8
-.4
8.0
7.3
7.8

-3.2
10.4
-.6
14.0
-4.0
8.1

-4.1
7.9
-5.0
12.5
7.8
11.0

r -1.4
8.5
-3.9
r 10.1
r6.6
'9.0

P-1.2
»8.9
»3.8
»9.3
»6.4
»8.4

5
8.7
.6
8.1
3.5
6.6

1.1
9.1
.1
7.9
6.1
7.3

r .5
8.9
-.8
8.3
8.2
8.3

-1.0
9.0
-1.5
10.1
5.0
8.5

'- 2 .0
8.9
-2.5
'11.1
4.3
'9.0

»-2.3
»8.9
»-3.3
»11.5
»4.1
»9.1

2.0
8.4
-.4
5.1
6.2
1.7
11.4
5.7

1.1
8.1
-1.0
5.9
6.9
2.9
19.5
7.3

-2.1
11.0
.0
11.7
13.4
6.8
-22.1
7.6

-2.8
8.0
-4.9
11.8
11.2
13.5
-3.4
10.2

0.7
8.5
-3.9
9.2
7.8
13.3
-0.7
8.2

(’ )
( 1)
<’ )
( 1)
(’ )
(’ )
(’ )
<1)

0.8
8.3
.2
6.4
7.4
3.5
1.4
5.8

1.8
8.7
-.3
5.6
6.8
2.2
13.6
6.4

1.3
8.7
-1.0
6.1
7.3
2.5
21.7
7.5

.5
8.9
-1.6
8.6
9.4
6.2
0
7.7

-.8
8.9
-2.5
9.6
9.8
9.1
-2.8
8.3

(’ )
( 1)
(’ )
( ')
(’ )
( 1)
( 1)
( ')

6.3
8.7
-.1
2.2

2.0
9.3
0
7.1

-2.4
10.3
-.6
13.0

2.9
9.8
-3.4
6.7

r3.5
8.1
' -4.3
'4.4

P-1.5
»8.2
»4.5
»9.8

.6
8.1
0
7.4

1.6
8.7
-3
7.1

2.6
8.6
-1.1
5.9

2.2
9.5
-1.0
7.2

'1.5
9.4
-2.1
7.8

»0.6
»9.1
»3.2
»8.5

109

LABOR-M ANAGEM ENT DATA

M ajor collective bargaining data are obtained from
contracts on file at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, direct
contact with the parties, and from secondary sources. Addi­
tional detail is published in Current Wage Developments, a
monthly periodical of the Bureau. Data on work stoppages
are based on confidential responses to questionnaires mailed
by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to parties involved in work
stoppages. Stoppages initially come to the attention of ¿he
Bureau from reports of Federal and State mediation agencies,
newspapers, and union and industry publications.

Definitions

Data on wage changes apply to private nonfarm industry agree­
ments covering 1,000 workers or more. Data on wage and benefit
changes combined apply only to those agreements covering 5,000
workers or more. First-year wage settlements refer to pay changes go­
ing into effect within the first 12 months after the effective date of

35.

the agreement. Changes over the life of the agreement refer to total
agreed upon settlements (exclusive of potential cost-of-living escalator
adjustments) expressed at an average annual rate. Wage-rate changes
are expressed as a percent of straight-time hourly earnings, while wage
and benefit changes are expressed as a percent of total compensation.
Effective wage-rate adjustments going into effect in major
bargaining units measure changes actually placed into effect during the
reference period, whether the result of a newly negotiated increase, a
deferred increase negotiated in an earlier year, or as a result of a costof-living escalator adjustment. Average adjustments are affected by
workers receiving no adjustment, as well as by those receiving in­
creases or decreases.
Work stoppages include all known strikes or lockouts involving six
workers or more and lasting a full shift or longer. Data cover all
workers idle one shift or more in establishments directly involved in a
stoppage. They do not measure the indirect or secondary effect on
other establishments whose employees are idle owing to material or
service shortages.

Wage and benefit settlements in major collective bargaining units, 1975 to date

[In percent]
Annual average

Quarterly average

Sector and measure

1978
1975

1976

1977

1978

1979

1979
II

III

IV

1

II

III

IV

Wage and benefit settlements, all industries:
First-year settlements ....................................
Annual rate over life of contract......................

11.4
8.1

8.5

6.6

9.6
6.2

8.3
6.3

8.9
6.6

6.8
6.0

7.2
5.9

6.1
5.2

2.5
5.2

10.6
7.7

9.0
6.0

8.1
6.0

Wage rate settlements, all industries:
First-year settlements ....................................
Annual rate over life of contract......................

10.2
7.8

8.4
6.4

7.8
5.8

7.6
6.4

7.4
6.0

6.9
6.2

7.5
6.4

7.4
5.9

4.8
6.6

9.0
7.0

6.6
4.8

6.3
4.9

Manufacturing:
First-year settlements................................
Annual rate over life of contract ................

9.6
8.0

8.9
6.0

8.4
5.5

8.3
6.6

7.0
5.4

7.1
5.8

8.4
7.2

9.5
7.4

8.7
8.6

9.9
8.1

6.2
4.6

5.9
4.2

Nonmanufacturing (excluding construction):
First-year settlements................................
Annual rate over life of contract ................

