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UNITED STATES DEPARTM ENT OF LABOR Frances Perkins, Secretary BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS Isador Lubin, Commissioner + W age Executions for Debt By ROLF NUGENT, JOHN E. H AM M A N D FRANCES M . JONES Bulletin 622 UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON : 1936 For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D. C. Price 10 cents TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Frequency of wage executions__________________________________________ 3 Causes of differences in frequency______________________________________ 6 Frequency of wage executions among other occupational classes_________ 11 Trend of garnishments___________________________________________________ 14 Kind of debt_____________________________________________________________ 15 Size of debt________________________________________________________________ 18 Wages of debtors_________________________________________________ Garnishments and wage assignments_________________________________ Influence of size of city and size of establishment_____________________ 25 Old and new employees_________________________________________________ 26 Comparison with other occupational groups______________________________ 27 Frequency of executions by individual creditors___________________________ 29 Costs of wage executions_________________________________________________ 35 Employers7 policies______________________________________________________ 37 hi 21 23 LIST OF TABLES Page T able T able T able T able T able T able T able T able T able T able T able 1.— Number and frequency of wage executions by cities, May 1, 1933, to Apr. 30, 1934_________________________________ 2.— Distribution of establishments and of employees, by rate of wage execution per 1,000 employees, May 1, 1933, to Apr. 30, 1934________________________________________________ 3.— Garnishments and wage assignments, by cities, Feb. 1 to Apr. 30, 1934___________________________________________ 4.— Number and frequency of wage executions, by severity of wage-execution laws, May 1, 1933, to Apr. 30, 1934______ 5.— Wage executions in reporting industrial establishments clas sified as to size, product, wages, and employment increase, May 1, 1933, to Apr. 30, 1934___________________________ 6.— Comparison of rates of wage executions among three groups of employees studied, May 1, 1933, to Apr. 30, 1934______ 7.— Relative frequency of garnishment executions in Westchester, New York, and Kings Counties, by industrial group______ 8.— Trend of garnishments in Boston, Detroit, and New York City, 1930 to 1934______ ______ ________ ________________ 9.— Kinds of debt represented by wage executions against em ployees of reporting industrial establishments, Feb. 1 to Apr. 30, 1934___________________________________________ 10.— Size of debts incurred for specified purposes, represented by wage executions against industrial employees, Feb. 1 to Apr. 30, 1934____________________________ 11.— Average amount of debt represented by wage executions against industrial employees in certain cities, Feb. 1 to Apr. 30, 1934___ 4 5 6 8 9 13 14 14 15 18 19 T able 12.— Distribution, by wage groups, of industrial employees involved in wage executions in certain cities, Feb. 1 to Apr. 30, 1934_ 21 T able 13.— Average wage of all employees and of those involved in wage executions, by industries, Feb. 1 to Apr. 30, 1934________ 22 T able 14.— Average amount of various kinds of debt, by wage classes, of T able T able T able industrial employees involved in wage executions, Feb. 1 to Apr. 30, 1934__________________________■_________________ 15.— Kind of average amount of debt represented by garnishments and by wage assignments in industrial establishments, Feb. 1 to Apr. 30, 1934_______________________________________ 16.— Weekly wage distribution of industrial employees involved in garnishments and wage assignments, Feb. 1 to Apr. 30, 1934____________________________________________________ 17.— Average amount of debt and of wages of industrial employees involved in garnishments and wage assignments, in certain cities, Feb. 1 to Apr. 30, 1934___________________________ v 23 23 24 25 LIST OF TABLES VI Pagre T able T able T able T able T able T able T able T able T able T able T able 18.— Number and percent of wage executions for various kinds of debt brought against employees of reporting industrial establishments, Feb. 1 to Apr. 30, 1934, by size classes of cities in which such establishments were situated_________ 19.— Number and percent of wage executions for various kinds of debt brought against employees of reporting industrial establishments, Feb. 1 to Apr. 30, 1934, by size classes of establishments__________________________________________ 20.— Distribution, by amount of debt, of executions brought against old and new employees in reporting industrial establishments, Feb. 1 to Apr. 30, 1934__________________ 21.— Distribution, by kind of debt, of wage executions brought against old and new employees in reporting industrial establishments, Feb. 1 to Apr. 30, 1934__________________ 22.— Wage distribution of industrial employees involved in wage executions and of similar workers in other specified employ ments, Feb. 1 to Apr. 30, 1934___________________________ 23.— Number and average amounts of various kinds of debt repre sented by wage executions against railroad and industrial employees, Feb. 1 to Apr. 30, 1934_______________________ 24.— Average amounts of debts for specified purposes of railroad employees involved in garnishments and in wage assign ments, Feb. 1 to Apr. 30, 1934___________________________ 25.— Executions against industrial employees by individual credi tors in specified businesses, Feb. 1 to Apr. 30, 1934_______ 26.— Kind of business of most frequent creditors and number of executions brought by them in specified cities, Feb. 1 to Apr. 30, 1934__________________ _________________________ 27.— Number of executions brought by 25 creditors against em ployees of New York City, a railroad company, and report ing industrial establishments, Feb. 1 to Apr. 30, 1934_____ 28.— Frequency of wage executions, average number of executions per creditor, and severity of executions in specified cities.- 26 26 27 27 28 28 29 30 31 32 35 PREFACE Loans through legal banking channels have not been available to the great mass of American workers. The services of credit unions, the first of which was established in 1909, fall far short of meeting the needs of American employees. As a result extraordinary demands upon the wage earner’s purse were met until a relatively recent period, chiefly by recourse to the unlicensed money lender. The present generation has witnessed the widespread adoption of installment selling by the retail merchants of the country. T o finance installment selling numerous finance companies have been formed. The result has been that an amazing array of necessities and conveniences have been brought within the reach of virtually every worker with a job. I t has been estimated that at present approximately 90 percent of the washing machines and refrigerators, 85 percent of the vacuum cleaners, 80 percent of the pianos and phonographs, and at least two-thirds of the automobiles and radio sets are sold on the installment plan. Indeed, our entire industrial system is now geared to a volume of activity that could not be main tained on a cash basis alone. The sudden change in the buying habits of the workers raise several highly important questions: What proportion of consumer debt is attributable to the purchase of essentials? What is the part played by luxuries? Has the expansion of consumer credit tended to accen tuate the cyclical variations in business activity? Light is thrown on these questions by the present study, which summarizes the results of an investigation of the frequency of levies by creditors against the wages of employees in representative indus trial communities. This report forms part of a larger study of the consumer-debt problem that was initiated in 1934 by a committee appointed by the Consumers Advisory Board of the National Recovery Administration. The study was a cooperative venture in which the Department of Commerce collected data on current receivable accounts of retail merchants and professional people in certain cities of the country. The Bureau of Labor Statistics collected data concerning attachments in certain cities. The Russell Sage Foundation compiled historical data concerning outstanding debts of consumers. The original purpose of the study was to determine the desirability and practicability of the Federal Government facilitating the adjust- VII VIII PREFACE ment and liquidation of consumer debt. It soon became evident that the problems involved were chronic rather than emergent and that immediate Federal action was not essential. Tabulations of the data collected by the Department of Commerce were published by that Department in M arch 1935 under the title “ Consumer debt study” , by H . T . LaCrosse. A section dealing with agencies for liquidating wage-earner debt in Detroit was pub lished in Law and Contemporary Problems (Duke University Law School) in April 1935 in the form of articles by Rolf Nugent and M ary Henderson Risk. This volume on wage executions for debt comprises a third section. It is anticipated that other sections will be published separately during the coming year and that the final report will be published in 1937. The present report was prepared by Rolf Nugent and John E . H am m of the Department of Remedial Loans of the Russell Sage Foundation, with the assistance of M iss Frances Jones of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I sad or L u b in , Commissioner oj Labor Statistics. Oct. 20, 1936. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR B u lletin o f the Bureau o f Labor Statistics W ASHINGTON N um ber 622 September 1936 W age Executions for Debt A t the time this study was initiated, there was a prevalent belief that consumer debts had increased during the depression because of reduced incomes and unemployment, that wage earners returning to work were being harassed and their wages attached by creditors. The investigation of wage executions was designed to supply factual information whereby the accuracy of these impressions could be judged, to determine the trend of such levies for the past few years, and to measure the amounts and the relative frequency of wage executions by geographical areas and by kinds of debt. Information for the study was solicited in June and July 1934 by field agents of the Bureau in the cities in which these agents were engaged in a cost-of-living study. Employers were asked to describe their policies with respect to wage executions, to report the number of wage executions against all employees and new employees, during the preceding 12 months, and to furnish a detailed record of all wage executions during the preceding 3 months. In order to make a com parison of wage executions between new and old employees, the estab lishments included were generally those which reported substantial increases in employment. Similar data were collected by the Russell Sage Foundation with the assistance of a group of W . P. A . workers in several other cities, notably in New York, where information was secured from a large railroad company and the New Y ork City administration, as well as from industrial establishments. In total, information which could be used was received from 176 establish ments, employing 334,190 people on M a y 15, 1934. These data were supplemented by tabulations made by the Russell Sage Foundation with the assistance of W . P. A . workers of garnish ment orders issued during certain periods in New Y ork City and Westchester County, N . Y ., and in Detroit and Boston. The term “ wage execution” is used to include both garnishment orders and assignments of wages presented for collection. 96554°— 36------ 2 1 2 WAGE EXECUTIONS FOR DEBT Garnishment orders are issued by a court and executed by a public officer,1 usually the sheriff, constable, or marshal. These orders direct the employer of a debtor to pay part or all of the wages due the debtor to the court officer who in turn transmits this sum to the creditor.2 In m ost States, garnishments are issued after judgment. In some States, however, a garnishment order m ay be issued simul taneously with the filing of the complaint by the creditor, and in others the garnishment order m ay be issued only after a levy on property in execution of judgment has been returned unsatisfied. In a few States garnishment of wages is prohibited entirely. The proportion of current wages which m ay be taken by a garnish ment order varies enormously between States. The marital status of the debtor and the nature of the debt frequently determine the amount or proportion of wages which m ay be attached. Garnish m ent orders in most States are issued only against wages due and payable on a given date. In case the amount of the debt exceeds the amount of wages subject to garnishment, additional garnishment orders are necessary to collect the remainder of the debt. In a few States, however, the garnishment order serves as a continuing levy. In New Y ork, for instance, such an order directs the employer to collect 10 percent of the debtors wages (provided such wages exceed $12 a week) until the judgment is satisfied. W age assignments, unlike garnishment orders, have no relation to court process. W hen a debt is secured by a wage assignment and the debtor defaults, the creditor m ay merely file a copy of the assignment with the debtor's employer and demand payment of the amount so assigned from the debtor's current salary or wages. In many States, there is no statutory reference to assignments of wages and the validity of these instruments depends upon the right to dispose of one's property, subject to restrictions imposed by judicial decisions. In some States, the assignment of wages not yet earned has been declared to be contrary to public policy, and partial assignments frequently have been declared to be invalid. In many States, the use of wage assignments has been regulated b y statute, but these regulations usually affect only assignments given to secure loans. Some States, however, have placed a limitation upon the proportion of the current wage which m ay be assigned or collected under an assignment. Others require assignments of wages to be signed by both husband and wife, and still others require the employer to be notified promptly of any assignment or even to accept the assignment as a necessary condition for validity. i In some States, however, the plaintiff's attorney may execute the order. * Garnishment, technically, refers to the attachment by a creditor of property which belongs to the debtor, but which is held by a third party. The most common use of garnishment process, however, is to attach wages, and outside of the legal profession the word "garnishment'' usually implies wage attach ment. In several States garnishment is known as trustee process. FREQUENCY OF WAGE EXECUTIONS 3 Frequency of Wage Executions How common is the use of wage executions? Are the recently employed more subject to this method of enforcing collection than old employees? How does the frequency of wage executions vary between cities? How many executions are garnishments and how many are wage assignments? For the reporting industrial establishments3 during the period from M a y 1, 1933, to April 30, 1934, the rate of wage executions was 80 per 1,000 employees. In many instances, however, executions for more than one debt were brought against the same employee, and in other instances, where garnishment was periodic rather than con tinuous, more than one garnishment order was issued to collect the same debt. For the data covering the 12-month period, it was impos sible in most instances to distinguish between these two types of duplication, but all duplications may be eliminated by comparing the number of individuals against whom executions were brought during the year with the average number 4 of employees during this period. This frequency was 42 per 1,000 employees. Seventeen firms failed to report the number of executions against new employees and it was necessary, therefore, to exclude the data from these companies in order to determine the relative frequency of wage executions among new and old employees. For the remaining 157 firms, employment increased from 88,090 on April 15, 1933, to 143,386 on April 15, 1934. The net increase was 55,296. These establishments reported 8,062 executions against old employees and 2,051 executions against new employees during the 12-month period covered by the study. (New employees were defined for this purpose as persons who were newly employed or reemployed, or whose hours had increased from less to more than half time after M a y 1, 1933.) For want of better figures, it is necessary to assume that all employees at the beginning of the year were old employees and that the number of new employees was identical with the net increase in employment. Based upon the assumed numbers of old and new employees, the rate of wage executions against old employees was 91 per thousand and against new employees 37 per thousand. Two influences minimize and another exaggerates the difference in frequency for old and new employees. In the first place, some who were on the pay roll at the beginning of the period were undoubtedly considered new employees by virtue of having less than half-time work. Also, some who were on the pay roll at the beginning of the period must have been replaced during the period b y persons newly 3 Hereafter, the phrase “reporting industrial establishments” will be used to refer to all employers who furnished data, with the exception of the railroad company and the New York City administration. ♦The mean of the number of employees on the pay rolls of reporting establishments on Apr. 15,1933, and Apr. 15, 1934. 4 WAGE EXECUTIONS EOR DEBT hired. These errors arising from the assumptions tend to overstate the number of old employees and to understate the number of new employees exposed to wage executions, thus understating the fre quency for old employees and overstating it for new employees. On the other hand, new employees, on the average, were exposed to wage executions for a shorter time than old employees. If the increase in employment had occurred at a regular arithmetical rate throughout the period, the average exposure of new employees would be but half that of old employees. From our knowledge of the general trend of employment during this period, however, we m ay assume that most reemployment occurred early in the period, and that the average exposure of new employees was not materially less than that of old employees. Based upon the same assumptions, the 3-month sample is even less satisfactory as a measure of the frequency of executions against new and old employees. Since this sample covers the last 3 months of the 12-month period, the number of old employees on the pay roll at the beginning of the year is even more excessive, and the net in crease in employment is even more inadequate as a basis for computing frequencies. Also, the compensating influence of shorter exposure among new employees is negligible. The 3-month sample showed frequencies of 18 per thousand for old employees and 14 per thousand for new employees. In spite of the inadequacies of both sets of data for purposes of this comparison, it seems safe to conclude that the rate of executions against old employees was at least twice as great as the rate against new employees. Table 1 shows the relationship between the number of wage executions and the number of individuals affected by them to the average number of employees during the 12-month period among establishments covered by the study in each city. T a b l e 1 . — Number and frequency of wage executions by cities, M a y 1, 1988, to Apr . SO, City 1984 employ Wage executions Individual ees involved Number of report Average ing estab number of em lish Rate per Rate per ments ployees 1 Number 1,000 em Number 1,000 em ployees ployees 244 3 2,377 Atlanta, G a ._________________________ 5• 3 2,’485 Baltimore, Md_______________________ 5 4,071 11,852 Birmingham, Ala________ ___________ 64 8 6,027 Boston and Vicinity, Mass_____________ 54 2,547 5 Buffalo, N. Y _________________________ 4 6,991 5 Camden, N. J_______ _______ ______ _ _ 1,881 6 11, 798 Chicago, HI___________________ ___ ___ 80 4 3,263 Cincinnati, Ohio_________________ ____ 3 2,848 63 Cleveland, Ohio______________________ 44 3 1,445 Denver, Colo__............................... ......... * Mean of number of employees at beginning and at end of year. 102.7 1.2 343.5 10.6 21.2 .7 159.4 24.5 22.1 30.4 162 3 2,027 56 50 5 888 67 45 35 68.2 1.2 171.1 9.3 19.6 .7 75.3 20.5 15.8 24.2 5 FREQUENCY OF WAGE EXECUTIONS T a b l e 1 . — Number and frequency of wage executions by cities, M a y 1, 1983, to Apr. 30, 1984 — C o n tin u e d City employ Wage executions Individual ees involved Number Average of report number ing estab of em Rate per lish per ployees Number Rate 1,000 em Number 1,000 em ments ployees ployees Detroit, Mich.......................... ................. Indianapolis, Ind...................... ............. Jacksonville, Fla______________________ Kansas City, Kans________ ___________ TTansas City, Mo_____________________ Los Angeles, Calif_____________________ Memphis, Tenn____ __________________ Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn___________ Mobile, Ala................................................ Newark-Jersey City, N. J______________ New Orleans, La_____________________ New York City-Westchester County, N. Y ........................................................ Norfolk, Va................................... - ........Portland, Maine_____________________ Portland, Oreg________________________ Richmond, Va _______________________ San Francisco, Calif___________________ St. Louis, Mo.................................... ........ Savannah, Ga________________________ Seattle, wash _______________________ Washington, D. C____________________ 3 4 4 3 3 5 3 3 3 24 3 3,934 1,739 452 1,664 628 4,337 2,923 1,550 1, 506 16,216 3,259 81 0 4 256 28 64 1,528 43 52 108 16 20.6 58 14.7 8.8 153.8 44. 6 14.8 522.8 27.7 34.5 6.7 4.9 *4 157 16 57 453 23 46 103 14 8.8 94.4 25. 5 13.1 155.0 14.8 30. 5 6.4 4.3 32 4 3 3 3 6 4 3 6 7 16, 555 4,474 244 422 3,314 2,515 3,014 400 681 4,428 341 374 14 4 345 41 17 7 10 211 20.6 83.6 57.4 9.5 104.1 16.3 5.6 17.5 14.7 47.7 334 2367 11 4 112 35 13 27 9 137 20.2 83.0 45.1 9.5 33.8 13.9 4.3 7.5 13.2 30.9 Total___________________________ 174 125,888 10,053 79.9 5,298 42.1 * At least 1 establishment in each of these cities failed to report the number of individuals affected. Each such establishment, however, reported a very small number of executions and it was assumed that each of these executions had been brought against a different employee. Table 2 shows the distribution of reporting establishments and their employees by groups based upon frequencies of wage executions. The highest frequency was 1,390 executions per 1,000 employees, reported by a railroad repair shop in M em phis; the next highest was 651 per 1,000 in a rolling mill in Birmingham; the next highest, 484 per 1,000 in a Chicago meat-packing house. T a b l e 2 •— Distribution of establishments and of employees, by rate of wage execution per 1,000 employees, M ay 1, 1933, to Apr. 30, 1934 Establishments Number of executions per 1,000 employees Number Over 400..................... ......... ...................... .............. ...... 350 to 399.9....................................................... ............. 300 to 349.9_________ _____________ ________________ 250 to 299.9............ ................. ............................... ........ 200 to 249.9......... .............................................................. 150 to 199.9................................... ...... .............. .............. 100 to 149.9...................... ....................... - ................. 50 to 99.9___________ ________________ _____________ 0.1 to 49.9_______ ______________ ____ _____ _____ None_____________________________________________ Total___ _________________________________ Percent of total Number 2 2.3 .6 .6 1.3 2.3 8.3 61.4 12.3 100.0 4 1 1 0 0 3 4 13 96 52 1.7 2.3 7.5 55.2 29.9 6,178 10,681 1,104 0 0 1,643 2,943 10,499 77,335 15. 505 174 100.0 125,888 * Mean of number on pay roll at beginning and at end of period. Employees Percent of total 4.9 8.5 .9 6 WAGE EXECUTIONS FOR DEBT Table 3 shows the number and proportion of garnishments and wage assignments by cities among the executions brought during the 3-m onth period for which detailed information was furnished. It should be noted that the number of executions reported for this quarter is only slightly less than one-fourth of the number reported for the full year. The 3-month sample, unlike the 12-month sample, excludes regarnishments for the same d e b t6 and thus tends to produce some what lower frequencies. On the other hand, this 3-month period appears usually to account for a somewhat larger proportion of the annual total of garnishments. The influence of these two factors is not material, however, and they tend to offset each other. T a b l e 3 . — G arnishm ents a nd w age a ssig n m en ts, by cities, F e b . 1 to A p r . 8 0 , 1 9 8 4 City Garnishments Wage assignments Number of execu Percent of Percent of tions Number execu Number execu tions 1 tions * Atlanta, Ga____________________________________ Baltimore, Md __________ _________________ Birmingham, Ala............... ......... .............................. Boston and vicinity, Mass_______________________ Buffalo, N. Y ........ ................................................... Camden, N. J___ __ ____________________________ Chicago, 111................................................................. Cincinnati, Ohio........................................................ Cleveland, Ohio________________________________ Denver, Colo___________________________________ Detroit, Mich______________ _____ ______________ Indianapolis, Ind______________________ _________ Jacksonville, Fla__________________________ _____ Kansas City, TTaps_____________________________ Kansas City, Mo_______________________________ Los Angeles, Calif______________________________ Memphis, Tenn________________________________ Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn___________________ Mobile, Ala................ ...... ................................. ........ Newark-Jersey City, N. J_______________________ New Orleans, La__ __ ____________ _________ New York City-Westchester County, N. Y ----------Norfolk, Va---- ----------------- -------------------------------Portland, Maine________________________________ Portland, Oreg__ _______________________________ Richmond, Va___________ ______________________ San Francisco, Calif____________________ ______ St. Louis, Mo__________________________________ Savannah, Ga_____ _____ _______________________ Seattle, W a s h ...______ ____________________ __ Washington, D. C_________ ____________________ 46 0 1,057 9 20 1 487 30 15 6 17 0 0 54 4 17 389 14 14 13 1 59 80 5 2 112 11 2 4 3 28 46 0 717 7 20 1 10 13 13 6 17 0 0 54 1 8 389 14 12 11 0 26 78 2 2 112 10 2 1 3 28 100.0 100.0 0 0 340 2 0 0 477 17 2 0 0 0 0 0 3 9 0 0 2 2 1 33 2 3 0 0 1 0 3 0 0 Total................................................................. 2,500 1,603 64.1 897 67.8 100.0 2.1 43.3 100.0 100.0 44.1 97.5 loo. 6 32.2 97.9 56.7 55.9 2.5 35.9 i Percentages are shown only where there are more than 20 executions. Causes of Differences in Frequency The extremely wide variation in the rate of wage executions not only between reporting establishments but also between cities is adequate evidence that internal and external factors have an influence upon the rate of wage execution. W h at are these influences? * Although reporting establishments were instructed to exclude regarnishments from the 3-month sample some regarnishments appear to have been listed fey mistake. The number of such cases, however, is small and since a regarnishment could not be distinguished with certainty from a new garnishment against the same employee for another debt of the same amount, no attempt was made to eliminate these items. CAUSES OF DIFFERENCES IN FREQUENCY 7 Obviously, variations in the statutory provisions in each State governing both garnishment orders and wage assignments have a material bearing upon the extent to which these devices are used by creditors. One m ay expect wide differences in the frequency of garnishment orders between industrial establishments in Florida, where all wages of the head of a family appear to be exempt from attachment, or in the District of Columbia, where the head of a family has an exemption of $100 a month, and in Georgia, where 50 percent of wages above $1.25 a day m ay be attached, or Virginia, where the exemption for heads of families is $50 a month. It is, however, an extremely hazardous procedure to interpret the rights of creditors and debtors by an analysis of the statutes governing wage executions in each State. In many instances, local practices entirely nullify statutory protections against harsh pay-roll collections. In several States, for instance, the exemptions from attachment pro vided by statute apply only if the debtor claims the exemption, and some employers appear to discountenance the claiming of exemptions. In another instance, where limitations are imposed by statute, the creditor m ay avoid them by posting a small bond and declaring that there is a likelihood of the debtor leaving the State. The actual status of the wage assignment likewise is exceedingly obscure in the statutes. Where wage assignments are regulated by statute, one has some guide to their status. B ut where they rely for their validity upon the right to dispose of one’s property, their status has frequently been determined by the courts and, in the absence of such decisions, by local practice. As part of the consumer debt study, an analysis of the laws govern ing garnishment and wage assignments was made by William F. Starr under the direction of Prof. W illiam O. Douglas of the Yale Law School.6 B y reference to this analysis and, wherever possible, by inquiries concerning local practice, the States covered by the sample of industrial establishments were divided into three groups: (1) Those in which wage executions were generally severe, (2) those in which wage executions were limited but generally effective, and (3) those in which wage executions were generally ineffective. Even disregarding the possibility of misinterpretation arising from peculiarities of local practice, such a classification is extremely crude. Some States restrict garnishment by exempting a certain proportion of wages and others by exempting certain amounts of wages. Specific standards for such a classification, therefore, cannot be developed. The States in the severe class are those in which the exemption ap peared to be inadequate for the support of most wage earners’ families. The States in the limited class are those in which the exemptions appeared to allow sufficient incomes to most wage earners’ families. •This section of the consumer debt study has not been published. 