11.9
8.0

8.6
7.2

8.0
5.9

8.0
6.5

7.5
5.9

7.7
6.9

7.4
5.9

6.4
5.1

2.3
5.6

8.5
5.7

9.1
5.8

7.2
7.5

Construction:
First-year settlements................................
Annual rate over life of contract ................

8.0
7.5

6.1
6.2

6.3
6.3

6.5
6.2

8.9
8.4

6.4
6.0

7.0 '
7.2

8.4
7.1

11.0
7.7

9.1
8.2

10.4
9.1

7.9
7.1

110

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

36.

Effective wage adjustments going into effect in major collective bargaining units, 1975 to date

[In percent]
Average quarterly changes

Average annual changes
Sector and measure

1975

1976

8.1

1977

8.0

1979

1978

88

8.2

1979

1978

1977

IV

1

II

III

IV

IV

1

II

III

1.1

1.3

2.6

2.7

1.4

1.4

2.6

3.2

1.5

0.4
.5
.5

0.2
.6
.6

1.1
.9
.5

1.0
1.0
1.2

0.4
.4
.6

1.9
1.1

1.4
1.4

2.3
2.8

3.1
3.4

2.2
.9

Total effective wage rate adjustment, all industries..............
Change resulting from—
Current settlement ..............................................
Prior settlement ..................................................
Escalator provision ..............................................

8.7
2.8
3.7
2.2

3.2
3.2
1.6

3.0
3.2
1.7

2.0
3.7
2.4

2.8
3.0
3.0

0.5
.3
.3

0.5
.6
.3

0.6
1.4
.6

0.5
1.2
1.0

Manufacturing............................................................
Nonmanufacturing......................................................

8.5
8.9

8.5
7.7

8.4
7.6

8.6
7.9

9.2
8.5

1.4
.8

1,4
1:3

2.2
2.9

2.9
2.5

NOTE: Because of rounding and compounding, the sums of individual items may not equal totals.

37.

Work stoppages, 1947 to date
Month and year

Beginning in
month or year

In effect
during month

1979:

Beginning in
month or year
(thousands)

In effect
during month
(thousands)

Number
(thousands)

Percent of
estimated
working time

3,693
3,419
3,606
4,843

2,170
1,960
3,030
2,410

34,600
34,100
50,500
38,800

.30
.28
.44
.33

5,117
5,091
3,468
4,320

2,220
3,540
2,400
1,530
2,650

22,900
59,100
28,300
22,600
28,200

.18
.48
.22
.18
.22

3,825
3,673
3,694
3,708
3,333

1,900
1,390
2,060
1,880
1,320

33,100
16,500
23,900
69,000
19,100

.24
.12
.18
.50
.14

3,367
3,614
3,362
3,655
3,963

1,450
1,230
941
1,640
1,550

16,300
18,600
16,100
22,900
23,300

.11
.13
.11
.15
.15

4,405
4,595
5,045
5,700
5,716

1,960
2,870
2,649
2,481
3,305

25,400
42,100
49,018
42,869
66,414

.15
.25
28
.24
.37

5,138
5,010
5,353
6,074
5,031

3,280
1,714
2,251
2,778
1,746

47,589
27,066
27,948
47,991
31,237

.26
.15
.14
.24
.16

5,648
5,506

2,420
2,040

37,859
35,822

.19
.17

1951 ........................................................................................

1978:

Days idle

Workers involved

Number of stoppages

453

854

448

551

4,446

.25

November ..................................................................
December ..................................................................

370
268
157

721
569
408

117
64
53

216
136
143

2,352
1,691
1,377

.13
.09
.08

January ......................................................................
February ....................................................................
March ........................................................................

262
299
391

366
501
608

68
75
112

144
221
223

1,925
1,670
1,871

.10

June ..........................................................................

512
556
536

781
877
866

426
132
137

535
395
302

5,126
3,682
2,989

.27
.19
.16

471
463
464

817
869
793

168
119
135

290
270
243

3,001
3,152
2,319

.16
.15
.13

443
257
134

781
546

230
91
42

334
255

2,968
2,720
1,976

.15
.15
.11

September..................................................................

J u ly ............................................................................
September..................................................................


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

.10

Ill

How to order BLS publications
PERIODICALS
Order from (and make checks payable to) Su­
perintendent o f Documents, Washington, D.C.
20402. For foreign subscriptions, add 25 percent.

Monthly Labor Review. The oldest and most
authoritative government research journal in
economics and the social sciences. Current
statistics, analysis, developments in industrial
relations, court decisions, book reviews. $18
a year, single copy, $2.50.
Employment and Earnings. A comprehensive
monthly report on employment, hours, earn­
ings, and labor turnover by industry, area,
occupation, et cetera $22 a year, single copy
$2.75.
Occupational Outlook Quarterly. A popular
periodical designed to help high school stu­
dents and guidance counselors assess career
opportunities. $6 for four issues, single copy
$1.75.
Current Wage Developments. A monthly re­

port about collective bargaining settlements
and unilateral management decisions about
wages and benefits; statistical summaries.
$12 a year, single copy $1.35.
Producer Prices and Price Indexes. A com­
prehensive monthly report on price move­
ments of both farm and industrial commodi­
ties, by industry and stage of processing. $17
a year, single copy $2.25.
CPI Detailed Report. A monthly periodical

featuring detailed data and charts on the
Consumer Price Index. $15 a year, single
copy $2.25.
PRESS RELEASES

The Bureau’s statistical series are made avail­
able to news media through press releases is­
sued in Washington. Many of the releases
also are available to the public upon request.
Write: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Washing­
ton, D.C: 20212.
Regional. Each of the Bureau’s eight regional
offices publishes reports and press releases
dealing with regional data. Single copies
available free from the issuing regional office.


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

BULLETINS AND HANDBOOKS
About 140 bulletins and handbooks published each year are for sale by regional
offices o f the Bureau o f Labor Statistics (see inside front cover) and by the Su­
perintendent o f Documents. Washington, D.C. 20402. Make checks payable to
the Superintendent o f Documents. Among the bulletins and handbooks currently
in print are these:

Occupational Outlook Handbook, 1978-79 Edition. Bulletin 1955. A
useful resource supplying valuable assistance to all persons seeking satis­
fying and productive employment. $8, paperback; $11 hard cover.
BLS Handbook of Labor Statistics 1978. Bulletin 2000. A 604-page vol­
ume of historical data on the major BLS statistical series. $9.50.
Handbook of Methods. Bulletin 1910. Brief technical account of each
major statistical program of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. $3.50.
BLS Measures of Compensation. Bulletin 1941. An introduction to the

various measures of employee compensation; describes each series, the
manner in which it is developed, its uses and limitations. $2.75.
Occupational Projections and Training Data. Bulletin 2020. Presents
both general and detailed information on the relationship between occu­
pational requirements and training needs. (Updates Bulletin 1918
published in 1976.) $3.25.
Technological Change and its Labor Impact in Five Energy Industries.

Bulletin 2005. A 64-page study appraising major technological change
and discussing the impact of these changes on productivity and occupa­
tions over the next 5 to 10 years. $2.40.
BLS Publications, 1972-77. Bulletin 1990. A numerical listing and sub­
ject index of bulletins and reports issued by the Bureau from 1972
through 1977, supplementing Bulletin 1749, covering 1886-1971. $1.80.
International Comparisons of Unemployment. Bulletin 1979. Brings to­
gether all of the Bureau’s work on international unemployment compari­
sons. Describes the methods of adjusting foreign unemployment rates in
8 countries to U.S. concepts. $3.50.
REPORTS AND PAMPHLETS
Single copies available free from the BLS regional offices or from the Bureau of
Labor Statistics, U. S. Department o f Labor, Washington, D. C. 20212.

Occupational Injuries and Illnesses in 1977: Summary. Report 561. Sta­
tistical estimates of incidence rates for and number of occupational
illnesses and injuries in the United States during 1976 and 1977.
How the Government Measures Unemployment. Report 505. A concise
report providing a background for appraising developments in the area
of unemployment.
Where to Find BLS Statistics on Women. Report 530. A summary of
the statistics on women which are available from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics and where they may be found.
Directory of BLS Studies in Industrial Relations 1960-78. Report 550.

A listing of studies prepared by the Division of Industrial Relations as
part of the Bureau’s regular program of data collection and analysis in
the field of industrial relations.

* U . S . G O V E R N M E N T P R IN T IN G O F F IC E : 1980 0 — 311 -4 0 6 /2 6

Time Series Data for t
Input-Output Industries
For researchers in business and economics
A comprehensive set of data for 1958-76 —
Current-dollar output
Constant-dollar output
Deflators
Employment

❖

Time Series Data
for Input-Output Industries
U S Department of Labor
Bureau of Labor Statistics
1979
Bullitm 2018

Among the manufacturing and
nonmanufacturing industries included are —
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

Dairy and poultry products
Meat animals and livestock
Iron and ferroalloy ore mining
Copper ore mining
New residential building construction
New nonresidential building construction
Meat products
Diary products
Industrial inorganic and organic chemicals
Agricultural chemicals
Medical and dental instruments
Optical and ophthalmic equipment
Railroad transportation
Local transit, intercity buses
Banking
Credit agencies and financial brokers
Automobile repair
Motion pictures

Fill out and mail this coupon to
BLS Regional Office nearest you
or
Superintendent of Documents,
U.S. Government Printing Office,
Washington, D.C. 20402.
Make checks payable to
Superintendent of Documents.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

□

□

□

□
a
m

s

a
a

a
a

■

■

□

■

□
a

a

a

□
□

□

□

a

■
m

□

□

□

□

□

a

a
a

■

■

■

m

■

■

U.S. Department ot Labor
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Washington D.C. 20212
Official Business
Penalty for private use, $300
RETURN POSTAGE GUARANTEED


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Postage and Fees Paid
U.S. Department of Labor
Lab-441

SECOND CLASS MAIL