8 WAGE EXECUTIONS FOR DEBT The States in the ineffective class are those in which exemptions ap peared to exclude m ost industrial wage earners from wage executions. The division of States into three classes was determined largely on the basis of the severity of the garnishment process. In the case of Illinois, however, where the rights of the creditor are restricted with regard to garnishment, these limitations are commonly voided by the use of wage assignments. This State was, therefore, listed among those in which wage executions were severe. In allocating States to one of the three classes, differences in wage scales were also considered because an exemption which would exclude the m ajority of industrial employees from garnishment in m any Southern States would not exclude a similar proportion of employees in the northern industrial States. The classification is as follows: G en erally severe A la b a m a C o lo r a d o G e o r g ia Illin o is K an sas M a in e T en n essee O regon M ic h ig a n V ir g in ia M in n e s o ta L im ite d L o u is ia n a M is s o u r i N ew Y ork M a s s a c h u s e tts N e w J e r se y O h io G enerally ineffective C a lifo r n ia D is t r i c t o f C o lu m b ia F lo r id a I n d ia n a M a r y la n d W a s h in g to n Table 4 shows the frequency of wage executions when the data foi all reporting industrial establishments are divided into these three classes. The column “ Rate per 1,000 (weighted average)” gives the relationship between the total number of executions and the total number of employees. The column “ Rate per 1,000 (mean)” shows the mean of the individual frequencies for all establishments in the class. T a b l e 4 .— N u m b e r and fre q u e n c y o f wage execu tion s, b y severity o f w age execution law s, M a y 1, 1 9 3 8 , to A p r . 8 0 , 1 9 3 4 Wage executions Relative severity of execution practice States where executions are— Generally severe____________________________ Limited ____ __________________ Generally ineffective_________________________ All States ______________________ Number Number of estab of em Rate per Rate per lish 1,000 ployees Number 1,000 ments (weighted (mean) average) 48 90 86 47,904 61,348 16,636 8,944 776 333 186.7 12.6 20.0 114.1 13.5 17.9 174 125,888 10,053 79.9 42.2 CAUSES OF DIFFERENCES IN FREQUENCY 9 The establishments in States in which wage executions are severe account for the preponderant part of all executions and the rate per 1,000 employees in these States is much greater than in the other two groups. It is noteworthy that the frequency in the group where wage executions are generally ineffective is actually greater than that for the group where executions are restricted. This m ay result from misinterpretation of the statutes by us. A more likely reason, how ever, is that this part of the sample includes several establishments where wages are relatively high. A considerable proportion of em ployees in these establishments m ay, therefore, be subject to wage executions, even though this method of collection might be ineffective against large groups in other employments. (See table 5.) Although it is clear that the degree of severity of wage-execution laws has a material bearing upon the extent of use of this device, it is also apparent that other factors besides legal status influence the frequency of the use of wage executions. For instance, the frequency of wage executions among the reporting establishments in Birming ham was 344 per 1,000, while in M obile, where executions are governed by the same statutes, the rate was but 35 per 1,000. Similarly, the frequency for Newark and adjoining cities was 7 per 1,000, while across the State in Camden the rate was less than 1 per 1,000. (See table 1.) In table 5, attempt is made to show the influence of size, kind of enterprise, average wage, and percentage increase in employment upon the frequency of wage executions. In order to assist in measur ing the effect of these variables, the predominating influence upon frequency has been removed by segregating the data into three classes based upon severity of wage-execution laws. T a b l e 5 . — Wage executions in reporting industrial establishments classified as to size, product, wages, and employment increase, M a y 1 , 1933, to Apr. 30, 1934 STATES WHERE WAGE EXECUTIONS ARE GENERALLY SEVERE Wage executions Item Number Average of estab number Rate per Rate per of em 1,000 lishments ployees Number (weighted 1,000 average) (mean) Number of employees per establishment: Under 200.._____ ___________________________ 200 to 999............................................................... 1,000 and over........................................................ 16 18 14 1,410 5,756 40,739 90 588 8,266 63.8 102.2 202.9 70.2 119.9 156.7 Total.................................................................. 48 47,904 8,944 186.7 114.1 Product: Postponable goods .......................................... Nonpostponable goods......................................... Miscellaneous.................................- ..................... 21 23 4 32,531 14,160 1, 213 6,215 2,434 295 191.0 171.9 243.2 114.3 69.1 371.6 Total.................................................................. 48 47,904 8,944 186.7 114.1 06554°— 30------ 3 10 WAGE EXECUTIONS FOB DEBT T able 5. — Wage executions in reporting industrial establishments classified as 1934— C o n t in u e d to size, product, wages, and employment increase, M a ? / to Apr. 80, STATES WHERE WAGE EXECUTIONS ARE GENERALLY SEVERE—Continued Wage executions Number Average of estab number of em lishments ployees Number 17 24 7 8,040 35,394 4,470 1,613 6,997 334 200.6 197.7 74.7 95.8 93.7 228.4 48 47,904 8,944 186.7 114.1 ...... 3 25 20 1,878 35,047 10,979 260 6,957 1,727 138.4 198.5 157.3 96.1 81.4 157.6 _ . _ ____ _ . _ 48 47,904 8,944 186.7 114.1 Item Average weekly wages: TTndpr $15 $15 tn $24 99 $25 and nvp.r Total ...... .............. - . . Increase in employment: TTndpr 20 pp.ment 20 t-n 100 pprppnt 100 percent and nvp.r Total _ ...... _ _ ... . . _ Rate per Rate per 1,000 1,000 (weighted (mean) average) STATES WHERE WAGE EXECUTIONS ARE LIMITED Number of employees per establishment: Under 200..................... ......................................... 200 to 999............................................................... 1,000 and over........................................................ 20 45 25 1,804 20,515 39,029 16 333 427 8.9 16.2 10.9 7.2 15.9 14.3 T o t a l................................................................................... 90 61,348 776 12.6 13.5 Product: Postponable goods. ............................................... Nonpostponable goods.......................................... Miscellaneous........................................................ 35 51 4 20,958 38,075 2,315 282 472 22 13.5 12.4 9.5 15.2 12.3 14.0 61,348 776 12.6 13.5 6, 649 44, 026 10, 673 61,348 86 502 188 776 12.9 11.4 17.6 12.6 13.2 13.1 14.7 13.5 6,690 42,448 12,210 61, 348 151 432 193 776 22.6 10.2 15.8 12.6 19.0 12.7 13.5 13.5 90 Total......... ........................................................ Average weekly wages: 10 Under $15------------ --------- ------- ------------------58 $15 to $24.99---- --------- ---------- -----------------------22 $25 and over................. ..................................... Total................................................................... ______ 90_ Increase in employment: 9 Under 20 percent................. ................................ 58 20 to 100 percent.. ......................... ^----------------23 100 percent and over........................ ............... 90 Total................................................................ STATES WHERE WAGE EXECUTIONS ARE GENERALLY INEFFECTIVE Number of employees per establishment: 10 Under 200.............................................................. 22 200 to 999................................................................ 4 1,000 and over........................................................ 36 Total......... - ............................. - ...................... — — Product: 17 Postponable goods................................................ 11 Nonpostponable goods.......................................... Miscellaneous........................................................ 8 Total............................................................... - ______ 3Q_ Average weekly wages: Under $15.......................................................... 5 $15 to $24.99.................................................. ........ 23 . 8 $25 and over...... .................................................... Total............................................................... . ______ 36_ Increase in employment: 8 Under 20 percent............................................ ...... 15 20 to 100 percent................................... ............... 100 percent and over............ ................................ 13 Total.................................................................. 36 961 7,774 7,901 16, 636 6 178 149 333 6.2 22.9 18.9 20.0 6.6 22.8 19.4 17.9 7,069 2,798 6, 769 16, 636 150 30 153 333 21.2 10.7 22.6 20.0 15.6 6.5 38.6 17.9 2,009 8,391 6,236 16,636 29 94 210 333 14.4 11.2 33.6 20.0 10.7 12.0 39.4 17.9 8,393 4,039 4, 204 16,636 253 37 43 333 30.1 9.2 10.2 20.0 48.9 7.9 10.4 17.9 FREQUENCY AMONG OTHER OCCUPATIONAL CLASSES 11 In interpreting differences in rates of execution among establish ments grouped by these characteristics, it is necessary to bear in mind the fact that it is impossible to measure the influence of one characteristic apart from the influence of another in such a small sample. For instance, if the size of the establishment has an influ ence upon the frequency of wage executions, differences in the dis tribution by size will affect the rates of execution shown by other groupings. This circumstance imposes a severe limitation upon the significance of differences in rates shown in table 5. Only among size groups are the differences in rate sufficiently marked and consistent to warrant full credence to their significance. It seems safe to conclude that wage executions are less frequent in establishments employing small numbers of people than they are in larger establishments. The fact that differences among groupings by other characteristics are mixed, however, does not imply that they exert no influence. The increase in the rate of execution in the “ ineffective” section with increases in average wage is undoubtedly significant because exemptions which would prohibit executions against low-wage em ployees do not prevent executions against those whose incomes were high. The rate of execution against employees of establishments producing postponable goods is higher than those producing nonpostponable goods for all three degrees of severity of wage-execution laws. The difference in the weighted average rate is small, but the difference in the mean rate is probably sufficiently marked to be significant. It should be noted that there is no consistent tendency among the three sections for the rate of increase in employment to influence the rate of wage executions. Frequency of Wage Executions Among Other Occupational Classes How representative of all wage and salary earners in the United States with respect to frequency of wage executions is the sample supplied by reporting industrial establishments? It is impossible to draw any accurate conclusions concerning the frequency of garnish ment with regard to all employed people in the United States from the data available. On the other hand, it is possible to suggest the direction in which the data in the sample of reporting industrial establishments are biased with respect to the whole. As compared with all employed persons in the United States, the sample is materially biased by the fact that requests for information were not made of establishments in certain States where garnishment of wages is prohibited. Among such States are Pennsylvania and Texas, both of which have large industrial populations. In the second place, the sample includes several relatively large establish- 12 WAGE EXECUTIONS EOR DEBT ments in cities where wage executions are notoriously frequent, notably Birmingham and Chicago. Although the rate of garnish ment among reporting firms was even higher in M emphis than for these two cities, the smaller representation for M emphis in the sample limits the influence of these figures on the weighted averages. In spite of the fact that the samples of industrial employment are large also for the New York and Newark areas where the frequency is low, it seems likely that there is a disproportionate representation in the weighted averages for areas in which wage executions are exceedingly frequent. The sample is also biased by 'the exclusion from adequate repre sentation of the many employers who have very small numbers of employees, and who are situated in villages, towns, and small cities. Unfortunately only a few of the cities represented in the sample could be called small. B u t in each of these cities, executions were relatively infrequent as compared with larger neighboring cities. There were no very small places represented in our sample, but there is ample reason to believe that wage executions are generally rare in such communities. D ata for comparing the frequency of wage executions among em ployees of industrial establishments with that among employees engaged in other pursuits are extremely inadequate. N o official reports analyzing wage executions are available and the process of collecting data from court or pay-roll records is tedious and costly. The only data available are those collected in New Y ork City and Westchester County by the Russell Sage Foundation with the help of some W . P. A . workers. This material has been used in compiling the three tables which follow. Table 6 compares the rates of wage executions among employees of the industrial establishments in New Y ork, which have been used in the previous tables, with those among employees of New Y ork City and of the railroad company which furnished data. Based upon the 3-month period for which garnishments and wage assignments were distinguished, the greater part of the executions against employees of the industrial establishments and the New York railroad company were wage assignments. The executions against city employees were entirely garnishments, since assignments of unearned wages by public employees are invalid in New York State. FREQUENCY AMONG OTHER OCCUPATIONAL CLASSES T able 13 6 . — Comparison of rates of wage executions among 8 groups of employees studied, M a y 1 , 1983 , to Apr. 30 , 1934- Employer 32 industrial establishments__________ _____________ ______ New York City administration........................... .......... ......... A large railroad company________________________ ____ ___ Average number of employees 16,555 i 135, 000 i 43,129 Number of executions 341 10,691 1, 550 Rate per 1,000 em ployees 20.6 79.2 35.9 i Estimated. While wage executions are more frequent among employees of the New York railroad company and of New York City than among employees of the 32 industrial establishments included in the sample, there appear to be still other occupational classes among which wage executions are less frequent. Table 7 attempts to show the relative frequency of garnishment executions by occupational groups in Westchester County and in New York and Kings Counties in New York State. The population subject to garnishment was estimated from the 1930 census. Deductions were made for an estimated number of entrepreneurs in each class and for estimated decreases in gainfully employed in 1934. The number of Federal employees in various occupational classes was estimated and subtracted from the totals, since the salaries of Federal employees are not subject to garnish ment. The number of garnishments in Westchester County are actual figures taken from the records of the various courts in the county. The number of garnishments in New York and Kings Counties were estimated by increasing the number of garnishments against each occupational class, as shown by a study of the records of five marshals over a 4-m onth period, in the proportion which the number in the sample bore to the estimated total number of garnishments. The method of estimating the population subject to garnishment was exceedingly crude and the possibilities of error are great, but the table is presented in the belief that these errors do not materially affect its usefulness for the present purpose. The error inherent in the method of estimation is not sufficiently large to prevent the conclusion that in this area public-service employees (employees of State, city, and local jurisdictions) are subject to frequent garnish ment as compared with other occupational classes. In comparing the rates of garnishment shown by table 7 with rates of wage executions shown by table 1, it should be noted that table 1 includes both garnishments and wage assignments, while table 7 gives only garnishment figures. 14 WAGE EXECUTIONS FOE DEBT T able 7.— Relative frequency of garnishment executions in Westchester, New York, and Kings Counties by industrial group Westchester County New York and Kings Counties Garnishment exe cutions in 1934 Garnishment executions Estimated Estimated popula popula Rate per tion Rate per By 5 mar tion sub 1,000 per jectsub 1,000 per ject to to shals Estimated sons sub sons sub garnish during number garnish Number ject to ject to ment ment 4 months for 1934 garnish garnish of 1934 ment ment Industrial group Agriculture, forestry and fish ing. and extraction of min erals______________________ Building industry..................... Manufacture and mechanical industries: Postponable goods............. Nonpostponable goods___ Transportation and communi cation..................................... Finance________ ___________ Trade-------------- ------------------Service industries and trades Professional and semiprofes sional service............... ......... Domestic and personal servicepublic service......... .................. Industry not specified.............. Total............................... 4,329 10,592 3 3 0.7 .3 2,469 58,968 8 150 2.5 12,262 16,472 27 35 2.2 2.1 118,914 244,459 63 183 1,14# 3,316 9.6 13.6 13,275 9,798 21,859 9,397 14 26 118 82 1.1 2.7 5 .4 8.7 162,839 86,008 251,867 139, 541 38 33 151 72 693 599 2,735 1,311 4.3 7.0 10.9 9.4 8,720 20,502 12,970 7,443 12 33 199 12 1.4 1.6 15.3 1.6 55,244 144, 766 80,230 63,804 24 26 412 25 431 468 7,455 450 7.8 3.2 92.9 7.1 147,619 564 3.8 1,409,109 1,035 18,751 13.3 Although garnishment figures were tabulated for Detroit, they could not be segregated by occupational classes. An estimate of the population subject to garnishment in Detroit was made by the methods described above. The resulting rate was 41.6 garnishments per 1,000 persons subject to garnishment in that city. The rate in the present sample of industrial establishments was but 14.7 per 1,000 and this included wage assignments. Trend of Garnishments Information concerning the trends of garnishment orders is almost as scarce as that concerning the occupation of those gar nisheed. Table 8 presents the only evidence available concerning trends. Even this evidence is not satisfactory in m any respects, as the footnotes indicate. T able 8.— Trend of garnishments in Boston, Detroit, and New York City, 1930 to 1934 Boston2 Year 1 0 30 1031 1 0 32 10 33 ________________________________________________ . _ _. ________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________ ____________________________ _ _ . _ _ 1934................................... .......................................................... 6,550 4,180 *2,067 1,925 1,858 Detroit 32,049 25,540 <23,922 422,739 424,262 New York City 2 125,207 142, 749 136,963 109,320 7Q, 432 1 Oases in municipal court of the city of Boston only. 2Total executions handled by 50 marshals who were active throughout the entire period. These figures include property executions as well as garnishments but the former cannot be segregated. Many marshals stated that the decline in garnishments was more precipitate than in other executions. 3 The decline between 1931 and 1932 was partly due to the transfer to district courts of actions formerly handled by the municipal court. 4Includes cases handled by the conciliation division of the Detroit common pleas court, since petitions in that division are usually alternatives to garnishment. The division was established in October 1932. 15 KINDS OF DEBT Kinds of Debt A n analysis, by number of executions and amount of debt, of the kinds of debt represented by wage executions reported by the 174 industrial establishments for the 3-month period is shown in table 9. The amount of debt was not reported in many instances. Also, one establishment in Birmingham reported identical amounts of debt and weekly wages for a large number of executions. The am ount-ofdebt figures for this group of executions were, therefore, discarded.7 In order to estimate the total amount involved in each kind of debt, the average8 reported amount of individual debts was multiplied by the total number of executions for that kind of debt. The estimated total debt used in computing percentages is the sum of the estimated amounts for each general class of debt. This sum differs slightly from the sum of the estimated amounts for all subdivisions and from the amount which would result from multiplying the total number of debts of all kinds by the average amount reported for all kinds of debt. A wide range in amount was reported for certain classes of debt; the median amount frequently differed materially from the average; and the average amount varied materially among geographic areas. A considerable amount of error is, therefore, inherent in the method of estimating. M ore elaborate methods gave but slight assurance of greater accuracy, however, and the simple one has, therefore, been chosen. The error is not sufficient to invalidate the general conclu sions to be drawn from the table. T able 9 . — Kinds of debt represented by wage executions against employees of reporting industrial establishments, Feb. 1 to Apr. 80, 1984 Executions Kind of debt Num ber Amounts of debt represented by executions Aver Median Esti Per Num re age amount mated cent ber port amount re of total ing re total amount ported ported i amount 635 $21.58 $16.40 $24,579 Clothing............................................................... 1,139 46 194 194 15.72 15.00 3,049 8 Bankruptcy-..................................................... . 186 35.00 10,667 7 57.35 157 Loans................................................................. 3 3 56.00 168 Credit unions ___________ _____________ 22 18 94.97 70.00 2,089 Industrial and commercial banks_________ 56 47 66. 53 49. 30 Licensed lenders_________________________ 3, 726 79 66 28.38 11.80 2,242 Unlicensed lenders___ ___________________ 26 23 92.44 37. 00 2,403 Individuals and unidentified ___________ 111 48.44 37. 63 8,622 178 Furniture and household appliances............. . 7 120 86 45. 58 31.20 5,470 Furniture______________________________ ■Radios 47 15 45.99 50. 00 2,162 5 5 110. 29 551 Refrigerators __________________________ 5 43. 23 Washing machines _ ______________ 5 216 1 Piano.............................................................. i Medians have been omitted where the amounts were reported for less than 7 executions. Per cent of total debt 30 4 13 10 i This establishment reported identical amounts of debt and wages for 220 wage assignments. Since all of the assignments represented debts for clothing, it was assumed that some clothing merchants made a practice of taking and enforcing assignments for the amount of current wages only, regardless of the amount of the account. * I . e., arithmetic mean. The word “average’* will be used hereafter to refer to the arithmetic mean. 16 T WAGE EXECUTIONS FOE DEBT 9 . — Kinds of debt represented by wage executions against employees of reporting industrial establishments, Feb. 1 to Apr. 30, 1934 — C o n tin u e d able Amounts of debt represented by executions Executions Kind of debt Num ber Per cent of total Groceries and meats. - ........................ Board and housing.............................. Rent................................ ............. Board............................................. House repairs................................. Moving........ ........ .......... .............. Medical and burial expense________ Doctors------- ------- --------------------Dentists..-------------------------------Hospitals____________ ______ _ Drugs and medicine______ ____ Eyeglasses-----------------------------Burial-------------------------------------Jewelry___________________________ Automobile purchase and operation. Finance company. ............... ....... Repairs___________________ ___ Supplies_____________ _________ Liability for injuries----------------Hired car______________________ Miscellaneous____________ ________ Attorney________ ____ ________ Collection agency........................ Department store_____________ Sporting goods___________ ____ Coal__------- -----------------------------Correspondence course............... Newspaper bill________________ Professional services................... Building excavation.................... Alimony....................................... Bonding fee................................. Lot-------------------------- ---------- -----Damage suit................................. Musical instrument___________ Business debt...... ........................ Unidentified.............. .......................... 171 127 83 25 17 7 5 78 57 3 Total........... ............................... 2,500 2 2 2 4 2 11 66 66 2 1 amouDt 137 101 68 19 12 2 62 47 2 2 2 1 8 3 3 57 56 7 17 29 3 44 23 7 9 19 35 62 29 10 4 4 3 Num Aver Per Median Esti ber re age amount mated cent port amount of re total ing re total ported ported amount debt 2 1 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 233 100 1,678 $20.03 55. 50 63.80 42.24 37.87 5.00 44. 53 36.45 17. 25 90.45 9.97 9.20 100.34 23. 60 47.64 121. 24 17. 80 13.81 555.95 4.40 45. 38 26. 52 34.18 10.32 3.25 26.70 5.11 10.70 182.00 55.00 5.00 221.00 21.23 24. 80 567.13 64.88 33.55 $9. 03 29.00 29. 50 13. 83 23.91 32.92 29.95 60.95 17. 25 13.00 110.00 10. 28 9.91 22. 75 21. 50 39.07 $3,425 7,049 5, 295 1,056 644 10 3,473 2,078 35 181 40 18 1,104 1, 558 3,144 1,091 338 483 1,112 4 2,814 769 342 41 4 8 4 4 3 21. 65 10 53 10 11 182 55 5 221 21 25 567 15,117 1? 18.80 83, 519 100 The most remarkable feature of this analysis is the prominence of debts for clothing, which account for almost half of the total number of executions. The frequency of wage executions for clothing is due to the application, in recent years, of installment technique to this field of merchandising. Since repossession, which is the charac teristic method of enforcing most installment contracts, is impracti cable for clothing merchants, heavy reliance for collection is put upon wage assignments and court process. The large number of executions for jewelry debts, where similar conditions prevail, and the relatively small number of executions by automobile finance companies, which rely upon repossessions for enforcing contracts, are noteworthy. The executions brought by referees in bankruptcy require special comment. All but one of these executions occurred in Birmingham. W hen a wage earner files a petition in bankruptcy, the Federal court KINDS OF DEBT 17 appears to issue an order to the employer to withhold the current wages of the petitioner. The petitioner m ay claim an exemption of current wages, which varies between States, and it is probable that many of these attachments were later released. However, because the petitioner must claim the exemption before his wages may be paid to him and because referees in bankruptcy may enforce payment of their fees in this manner, these orders of the Federal court have not been excluded. In view of their peculiar status, however, executions by referees in bankruptcy have been put in the miscellaneous group in subsequent tables. The third largest number of executions was for loans. B ut this class includes a very heterogeneous group of obligations. The term “ unlicensed lender” is used in the table to designate lenders operating in defiance of the law, who were known to charge very high rates of interest. Several of the unlicensed lenders whose names occurred as creditors in this sample have since been convicted in recent anti-loan-shark campaigns. Other subdivisions include several loan companies whose legality is questionable under local statutes, but whose business practices conformed to those of chartered or licensed companies in other States. The bank loans included under industrial and commercial banks presumably were made by personalloan departments. Loans made by institutions whose business is similar to that of industrial banks but which are not incorporated under the banking law are also included in this group. The number of executions brought by creditors whose business could not be identified remains large in spite of strenuous efforts to identify them by an examination of telephone and city directories and by correspondence with persons living or doing business in the same locality. Practically all of these executions were brought by individuals. A few m ay have been the agents of corporate or tradename creditors.9 M o st of them, however, were probably small .grocers, landlords, boarding-house keepers, nurses, and midwives, who had extended credit, or friends and relatives who had lent money. One of the notable characteristics of kinds of debt represented in our sample is the complete absence of executions by public-utility companies. This circumstance is partly fortuitous, because court actions have been instituted for telephone, gas, and electricity ac counts in some jurisdictions. It m ay be concluded, however, that these are infrequent and that such creditors rely upon advance pay ments and suspensions of service as the principal means of collecting charges for service. •The practice among installment merchants of bringing suit in the name of an employee or attorney appears to have been most common in New York City. 9 6 5 5 4 °— 36-------4 18 WAGE EXECUTIONS EOR DEBT Clothing bills account not only for the largest number of executions, but also represent the largest part of the total debt. Claims of the bankruptcy courts and claims for jewelry accounts, which were prominent with respect to number of executions, are much less im portant with respect to the amount of debt. Size of Debt Table 9 shows the average and median reported amounts of each kind of debt for the whole sample. The largest average amount among the general classes of debt is that for loans, although several subdivisions show considerably larger amounts. As might be ex pected, debts for automobile financing, refrigerators, and burial ex penses are frequently large. The consistent tendency of the average to exceed the median amount of debt indicates that the average was influenced materially by a few large debts and that the bulk of the executions were for amounts less than the average. Table 10 shows the distribution of debts by size classes for the whole sample and for several general classes of debt which appear to be sufficiently homogeneous to warrant such analysis. Unfor tunately, these distributions by size classes are influenced by the exclusion of a large number of executions for which the amount of debt was not reported. The bulk of the executions excluded for this reason came from establishments in southern cities, and two-thirds of them represented clothing accounts. The effect of these exclu sions is to understate the proportion of small debts for the whole sample. T a b l e 1 0 .— Size of debts incurred for specified purposes, represented by wage executions against industrial employees, Feb. 1 to Apr. 30 , 1934 All classes of debt Clothing Furniture Jewelry Loans All others Size of debt Num Per Num Per Num Per Num Per Num Per Num Per ber cent ber cent ber cent ber cent ber cent ber cent Less than $10___ 1______ $10-$24.99______________ $25-$49.99______________ $50-$99.99______ ____ ___ $100-$199.99-................. . $200-$499.99.............. ........ $500 and over ___ 452 590 378 173 62 17 6 26.9 35.2 22.5 10.3 3.7 1.0 .4 Total...................... 1, 678 100.0 188 238 168 39 1 1 29.6 37.5 26.5 6.1 .2 .2 635 100.0 11 30 29 27 13 1 10.0 27.0 26.1 24.3 11.7 .9 111 100.0 11 27 14 5 19.3 47.4 24.6 8.8 57 100.0 24 35 38 38 16 5 1 15.3 22.3 24.2 24.2 10.2 3.2 .6 218 260 129 64 32 10 5 30.4 36.2 18.0 8.9 4.5 1.4 .7 157 100.0 718 100.0 Table 11 shows the average amount of debt represented by wage executions for all cities in which the amount of debt was shown for more than 10 executions. 19 SIZE OF DEBT T able 1 1 .— Average amount of debt represented by wage executions against industrial employees in certain cities, Feb. 1 to Apr. 30, 1934 City Num ber of execu tions 46 Atlanta, Ga____ ________________________ Birmingham, Ala_______ _________________ 1.057 20 Buffalo, N. Y _____________________________ 487 Chicago, 111----- ------------------- ---------------------30 Cincinnati, Ohio__________________________ 15 Cleveland, Ohio___________ ______________ 17 Detroit, Mich____________________________ 54 Kansas City, Kans_______________________ 17 Los Angeles, Calif________________________ 389 Memphis, Tenn______________________ 14 Mobile, Ala______________ ________________ 12 Newark-Jersey City, N. J -------------------------New York City-Westchester County, N. Y . 59 80 Norfolk, Va_.................. ..................... .............. 112 Richmond, Va.......................................... ........ 11 San Francisco, Calif................ ........................ 28 Washington, D . C ._______________________ Average amount of debt $37.37 18.94 107.24 38.27 36.08 147.42 76. 02 35.38 33. 62 18. 62 21.27 i 111. 03 85.03 17.13 22.00 75.42 55.18 1Excluding 1 execution for $3,289. In the chart all wage executions for which both the amount of wages and the amount of debt were reported have been graphed. The “ amount of debt” scale is logarithmic; but an arithmetic scale has been used for wages in order to avoid exaggerating differences in wages in the lower brackets, which were caused in most instances by varying amounts of time worked during the specific week in which wages were attached rather than by actual differences in income status. The chart shows clearly the wide range in the size of debts and the large number of very small debts. Because of the preponder ance of executions for clothing in southern cities among those for which the amount of debt was not reported, the chart understates the concentration of executions in the low-wage brackets and in the $10 to $20 size range for the whole sample. It is probable, on the other hand, that some employers, in spite of instructions to the contrary, reported the amount collected on specific executions as the amount of debt in certain instances. The extent of this error in reporting cannot be measured, but its influence would exaggerate the number of small debts. Although there appears to be an upward drift in weekly wages as debts increase in size, it is clear that the correlation between wages and amount of debt is slight. M a n y executions for debts of very small amounts were brought against employees whose weekly wages were relatively high and, conversely, many executions for large debts were brought against persons whose wages were very low. WEEKLY WAGE ft?o//arsJ WAGE EXECUTIONS FOE DEBT O 21 WAGES OF DEBTORS Wages of Debtors The distribution b y weekly wages of all employees against whom executions were received by reporting industrial establishments during the 3-month period is as follows: Wage of— Less than $10______________________ $10-$14.99_________________________ $15-$19.99_________________________ $20-$24.99_________________________ $25-$29.99________________________ $30-$39.99_________________________ $40 and over_______________________ Not reported______________________ Total. Percent Number 176 887 795 345 177 86 29 5 3 1 (>) 2, 500 100 7 35 32 14 7 Less than 1 percent. In interpreting these figures, it is necessary to remember that there were wide differences in typical wage scales among the geographic areas and types 6f enterprise covered by the sample. W ages which would be extremely low for certain areas and enterprises would be high for others. A ttem pt has been made, therefore, to supplement the distribution of the whole sample by wage classes by means of a similar distribution for certain urban communities in which a large number of executions were reported. Table 12 gives these data. The distribution by wage classes shown by the table varies materially between cities. The largest number of executions in Birmingham, M emphis, Cincinnati, and Richmond fell in the $ 1 0 -$14.99 class. For all other cities except Washington, the $15-$ 1 9 .9 9 class was the most common. T a b l e 1 2 .— Distribution, by wage groups, of industrial employees involved in wage executions in certain cities, Feb. 1 to Apr. SO, 1934 Birmingham Weekly wage Num ber Per cent Chicago Memphis Richmond Num ber Per cent Num ber Per cent Num ber Under $10_________________ $10-$14.99______ __________ $15-$19.99_________ _____ _ $20-$24.99_________________ $25-$29.99_________________ $30-$39.99___ _____________ $40 and over ____________ Unknown.. ______________ 109 466 274 106 76 19 6 1 10 44 26 10 7 2 0) 0) 10 41 269 120 38 4 4 1 2 8 55 25 8 0) 0) 0) 56 253 45 15 4 16 0 0 14 65 12 4 1 4 0 86 23 3 0 0 0 0 Total.......... ............... 1,057 100 487 100 389 100 112 i Less than 1 percent. Per cent 77 21 3 100 Norfolk Num ber Per cent 0 2 34 28 10 5 1 0 3 43 35 13 6 1 80 100 22 WAGE EXECUTIONS FOB DEBT T a b l e 12. — Distribution, by wage groups, of industrial employees involved in wage executions in certain cities, Feb. 1 to Apr. SO, 1984 — C o n tin u e d Weekly wage New York Kansas City, West chester City, Kans. County Atlanta Cincinnati Washington Buffalo Num Per Num Per Num Per Num Per Num Per Num Per ber cent ber cent ber cent ber cent ber cent ber cent 0 0 0 Under $10............. ........... $10-$14.99______________ $15-$19.99___ ____ ______ $20-24.99_______________ $25-$29.99______________ $30-$39.99____________ _ $40 and over____________ Unknown______________ 1 17 13 9 15 4 0 2 29 22 15 25 7 31 16 7 Total___ J.............. 59 100 54 0 57 30 13 0 0 28 65 2 1 1 2 2 0 0 2 46 100 30 0 0 100 0 0 13 30 1 0 0 0 4 11 21 18 39 7 11 6 3 0 0 15 7 1 3 6 5 11 2 0 100 28 100 20 100 14 10 3 1 47 33 10 3 55 30 0 In order to compare the wages of those against whom wage execu tions were brought with wages of all employees, it is necessary again to use homogeneous parts of the sample. Table 13 compares the average wage of all employees with the average wage of those whose wages were attached and shows what proportions of those whose wages were attached received more and less than the average paid to all employees in certain establishments which reported large numbers of executions. T a b l e 1 3 . — Average wage of all employees and of those involved in wage executions, by industries, Feb. 1 to Apr. SO, 1934 Industry of employer Slaughtering. .................... .......... Electric power...... ............ .......... Railroad repairing____ _______ Structural steel_______________ Slaughtering and meat packing. Copper and brass_____________ Shipbuilding_____________ ____ Foundry and machine shop___ Iron and steel....... ............. ......... Meat packing.............................. Railroad repairing...... ............ . Iron and steel_________________ Engineering specialties________ Shipbuilding___________ _____ Iron and steel_________________ Radio manufacturing........... . Sawmilling................................... Cotton goods............................... Location New York......... Washington_____ Memphis......... . Detroit.................. K ansas C it y , Kans. Buffalo.................. Norfolk_________ Cleveland_______ Chicago-............... Minneapolis_____ Atlanta................. Cincinnati_______ Mobile____ _____ Birmingham_____ Cincinnati............ Memphis.............. Atlanta................. Employees whose wages were attached Average weekly wage of Comparison with all em average wages of ployees all employees (Apr. Average 15, wage 1934) Percent Percent receiving receiving less more $30.29 29.49 26.19 25.60 24.56 $23.44 28.43 21.55 20.38 20.16 89 55 70 82 87 11 45 30 18 13 23.47 22.68 21.84 20.98 19.48 18.22 17.81 17.68 17.39 16. 54 14.63 13.84 13.81 19.74 21.91 21.64 18.72 18.63 31.14 16.72 14.94 19.08 16.36 18.23 12. 32 14.49 100 67 61 73 62 28 87 90 70 65 31 74 33 0 33 39 27 38 72 13 10 30 35 69 26 67 23 GARNISHMENTS AND WAGE ASSIGNMENTS As already indicated, the chart appears to show an upward drift in the amounts of weekly wages as the amount of debt increases. W hen the data used in this chart are tabulated, the direct relationship between wages and amount of debt is more clearly shown. Table 14 gives the average amount of various kinds of debt by wage classes. T able 1 4 . — A verag e am ou n t o f various kinds o f debt , b y wage cla ssesy o f in d u stria l em p lo yees involved in wage execu tion s , F eb. 1 to A p r . 8 0 y 1 9 3 4 Average amount of debt by wage classes All wage Under $10 classes $10$14.99 $15$19.99 $20$24.99 $25$29.99 $30$39.99 $21.58 Clothing------------------- ----- --------Loans____________ _____ _________ 57.35 Furniture and household appliances- 48. 44 Groceries and meats. ...................... . 20.03 Board and housing............................ 55. 50 Medical and burial.............. ............. 44. 53 Jewelry__________________________ 23. 60 Automobile purchase and operation. 47. 64 21. 25 Miscellaneous................................. Unidentified. ................. ................... 64.88 $14.47 40.71 34.40 12.25 33. 35 25.91 16.68 17.99 10.77 $17.55 36.91 30.29 8.03 14.14 41. 64 28.46 13. 51 15. 56 24.35 $24.66 42.33 52. 73 19.35 40.40 54. 05 24.26 46.03 20.10 31.91 $22.51 65.16 55. 20 35.89 63. 53 40.91 18.61 60.57 17. 29 50.68 $22.27 105.96 38.93 30.53 53.67 37. 51 14.62 27.68 55.87 39. 70 $55.79 $17. 58 70.33 63.04 56.50 42.73 144.86 14.77 13.54 15.79 8.34 88.93 32. 27 189.00 42. 50 44.55 36. 56 77.65 13,289.00 33. 55 18. 77 18. 79 30. 78 38. 90 43. 60 Kind of debt All debts. ................................ 79.34 $40 and over 194. 02 i This figure represents a single execution. Garnishments and Wage Assignments Approximately t vo-thirds of the wage executions in the sample were garnishments and one-third were wage assignments.10 W h at are the differences in the characteristics of debt for which these two types of wage executions were brought and of the debtors against whom they were brought? Table 15 compares the numbers and average amounts of various kinds of debt represented by garnishments with similar figures for wage assignments. Table 16 compares the wages of those against whom garnishments and wage assignments were brought. T able 1 5 . — K i n d and average a m ount o f debt represented b y ga rnishm ents and by wage assign m en ts in in du strial establishm ents , F eb . 1 to A p r . SO, 1 9 3 4 Garnishments Kind of debt Wage assignments Average Average Number Percent amount Number Percent amount of total of total reported reported Clothing............................ ........................ ........... Loans_______ ______________________ __________ Furniture and household appliances.................... Groceries and meats......... ...................................... Board and housing...... ............................................ Medical and burial.............................................. . Jewelry______ __________________ _____________ Automobile purchase and operation.................... Miscellaneous.................... ..................................... . Unidentified.......................................... .................. 501 97 89 169 103 76 37 58 249 224 31 6 5 11 6 5 2 4 16 14 $21.37 57.14 36.09 19.84 53.02 44.44 23.89 46.98 21.28 65.88 638 89 89 2 24 2 29 8 7 9 Total___________________________________ 1, 603 100 33.92 897 1 Less than 1 percent. 10 For number of garnishments and wage assignments, by cities, see table 3. 71 10 10 1 $21.74 57.55 67.99 45.99 66.94 47.00 23.28 56.27 8.82 38.38 100 32. 76 0) 0) 3 3 0) 0) 24 WAGE EXECUTIONS FOR DEBT T a b l e 1 6 , — W e e k ly wage d istribution o f in du stria l em p lo yees involved in garnish m ents and, wage a ssig n m en ts, F eb. 1 to A p r . 8 0 , 1 9 3 4 Garnishments Wage assignments Weekly wages Number Under $10_________ _________________________ _______ $10.00-$14.99__________________________________________ $15.00-$19.99__________________________________________ $20.00-$24.99_________________ ____ ___________________ $25.00-$29.99__________________________________________ $30.00-$39.99______ ___________________________________ $40.00 and over______ _______ ____ _________ ________ Unknown_______________ ________ ______ ________ 125 641 422 191 117 80 25 2 Total___ ______ ________________________________ 1,603 Percent of total Number 8 40 26 12 7 5 2 51 246 373 154 60 6 4 3 100 897 0) Percent of total 6 27 42 17 7 0) 0) V) 100 i Less than 1 percent. Although these two tables accurately describe certain characteris tics of all garnishments and wage assignments represented in the sample, their usefulness as a means of comparing garnishments with wage assignments is extremely limited. The average amounts for various classes of debt and the wages of debtors are materially affected by local conditions and only a few of the urban areas covered by our sample report any considerable number of wage assignments. B e cause of the maldistribution of wage assignments throughout the sample, it is necessary to limit our data to certain areas in order to compare the average size of debts and average wages of debtors for garnishments and wage executions. Table 17 makes this comparison for the 5 cities in which 9 or more wage assignments were reported. I t will be noted that the relationship between average amounts of debt and average wages of debtors shown by this table is entirely different from that shown by tables 15 and 16. Both the average amount of debt 11 and the average wages of debtors are consistently lower for wage assignments than for garnishments when the com parison is made within homogeneous groups. W age assignments appear to be used most commonly to secure installment contracts for clothing, furniture and household appliances, jewelry, aud loans. The principal characteristics of these contracts are: (1) The original indebtedness is the largest and reduction by periodic payments is anticipated, and (2) the creditor depends almost solely upon pay-roll attachments as a remedy for default. The principal characteristics of the debts for which garnishments were brought are: (1) The debt usually increases following the original 11 In comparing the average amounts of debt for garnishments and wage assignments, it should be noted that the amounts of debt represented by garnishments include court costs and those for wage assignments do not. These costs are not sufficient, however, to account for the differences in average amounts of debt. 25 INFLUENCE OF SIZE OF CITY, ESTABLISHMENT credit extension (i. e., grocery, medical, board, and rent bills), or (2) pay-roll attachments are resorted to only after other more common collection devices have failed. T a b l e 1 7 .— A v era g e a m ount o f debt and o f wages o f in du stria l em p lo yees involved in garnishm ents and w age a ssig n m en ts, in certain cities, F eb . 1 to A p r . SO, 1 9 3 4 City Cincinnati----------------------------------------------- ----------Los Angeles_____________________________________ Birmingham----------------------------------------- ----------New York City-------------------------------------------- -----Chicago------------------------ --------- -------------------- ------ Garnishments Wage assignments Aver Num Aver age age ber amount wages Aver Num Aver age age ber amount wages 13 8 717 26 10 $45.38 43.98 19.68 141. 20 137. 54 $18.26 21.45 16.40 26.99 27. 51 17 9 340 33 477 $28.96 24. 42 14. 94 39.90 26. 30 $14.05 19.06 14.33 22.89 18. 51 Influence of Size of City and Size of Establishment The wide variation in certain characteristics of the establishments in our sample and the maldistribution of these variations make it hazardous to attempt to determine the influence of size of city and size of establishment upon the wages of debtors and the amount of debt. It seems possible, however, to compare safely differences in the distribution of wage executions by kinds of debt. Tables 18 and 19 give the distribution of executions by kinds of debt for size classes of cities in which reporting establishments were situated and for size classes of establishments. Several elements of these tables seem significant. Table 18 indi cates that clothing debts accounted for only a small proportion of wage executions in cities of less than 100,000 population, while they accounted for almost half of the executions in other cities. No executions for jewelry occurred in the smallest class of cities. On the other hand, groceries and meats accounted for the largest part of the total number of executions in the smallest class of cities, and an insignificant part of the total in the largest class. I t is true that the smallest class of cities reported an unsatisfactory number of executions, but this shortcoming is in part compensated by the fact that the frequency of executions was much lower in these cities than in larger ones. Table 19 indicates that tendencies similar to those noted for increasing size classes of cities occur with increases in the size of establishments, though in somewhat lesser degree. Since the majority of the small establishments in our sample were situated in larger cities, these two sets of tendencies do not result from a common influence. 26 WAGE EXECUTIONS FOB DEBT T a b l e 1 8 .— N u m b er and percentage o f wage executions brought against em p lo yees o f reporting in du stria l establishm ents, F eb. 1 to A p r . 8 0 , 1 9 3 4 , b y siz e classes o f cities Cities by population classes Kind of debt Under 100,000 100,000250,000 250,000500,000 500,0001,000,000 1,000,000 and over All cities um- Per Num Per Num Per Num Per Num Per Num Per oer cent ber cent ber cent ber cent ber cent ber cent Clothing....... ............................. Loans----------------------------------Furniture and household appli ances.___________ ______ ___ Groceries and meats............. . Board and housing....... ............ Medical and burial.................... Jewelry_______ ____________ Automobile purchase and oper ation.......... .............. .............. Miscellaneous—................. ........ Unidentified.—......................... Total— ...................... . 2 3 9 13 192 12 60 4 649 61 44 4 11 8 14 10 285 102 2 7 3 1 0 9 30 13 4 15 20 22 8 12 5 6 7 2 4 58 132 53 59 26 4 9 4 4 2 6 8 9 9 6 8 10 12 12 8 2 1 2 9 4 9 2 11 27 0) 3 8 47 229 177 3 15 12 6 11 3 23 100 321 100 1,491 100 77 48 1,139 17 186 46 7 97 4 40 1 22 15 0) 7 0) 4 178 171 127 78 66 .7 7 5 8 3 8 14 4 9 4 24 2 0) 4 66 256 233 3 10 9 100 588 100 2,500 100 i Less than 1 percent. T a b l e 1 9 .— N u m b er and percentage o f wage executions brought against em p lo yees o f reporting in du stria l establishm ents, F eb. 1 to A p r . 8 0 , 1 9 3 4 , by s iz e classes o f establishm ents Establishments by average number of employees Feb. 15, 1933, to Feb. 15, 1934 Kind of debt Under 250 250-499 500-999 1,000-2,499 2,500 and over All estab lishments Num Per Num Per Num Per Num Per Num Per Num Per ber cent ber cent ber cent ber cent ber cent ber cent Clothing____________________ Loans...------------------------------Furniture and household appli ances---- ---------------------------Groceries and meats__________ Board and housing__________ Medical and burial___________ Jewelry_____________________ Automobile purchase and oper ation__________________ ___ M iscellaneous. _____ _________ Unidentified........................... . 18 11 23 14 9 10 12 14 26 7 21 6 149 20 55 7 937 138 5 9 4 9 2 6 12 5 12 3 5 8 9 7 6 7 11 12 9 8 14 20 14 3 15 11 16 11 2 12 16 15 15 5 13 6 6 6 2 5 138 119 85 54 30 7 6 4 3 2 178 171 127 78 66 7 7 5 3 3 2 6 12 3 8 15 2 3 15 3 4 20 3 15 8 2 12 6 7 4 27 3 1 10 52 228 171 3 12 9 66 256 233 3 10 9 All debts..................... . . 78 100 74 100 125 100 271 100 2,500 10 100 1,952 48 1,139 7 186 46 7 Old and New Employees Tables 20 and 21 show the distribution of executions by amount of debt and by kind of debt for old and new employees. Both tables show a remarkable lack of difference in the distributions for these groups of employees. 27 COMPARISON WITH OTHER OCCUPATIONAL GROUPS T 2 0 .— D istr ib u tio n , b y a m ount o f debt , o f executions brought against old and new em p lo yees in reporting in du strial establishm ents , F eb. 1 to A p r . 8 0 , 1 9 3 4 able Employment status of those against whom executions were brought Amount of debt Old employees New employees Status unknown All employees Number Percent Number Percent Number Percent Number Percent Less than $10..................... ........ $10-$24.99..................................... $25-$49.99-................................. $50-$99.99............................. ...... $100-$ 199.99................................. $200-$499.99__......................... — $500 and over......... ................ . 290 310 242 118 51 8 3 28 30 24 12 5 0) h 146 262 126 53 11 9 2 24 43 21 9 2 2 0) 16 18 10 2 0 0 1 34 38 21 4 0) Total classified _ _........ . Amount of debt unknown_____ 1, 022 576 100 609 209 100 47 37 100 Total................. — ......... - lf 598 818 M 2 84 452 590 378 173 62 17 6 27 35 23 10 4 1 0) 1,678 822 100 2, 500 1 Less than 1 percent. T 2 1 .— D istr ib u tio n , b y kin d o f debty o f wage executions brought against old and n ew em p lo yees i n reportin g in du stria l establishm ents, F eb. 1 to A p r . 8 0 , 1 9 3 4 able Status of employment Total Kind of debt Num ber Clothing........................................ Loans........... ............................. ........ Furniture and household appliances_ Groceries and meats................... ...... Board and housing...... .............. ...... Medical and burial........................... Jewelry----------- --------------------------Automobile purchase and OperationMiscellaneous— Unidentified-...................— ........... Total.........-............................. New Old Per cent Num ber Unknown Per cent Num ber Per cent Num ber Per cent 772 121 108 114 70 37 38 46 115 177 48 8 7 7 4 2 2 3 7 11 356 55 59 48 41 35 22 18 133 51 44 7 7 6 5 4 3 2 16 6 11 10 11 9 16 6 6 2 8 5 13 12 13 11 19 7 7 2 10 6 1,139 186 178 171 127 78 66 66 256 233 46 7 7 7 5 3 3 3 10 9 1, 598 100 818 100 84 100 2, 500 100 Comparison W ith Other Occupational Groups How do the characteristics of debts and debtors in reporting industrial establishments compare with those reported by the New York City administration and by the railroad company which supplied data for employees in New York State? Table 22 compares the distribution by wage classes of employees against whom wage executions were brought for the New York City administration, for the reporting railroad company, and for reporting industrial establish ments, in New York City and Westchester County, and in all cities. Table 23 shows the distribution of wage executions by kind of debt and gives the average amount of debt for these two large employers and for all the industrial establishments in the sample. These tables show the influence of the higher wage scales for the two large employers upon the amount of wages received by those 28 WAGE EXECUTIONS FOB DEBT against whom wage executions were brought and upon the amount of debt represented by these executions. They indicate, further, that wage executions for debt are not a phenomenon peculiar to low-income groups. Although frequency distributions are not avail able for comparison of the rates of wage execution among various wage classes for the employees in the sample, such evidence as is available indicates that under certain conditions higher wages lead to more frequent executions for debt. Certainly, at least, the amounts of debt for which garnishments are brought increase as the wages of debtors increase. T a b l e 22 .— Wage distribution of industrial employees involved in wage execu tions and of similar workers in other specified employments, Feb. 1 to Apr. 80, 1984 Industrial establishments L<arge raiiroau ^em ployees in New York State) New York City administration New York City and Westchester County All reporting Weekly wages Sim Cumu Sim Cumu Sim Cumu Sim Cumu lative Num ple Num ple lative Num ple lative Num ple lative per ber per per ber per per ber per ber per per cent cent cent cent cent cent cent cent Under $10 9 $10 to $14.99_____ 31 $15 to $19.99_____ 40 $20 to $24.99........ 43 $25 to $29.99........ $30 to $39.99......... 1,011 $40 and over 856 (0 2 2 2 51 43 Total_____ 1,990 Not. reported 172 100 (” ) 2 4 6 57 100 100 Grand total. 2,162 l 27 43 62 35 96 17 281 91 372 0) 0) 10 15 22 13 34 6 100 10 25 47 60 94 100 1 17 13 9 15 A 2 29 22 15 25 7 100 59 100 i 176 887 795 345 177 86 29 7 36 32 14 7 3 1 7 43 75 89 96 99 100 100 2, 495 5 100 100 2 31 53 68 93 100 59 !2, 500 i " " i Less than 1 percent. 22.— Number and average amounts of various kinds of debt represented by wage executions against railroad and industrial employees, Feb. 1 to Apr . 80, 1984 T able New York City administration K3nd of debt Clothing............................................. Loans................................................. Furniture and household appliances. Groceries and meats.......................... Board and housing........................... Medical and burial.........................„ Jewelry....... ............................. - ........ Automobile purchase and operation. Miscellaneous..................................... Unidentified....................................... All reporting indus trial establishments Executions Executions Executions Aver Aver Aver age age amount age amount amount of debt Num Per of debt Num Per of debt Num Per re ber cent ber cent ported ber cent 244 834 253 6 68 7 142 29 209 370 All debts__________ _________ 2,162 i Less than 1 percent. * 1 execution only. Large railroad (em ployees in New York State) 11 $68.26 39 142.34 12 114.02 55.00 0) 3 190.81 138.43 (0 7 176.32 1 144.10 10 225. 71 17 329.05 102 44 60 1 1 4 60 8 38 54 27 $32.23 12 121.91 89.78 16 2 55. 00 0) C) 2 591. 00 54.25 1 16 38.93 2 110.88 65.24 10 552. 24 15 1,139 186 178 171 127 78 66 66 256 233 46 7 7 7 5 3 3 3 10 9 $21. 58 57.35 48.44 20.03 55.50 44.53 23.60 47.64 21.25 64.88 100 372 100 2, 500 100 33.55 174.20 135.55 FREQUENCY OF EXECUTIONS, INDIVIDUAL CREDITORS 29 A n interesting characteristic of the executions against New York City employees is the predominance of executions for loans. Am ong the establishments in the samples in which large numbers of executions were brought, this is the single employment group in which clothing was supplanted as the most frequent cause of wage executions. This is probably due in part to very great development in New York City of industrial banks and lending institutions doing a similar business 12 and in part to the fact that wage assignments, the customary security of installment clothing houses in New Y ork City, are not useful against city employees. The distribution of executions against the railroad’s employees by kind of debt, however, more nearly resembled the pat tern for the industrial establishments. Table 24 compares the average amounts of various kinds of debt represented by garnishments and wage assignments brought against the employees of the railroad company.13 Apparently the differences in characteristics of garnishments and wage assignments that were revealed by table 17 for certain cities hold also for railroad employees throughout New Y ork State. T a b l e 2 4 ,— Average amounts of debts for specified purposes, of railroad employees involved in garnishments and in wage assignments, Feb. 1 to Apr. 80, 1984 Garnishments Kind of debt Number Average amount Wage assignments Number Average amount Clothing-.............................. ................. ....................... Furniture............................. ................................ .......... Jewelry............................................................................ Loans................................................... ........................... All others_________________ __________________ 16 26 2 43 89 $47.82 98. 58 61.00 123. 23 374.46 86 34 58 17 $29.12 84.59 38.17 i 65.00 42.53 Total— ................. - ......... ......... ........... .............. 176 237.69 196 42.84 1 11 execution only. Frequency of Executions by Individual Creditors The 2,500 wage executions against the employees of 174 reporting industrial establishments during the 3-month period from February 1 to April 30, 1934, were brought by 868 creditors. Seventy-five per cent of these creditors brought only a single execution, and an addi tional 10 percent brought but two executions each. The remaining 15 percent, however, accounted for 67 percent of the total number of executions. The eight creditors who brought more than 50 execu tions— only 1 percent of the total number of creditors— accounted for 26 percent of the total number of executions. 18I. e., personal-loan departments of banks and credit unions. wJudicial restrictions upon the use of wage assignments against public employees prevent these instru ments from being used against New York City employees. 30 WAGE EXECUTIONS FOR DEBT Table 25 shows the number of executions brought by individual creditors and the kind of business in which these creditors were en gaged. Although this table accurately presents the number of execu tions brought by individual creditors for the sample as a whole, differences in the size of local samples limit its usefulness to demon strate the relative frequency of executions by individual creditors. In those localities where the employment sample was small or where the use of pay-roll levies was infrequent, five executions by a single creditor might indicate greater relative use of these collection devices than 50 executions by a single creditor where the employment sample was large or executions were more frequent. In order to determine the types of business which generally produced the most frequent creditors, it is necessary to examine local samples. T a b l e 25,— Executions against industrial employees by individual creditors in specified businesses, Feb. 1 to Apr. 80, 1984 Number of creditors bringing— Business of creditor 1 execu tion only 2 to 5 execu tions 6 to 25 execu tions More than 25 execu tions Clothing.................................... Furniture___________________ Loans______________________ Groceries................................... Board and housing__________ Medical____________________ Jewelry_____________________ Auto sales and service_______ Miscellaneous 1......................... Unidentified________________ 76 49 46 82 67 37 24 ' 26 29 222 34 20 20 15 13 8 11 9 30 4 26 8 10 2 1 1 3 2 11 »1 All creditors___________ 657 144 54 13 11 1 Average Total Total number number number of execu of credi of execu tions per tors tions creditor 147 77 76 100 81 46 38 36 41 226 1,139 178 186 171 127 78 66 66 256 233 7.8 2.3 2.5 1.7 1.6 1.7 1.7 1.8 6.2 1.0 868 2,500 2.9 1 The two miscellaneous creditors who brought more than 5 executions were a Federal bankruptcy court and a lawyer presumably functioning as a collection agency. Although the executions in behalf of the bankruptcy court were brought in the names of 4 court officers, these executions were considered to have been brought by a single creditor. Table 26 shows the creditors who brought the largest number of executions in nine cities in which the largest number of executions were reported by industrial establishments during the 3-m onth period for which detailed information was given. In the three cities fur nishing the largest samples, the 15 creditors bringing the largest num ber of executions are indicated. Where the sample was smaller, only those creditors who brought three or more executions, are listed. Obviously, the samples for these latter cities are too small to be con clusive concerning the true rank of creditors with regard to the frequency of executions, but it seems probable that m ost creditors who rank high in these small samples would be among the more frequent creditors if the sample were expanded. 31 FREQUENCY OF EXECUTIONS, INDIVIDUAL, CREDITORS T able 26*— Kind of business of most frequent creditors and number of execu tions brought by them in specified cities, Feb. 1 to Apr. 30, 1934 Birmingham, Ala. Chicago, 111. Executions Cred itors Kind of business Clothing......... Do............ Do............ Do............ Do............ Do............ CumuNum- laber tive percent 111 79 74 60 49 44 Cumulative per cent 12.8 21.9 30.5 37.4 43.1 48.2 0.4 .9 1.3 1.7 2.2 2.6 Groceries_____ 36 52.3 3.0 Doctor......... Clothing......... Do~_....... . 22 54.8 15 56.6 14 58.2 3.5 3.9 4.3 Lawyer Furniture____ Unlicensed lender. Clothing_____ 12 59.6 9 60.6 9 61.7 4.8 5.2 5.6 Groceries_____ Total: 15 leading creditors. 216 o t h e r creditors. All creditors- Kind of business CumuNum laber tive per cent Clothing......... ....... do............. ....... do_______ ....... do............. ....... do.............. C o lle c tio n agency. Licensed lender. Furniture____ Clothing......... Unlicensed lender. Furniture____ Clothing_____ ....... do-“ ......... 54 52 29 25 24 16 6.1 Licensed lender. 6.5 ....... do.............. Total: 15 leading 550 63.5 6.5 creditors. 92 o t h e r 316 36.5 93.5 creditors. 1866 100.0 100.0 All creditors. Cumulative per cent Executions Cred itors Kind of busi ness CumuNum laber tive per cent 56 25 24 18 14 13 11.1 21.8 27.7 32.9 37.8 41.1 0.9 1.9 2.8 3.7 4.7 5.6 Clothing____ ____do______ ____do______ ____do______ ....... do....... . ____do______ 16 44.4 6.5 14 47.2 13 49.9 13 52.6 11 54.8 10 66.9 9 58.7 Cumulative per cent 14.4 20.8 27.0 31.6 35.2 38.6 0.6 1.3 1.9 2. 5 3.1 3.8 Furniture___ 11 41.4 4.4 7.5 Clothing____ 8.4 ....... do............ 9.3 ....... do........... 10 44.0 10 46.5 8 48.6 5.0 5.7 6.3 10.3 ____do______ 11.2 ____do______ 12.1 ....... do............ 7 50.4 7 52.2 7 54.0 6.9 7.5 8.2 8 60.4 13.1 ____do______ 6 55.5 8.8 8 63.5 8 62.0 14.0 6 57.1 9.4 Clothing_____ 36 32.1 Do............ Do............ 16 46.4 13 58.0 302 62.0 14.0 185 38.0 86.0 487 100.0 100.0 Jewelry_____ Total: 15 leading creditors. 144 other creditors. All credi tors. 222 57.1 9.4 167 42.9 90.9 389 100.0 100.0 New York City—Westchester County Norfolk, Va. U nlicensed lender. 5. 6 Landlord____ 8.3 Department store. 11.1 Furniture____ 8 10.0 1.8 Jewelry_____ 6 10.2 2.3 4 4 15.0 20.0 3.6 ____do______ 5.5 Furniture___ 4 16.9 3 22.0 4.7 7.0 3 23.8 7.3 9.3 3 27.5 9.1 In d u st rial bank. 3 27.1 13.9 House repairs . 16.7 Total; 5 leading 76 67.9 16.7 creditors. 50 o t h e r 36 32.1 83.3 creditors. 112 100.0 100.0 All creditors. 22 27.5 9.1 16 27.1 9.3 58 72.5 90.9 Total: 4 leading creditors. 39 o t h e r creditors All credi tors. 43 72.9 90.7 Do............ 4 61.6 Do............ Dn Total: 6 leading creditors. 30 o t h e r creditors. All creditors. 4 65. 2 3 67.9 Kansas City, Kans. Total: 3 leading creditors. 37 o t h e r creditors. All creditors. Executions Cred itors 8 62.6 Richmond, Va. Clothing_____ Do............ Collection agency. Memphis, Tenn. 6 11.1 5 20.4 8 25.9 2.8 80 100.0 100.0 Atlanta, Ga. 59 100.0 100.0 Cincinnati, Ohio 2.5 Clothing_____ 5.0 ____do_______ 7.5 ....... do............. 4 8.7 3 15.2 3 21.7 3.0 Clothing____ 7.1 ____do______ 10.7 ....... do............ 8 26.7 5 43.3 3 53.3 6.7 13.3 20.0 ____do............. Groceries____ U nlicensed lender. Total; 14 25.9 6 leading 7.5 creditors. 22 o t h e r 40 74.1 92.5 creditors. 54 100.0 100.0 All creditors- 3 28.3 3 34.8 3 41.3 14.3 ____do............ 17.9 Jewelry_____ 21.4 2 60.0 2 66.7 26.7 33.3 20 66.7 33.3 10 33.3 66.7 19 41.3 21.4 27 58.7 78.6 46 100.0 100.0 > Excluding 191 executions brought by the Federal bankruptcy court. Total: 5 leading creditors. 10 o t h e r creditors. All credi tors. 30 100.0 100.0 32 WAGE EXECUTIONS FOR DEBT The largest homogeneous sample of wage executions is that sup plied by the New Y ork City administration, and a more detailed examination of the most frequent creditors in this sample has there fore been made. Table 27 shows the kind of business of the 25 credi tors who brought the largest number of executions against New York City employees and indicates the extent to which these creditors brought similar actions against employees of the railroad and of the industrial establishments in the metropolitan area. W hile these 25 creditors represented less than 4 percent of the creditors bringing executions against employees of the city of New Y ork, they accounted collectively for more than half of the total number of executions brought against these employees. T a b l e 2 7 .— Number of executions brought by 25 creditors against employees of New York City , a railroad company, and reporting industrial establishments, Feb. 1 to Apr. 80 , 1934 Number of executions brought against employ ees of— Kind of business Industrial hank Personal loan depart ment. Credit union l Industrial bank______ Clothing____________ Industrial bank______ Tin _______ Do Do ____________ Furniture _ Clothing l _ Jnwelry (loan) 8 Installment depart ment store Furniture..................... A large rail road com pany Reporting industrial establish ments in New York City and West chester County 173 5 2 115 100 95 62 61 52 50 46 39 35 33 1 New York City admin istra tion 31 29 4 2 3 1 1 4 3 1 1 2 1 3 Number of executions brought against employ ees of— Kind of business Jewelry .. Do Clothing____________ Jewelry (loanl 8 Industrial bank Colleotion agenoy Furniture____ __ Personal loan depart ment____ __________ Industrial bank______ Clothing *_____ ______ Do 1 New York City admin istra tion 28 26 25 24 22 20 19 Reporting industrial A large establish ments in rail York road New City and com West pany chester County 5 7 19 15 15 15 4 Total, 25 credi tors 1,149 All creditors....... 2,162 39 372 1 1 13 59 1 Deals only with New York City employees. * Policemen's, firemen’s, and street-cleaners’ uniforms. * Jewelry sold by the creditor is immediately pawned and judgment Is usually taken promptly after the sale. Several other creditors do a similar business with New York City employees. Clothing debts, it has been previously shown, accounted for 46 percent of the executions against employees of reporting industrial establishments. Table 26 indicates further that those individual creditors who brought the largest number of executions were pre dominantly clothing merchants. In each of the four cities for which the largest numbers of executions were reported, the five most frequent creditors were clothing companies. Am ong the 74 creditors listed in table 26, 46 were clothing mer chants, 6 were furniture stores, 4 were unlicensed lenders, 4 were FREQUENCY OF EXECUTIONS, INDIVIDUAL, CREDITORS 33 jewelry merchants,14 3 were licensed loan companies, 3 were grocers, and 2 were collection agents. The list also includes one doctor, one lawyer (probably acting as a collection agency), one landlord, one department store, one industrial bank, and one company engaged in house repairing. Only in Norfolk and in New York City did businesses other than clothing produce the two most frequent creditors. In Norfolk this departure from the usual pattern is probably due to the nature of the sample. All but two of the wage executions reported in this area were brought against employees of a single shipbuilding company. It seems likely that special characteristics of this group account for the difference in the business of the most frequent creditors, and that among other occupational groups in this community certain clothing merchants would be found to be responsible for large numbers of executions. In New York City also, the difference in the business of the most frequent individual creditors may be explained in part by occupational characteristics of the employment groups represented. Employees of the city of New York, as a group, have a higher wage scale, higher educational standards, and more stable employment than any other employment group covered by this study. These factors naturally influence the kind of credit which is available. It will be noted that among city employees, industrial banks rather than clothing merchants appear as the creditors bringing the largest numbers of executions. Only five clothing merchants appear among the 25 most frequent creditors and two of these dealt in uniforms. On the other hand, the list of creditors includes eight industrial banks, two personal loan departments of commercial banks, and a credit union, all of which do a similar type of business, and four jewelry merchants. The prominence of certain jewelers is understated, because garnishment actions were brought in several names and it was impossible to identify all actions by the same company. There were 10 jewelers among the 50 most frequent creditors of New York City employees. While steady employment at relatively high wages probably accounts for the preponderance of industrial banks and other insti tutions lending on endorsed notes among the principal creditors of city employees, it is clear, nevertheless, that the business of creditors who make most frequent use of pay-roll levies differs materially between New York City and other areas covered by this study. Among the creditors of the reporting industrial establishments in New York City and Westchester County, the two creditors who brought the largest number of executions were jewelers; and the next most frequent M T h e w o r d “ s t o r e ” is a v o i d e d d e s ig n e d ly s in c e m a n y o f th e se m e r c h a n t s o p e r a t e t h r o u g h a g e n ts w h o sell a t fa c t o r y g a t e s . 34 WAGE EXECUTIONS FOR DEBT creditors were a furniture company and an industrial bank. Among railroad employees, who were scattered throughout New York State, the most frequent creditors in New York City were, in order, a fur niture store, a clothing merchant, three jewelry merchants, and a collection agency. The most frequent creditors in up-State cities were, in order, a clothing store, an industrial bank, a furniture store, and a jewelry merchant. Differences in the proportion of all executions brought by the most frequent creditors in various cities are probably not significant. They are caused, among other things, by differences in the size of local samples, by differences in the size of cities, and by the locations of reporting establishments with respect to each other and to the center of trade. Where several reporting establishments were situated in the center of the city, their employees tended to have common creditors. Where establishments were situated in diverse outlying neighborhoods, their employees tended to have different creditors. For instance, none of the four clothing merchants fisted among the most frequent creditors in Atlanta brought executions against the employees of more than one of the three reporting establishments. A larger sample would probably have shown these merchants to have dealt with the employees of other firms in their respective neighborhoods. On the other hand, some creditors who brought considerable numbers of executions were probably important only with regard to a single establishment. For example, 7 of the 28 wage executions reported for Washington, D. C., were brought by a woman who operated a lunch wagon near the gate of an isolated industrial plant. This woman lent small sums at high rates of interest to employees of the plant, and the executions brought by her were to enforce payment of these loans. She would probably have been an unimportant creditor if the sample had included all executions in the District of Columbia. In table 28 are.shown the relationship between the average number of wage executions per creditor, the frequency of wage executions, and the severity of wage-execution laws. In spite of the peculiarities of local samples, which limit their value for purposes of comparison, this relationship appears to be sufficiently marked to be significant. It seems safe to conclude that devices which facilitate levies against pay rolls tend to encourage the development of credit businesses which rely heavily upon these devices for collection. For the sample as a whole and for those cities where the largest numbers of executions were brought, it has been seen that a small number of creditors accounts for a large part of the total number of executions. Could the sample be increased for those areas where wage executions are severe, the most frequent creditors would proba bly account for an even greater proportion of the total number of executions. On the other hand, it seems unlikely that a larger sample 35 COST 03? WAGE EXECUTIONS for those areas where wage executions are generally ineffective would result in a consistent change in the proportion of the total number of executions that were brought by certain individual creditors. T able 28.— F r e q u e n c y o f w a g e e x e c u t i o n s , a v era g e n u m b e r o f e x e c u t i o n s c r e d it o r , a n d s e v e r i t y o f e x e c u t i o n s i n s p e c i f ie d c i t i e s 1 R a te o f w age e x e c u t io n s p e r 1,000 e m p lo y e e s , M a y 1, 1933, t o A p r . 30, 1934 C o m m u n ity A v era g e num ber af e x e c u t io n s p e r c r e d it o r , F e b . 1 to A p r . 30, 1934 523 M e m p h i s _________________________________________________ 2 .5 4.0 B i r m in g h a m ______________________________________ _______ 343 4 .6 159 C h ic a g o _________________________________________________ 154 K a n s a s C i t y , K a n s ______________________________________ 1 .4 R i c h m o n d ________________________________________________ 104 3 .1 103 1 .6 A t l a n t a __________________________________________________ N e w Y o r k ________________________________________________ 84 1 .5 W a s h in g t o n , D . C _ _________________________ _________ 48 1 .5 25 2 .0 C i n c i n n a t_____ i _________________________________________ 22 C l e v e l a n d ________________________________________________ 1 .0 21 B u f f a l o ____________________________________________________ 1 .0 21 D e t r o i t . ........................... ........ ...........- ..................... ................... . 1 .6 N e w Y o r k C i t y a n d W e s t c h e s te r C o u n t y _________ 20 1 .4 L o s A n g e le s ______________________________________________ 1 .2 15 2 A l l r e p o r t in g in d u s t r ia l e s t a b lis h m e n t s ______ 80 per R e la t iv e s e v e r it y of w a g e e x e c u t io n s t a t u te s a n d p r a c t ic e S evere. D o. D o. D o. D o. D o. D o. G e n e r a lly in e ffe c t iv e . L i m it e d . D o. Do S e v e re . L im it e d . G e n e r a lly in e ffe c t iv e . 2 .9 i Excludes cities for which less than 15 executions were reported during the 3-month period. 1 Reporting industrial establishments only. Costs of Wage Executions In examining the cost of wage executions for debt, it is necessary to distinguish between those costs which are borne by the debtor, the creditor, the employer, and the general public. Costs which are borne by the creditor have been excluded from consideration. In every jurisdiction a creditor is entitled to collect the costs of court process in addition to the proved amount of his claim. Although court costs do not, of course, cover all the creditor's expenses of collection, it is assumed that these expenses have been anticipated by the creditor and included in his mark-up or credit charges. There has also been excluded from consideration that part of the cost of court process which is borne by the public. Court process is expensive. The cost must be borne either by the debtor or by the taxpayer, and in some jurisdictions a considerable part of the cost is probably saddled upon the latter. It would be impossible, however, to measure the extent to which the public subsidizes collections of debt through court process without an elaborate cost-accounting study in each jurisdiction. There are no additional collection costs put upon the debtor in the enforcement of wage assignments. Consequently, the comments which follow apply only to garnishment process. For information concerning the costs of garnishment, the notes made by field agents following conversations with officials of reporting establishments have been 36 WAGE EXECUTIONS EOR DEBT relied upon. Since costs vary between the several courts in the same area and since there is a frequent overlapping of jurisdiction, the testimony of officers in charge of pay rolls is considered to be more adequate as a measure of the average costs of garnishment than an estimate based upon official schedules of court fees. There is a considerable variation in the court costs among the cities represented in the sample. The highest fees were for two southern cities, where the cost of an initial garnishment action was $7, and of subsequent regarnishments $2.50 and $1, respectively. In two other cities, one in the South and one in the North, the cost of judgment was $2, the cost of the original garnishment order $3.50, and subsequent regarnisbments $1. In another southern city, a pay-roll clerk reported that the average cost of garnishments was $4 a month. In several jurisdictions, particularly in justice of the peace courts, there was a graduated scale of charges, depending upon amount of the debt. The lowest charge was reported for a west-coast city, where court costs totaled $1.50 for each garnishment action. The expense which wage assignments and garnishments put upon employers is fugitive, but nevertheless real. In the smaller establish ments, executions are usually handled by the pay-roll clerk in the normal course of his duties. Larger establishments, on the other hand, frequently maintain special departments for handling wage executions, which employ clerks and occasionally an attorney. The motive for organizing a special department presumably is to reduce the cost of handling executions, and yet in two of the largest of these departments the cost was estimated at $5 per execution.15 In smaller establishments, where the handling of pay-roll levies interrupts the established routine, the expense may be even greater. The costs of handling wage executions vary with the number of pay-roll deductions which have to be made to satisfy each claim. The number of these deductions depends upon the amount of the debt and the amount of wages subject to levy. Court costs, on the other hand, seldom bear any relation to the size of the creditor’s claim The total cost of pay-roll levies, including court costs paid by the debtor or the public and clerical expense put upon the employer, probably represents a considerable fraction of the amount actually collected, particularly in those areas where the average amount of debt is small. For garnishments involving sums of less than $10, which comprised 27 percent of all garnishments in the sample, the expense of collection certainly approximated the amount collected. 15 O n e o f th ese e s tim a te s w a s m a d e b y t h e e m p lo y e r . I n t h e o t h e r in s t a n c e w e a r r iv e d a t a s im ila r fig u re b y e s t im a t in g t h e salaries o f t h o s e e n g a g e d in h a n d lin g g a r n is h m e n t a c t io n s a n d w a g e a s s ig n m e n t s a n d d iv id in g b y t h e n u m b e r o f e x e c u t io n s h a n d le d . e m p l o y e r s ’ po lic ie s 37 Employers’ Policies Employers have sought in a variety of ways to avoid the expense and annoyance of handling wage executions. In some instances, creditors Dotify employers of defaults by their employees before undertaking formal collection proceedings and the employer instructs the employee to settle his account immediately to the satisfaction of the creditor. In other instances, employees against whom notices of assignment of wages or garnishment orders have been received are sent to settle with the creditor and to secure a release from him. Such practices put the debtor at the mercy of the creditor by com pelling settlement on the latter’s terms. Unscrupulous creditors frequently encourage this practice by employers in order to demand larger payments than could be collected under the exemption pro visions of the law. Twenty-eight employers in the sample had provided funds from which deserving employees might borrow in emergencies. Six em ployers had assisted their employees in establishing credit unions. The effect of these credit-granting devices upon the number of executions cannot be measured with any degree of conclusiveness, due to the impossibility of isolating the variety of other factors which influence the rate of executions. Without exception the individual employers reported that the existence of these credit-granting facilities had been a factor in limiting executions. The frequency of wage executions in certain plants which had loan funds makes it clear, however, that such facilities do not eliminate wage executions for debt. Twenty-eight of the one hundred and seventy-four reporting estab lishments maintained a policy of discharging employees whose wages were attached; 11 discharged for the first execution, 10 for the second execution, and 7 for the third execution. Most of these employers, however, pointed out that exceptions were sometimes made in applying the policy. Although the remaining 146 establishments had no definite policy of discharging employees for wage attachment, 44 establishments indicated that, under certain circumstances, an execution against wages might lead to discharge. Six establishments which invariably discharged for a single execution recorded no executions against their employees during the period studied. There were, however, 46 other establishments in the sample which, despite a more lenient policy, also had no wage executions. In view of the expense incurred by employers as the result of wage executions, it is noteworthy that so few employers in the sample main tained a policy of discharging employees for one, two, or three execu tions. One reasonable explanation is that, in many instances, the 38 WAGE EXECUTIONS FOR DEBT savings which would accrue as the result of a drastic discharge policy would be more than offset by the increased costs of labor turn-over. It is probable that humanitarian considerations also influence these policies. An effort was made to determine whether the severity of garnishment laws, the size of plant, the average weekly wages of employees, etc., had any effect on the discharge policy. Variations in policy appeared to be entirely accidental. With the possible exception of differences arising from variations in cost of labor turn over, the policies of particular establishments seemed to reflect the personality of their executives to a far greater extent than more objective characteristics of the plant. List of Bulletins of the Bureau of Labor Statistics The following is a list of all bulletins of the Bureau of Labor Statistics published since July 1912, except that in the case of bulletins giving the results of periodic surveys of the Bureau only the latest bulletin on any one subject is here listed. A complete list of the reports and bulletins issued prior to July 1912, as well as the bulle tins published since that date, will be furnished on application. Publications which are not available for free distribution, indicated in this list by an asterisk, can in some cases be obtained by purchase from the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C.; all can be consulted at libraries which are Government repositories. Collective agreements. •N o. *N o. N o. • N o. • N o. 191. 198. 341. 402. 468. C o lle c t iv e b a r g a in in g in t h e a n t h r a c it e co a l in d u s t r y . [1916.] C o lle c t iv e a g r e e m e n ts in t h e m e n ’ s c lo t h in g i n d u s t r y . [1916.] T r a d e a g r e e m e n t in t h e s ilk -r ib b o n in d u s t r y o f N e w Y o r k C i t y . C o lle c t iv e b a r g a in in g b y a c to r s . [1926.] T r a d e a g r e e m e n ts , 1927. [1923.] Conciliation and arbitration (including strikes and lock-outs). • N o . 124. C o n c ilia t io n a n d a r b it r a tio n in t h e b u ild in g t r a d e s o f G re a te r N e w Y o r k . [1913.] • N o . 133. R e p o r t o f t h e in d u s t r ia l c o u n c il o f t h e B r it is h B o a r d o f T r a d e o n its in q u i r y in t o in d u s t r ia l a g r e e m e n ts . [1913.] • N o . 139. M ic h ig a n c o p p e r d is t r ic t s tr ik e . [1914.] • N o . 144. I n d u s t r ia l c o u r t o f t h e c lo a k , s u it, a n d sk irt in d u s t r y o f N e w Y o r k C i t y . [1914.] • N o . 145. C o n c ilia t io n , a r b it r a tio n , a n d s a n it a t io n in t h e d ress a n d w a is t in d u s t r y o f N e w Y o r k C i t y . [1914.1 N o . 233. O p e r a t io n o f t h e I n d u s t r ia l D is p u t e s I n v e s t ig a t io n A c t o f C a n a d a . [1918.] • N o . 255. J o in t in d u s t r ia l c o u n c ils in G re a t B r it a in . [1919.] • N o . 283. H is t o r y o f t h e S h ip b u ild in g L a b o r A d ju s t m e n t B o a r d , 1917 to 1919. • N o . 287. N a t io n a l W a r L a b o r B o a r d : H is t o r y o f its fo r m a t io n a n d a c t iv it ie s , e tc . [1921.] • N o. 303. U se o f F e d e ra l p o w e r in s e t t le m e n t o f r a ilw a y la b o r d is p u t e s . [1922.] • N o . 481. J o in t in d u s t r ia l c o n t r o l in t h e b o o k a n d j o b p r in t in g i n d u s t r y . [1928.J Cooperation. • N o. •N o. • N o. N o. N o. 313. 314. 437. 531. 598. C o n s u m e r s ’ c o o p e r a t iv e s o c ie tie s in th e U n it e d S ta tes in 1920. C o o p e r a t iv e c r e d it s o c ie tie s (c r e d it u n io n s ) in A m e r ic a a n d in fo re ig n c o u n tr ie s . [1922.] C o o p e r a t iv e m o v e m e n t in t h e U n it e d S ta tes in 1925 (o th e r th a n a g r ic u lt u r a l). C o n s u m e r s ’ , c r e d it , a n d p r o d u c t i v e c o o p e r a t iv e so cie tie s , 1929. O r g a n iz a tio n a n d m a n a g e m e n t o f c o n s u m e r s ’ c o o p e r a t iv e a s s o c ia tio n s a n d c lu b s ( w it h m o d e l b y l a w s ) . [1934.] • N o . 606. O rg a n iz a tio n a n d m a n a g e m e n t o f c o o p e r a t iv e g a s o lin e a n d o il a s s o c ia tio n s ( w it h m o d e l b y l a w s ). [1934.] • N o . 608. O r g a n iz a tio n a n d m a n a g e m e n t o f c o o p e r a t iv e h o u s in g a s s o c ia tio n s (w it h m o d e l b y l a w s ) . [1934.] N o . 612. C o n s u m e r s ’ , c r e d it , a n d p r o d u c t i v e c o o p e r a t io n in 1933. Employment and unemployment. • N o. 109. S ta t is tic s o f u n e m p l o y m e n t a n d t h e w o r k o f e m p l o y m e n t office s [in th e U n it e d S ta tes]. [1913.] 172. U n e m p lo y m e n t i n N e w Y o r k C i t y , N . Y . [1915.] 183. R e g u la r i t y o f e m p l o y m e n t in t h e w o m e n ’ s r e a d y -t o -w e a r g a r m e n t in d u s t r ie s . [1915.] 195. U n e m p lo y m e n t i n t h e U n it e d S ta te s. [1916.] 196. P r o c e e d in g s o f E m p l o y m e n t M a n a g e r s ’ C o n fe r e n c e , h e ld a t M in n e a p o lis , M in n ., J a n u a r y 19 a n d 20, 1916. • N o. 202. P r o c e e d in g s o f t h e c o n fe r e n c e o f E m p l o y m e n t M a n a g e r s ’ A s s o c ia t io n o f B o s t o n , M a s s ., h e ld M a y 10, 1916. • N o . 206. T h e B r it is h s y s t e m o f la b o r e x c h a n g e s. [1916.] • N o . 227. P r o c e e d in g s o f E m p l o y m e n t M a n a g e r s ’ C o n fe r e n c e , P h ila d e lp h ia , P a ., A p r il 2 a n d 3, 1917. • N o . 235. E m p l o y m e n t s y s t e m o f t h e L a k e C a rr ie r s ’ A s s o c ia t io n . [1918.] • N o . 241. P u b l i c e m p l o y m e n t o ffice s in th e U n it e d S ta tes. [1918.] • N o . 247. P r o c e e d in g s o f E m p l o y m e n t M a n a g e r s ’ C o n fe r e n c e , R o c h e s t e r , N . Y . , M a y 9-11, 1918. • N o 310. I n d u s t r ia l u n e m p l o y m e n t . A s ta tis tic a l s t u d y o f its e x t e n t a n d ca u ses. [1922.] • N o . 409. U n e m p lo y m e n t in C o lu m b u s , O h io , 1921 to 1925. N o . 542. R e p o r t o f t h e A d v i s o r y C o m m it t e e o n E m p l o y m e n t S ta tis tic s . [1931.] • N o . 544. U n e m p lo y m e n t - b e n e f it p la n s in t h e U n it e d S ta tes a n d u n e m p l o y m e n t in s u r a n c e in fo re ig n c o u n t r ie s . [1931.] N o . 553. F lu c t u a t io n in e m p l o y m e n t in O h io , 1914 t o 1929. • N o . 555. S o c ia l a n d e c o n o m ic c h a r a c t e r o f u n e m p lo y m e n t in P h ila d e lp h ia , A p r il 1930. N o . 610. R e v is e d in d e x e s o f f a c t o r y e m p l o y m e n t a n d p a y ro lls , 1919 t o 1933. N o . 611. U n e m p lo y m e n t in s u r a n c e a n d r eserv es in t h e U n it e d S ta te s: A se le cte d lis t o f r e c e n t r e fe r e n ce s. [1935.] N o . 613. A v e r a g e a n n u a l w a g e a n d sa la ry p a y m e n t s in O h io , 1916 t o 1932. • N o. •N o. •N o. •N o. Housing. • N o . 158. G o v e r n m e n t a id t o h o m e o w n in g a n d h o u s in g o f w o r k in g p e o p le in fo re ig n c o u n t r ie s . [1914.] N o . 263. H o u s in g b y e m p lo y e r s in t h e U n it e d S ta tes. [1920.] N o . 295. B u ild in g o p e r a t io n s in r e p r e s e n t a t iv e citie s , 1920. No. 545. B u ild in g p e r m it s in the p r in c ip a l c itie s of t h e U n it e d S ta te s [1921] to 1930. • N o . 608. O r g a n iz a tio n a n d m a n a g e m e n t o f c o o p e r a t iv e h o u s in g a s s o c ia tio n s ( w it h m o d e l b y l a w s ). [1934.] 39 40 WAGE EXECUTIONS EOB DEBT Industrial accidents and hygiene (including occupational diseases and poisons). ♦ N o. 104. L e a d p o is o n in g in p o t t e r ie s , tile w o r k s , a n d p o r c e la in -e n a m e le d s a n it a r y w a re fa c to r ie s . [1912.] N o . 120. H y g ie n e o f t h e p a in t e r s ’ tr a d e . [1913.] ♦ N o. 127. D a n g e r s t o w o r k e r s fr o m d u s ts a n d fu m e s, a n d m e t h o d s o f p r o t e c t io n . [1913.] ♦ N o. 141. L e a d p o is o n in g in t h e s m e lt in g a n d r e fin in g o f le a d . [1914.] ♦ N o. 157. I n d u s t r ia l a c c id e n t s t a tis tic s. [1915.] ♦ N o. 165. L e a d p o is o n in g in t h e m a n u fa c t u r e o f sto r a g e b a tte r ie s . [1914.] * N o . 179. I n d u s t r ia l p o is o n s u s e d in t h e r u b b e r i n d u s t r y . [1915.] ♦ N o. 188. R e p o r t o f B r it is h d e p a r t m e n t a l c o m m it t e e o n th e d a n g e r in th e u s e o f le a d in t h e p a in t in g o f b u ild in g s . [1916.] * N o . 201. R e p o r t o f t h e c o m m it t e e o n s t a tis tic s a n d c o m p e n s a t io n in s u r a n c e c o s ts o f t h e I n t e r n a t io n a l A s s o c ia t io n o f I n d u s t r ia l A c c i d e n t B o a r d s a n d C o m m is s io n s . [1916.] ♦ N o. 209. H y g ie n e o f t h e p r in t in g tr a d e s . [1917.] ♦ N o. 219. I n d u s t r ia l p o is o n s u s e d o r p r o d u c e d in t h e m a n u fa c t u r e o f e x p lo s iv e s . [1917.] ♦ N o. 221. H o u r s , fa tig u e , a n d h e a lt h in B r it is h m u n i t io n fa c to r ie s . [1917.] ♦ N o. 230. I n d u s t r ia l e ffic ie n c y a n d fa tig u e in B r it is h m u n it io n fa cto rie s. [1917.] ♦ N o. 231. M o r t a l i t y f r o m r e s p ir a to r y d isea ses in d u s t y t r a d e s (in o r g a n ic d u s t s ). [1918.] ♦ N o. 234. T h e s a fe t y m o v e m e n t in t h e ir o n a n d steel in d u s t r y , 1907 t o 1917. N o . 236. E ffe c t s o f t h e air h a m m e r o n t h e h a n d s o f s t o n e c u t t e r s . [1918.] ♦ N o. 249. I n d u s t r ia l h e a lt h a n d e ffic ie n c y . F in a l r e p o r t o f B r it is h H e a lt h o f M u n i t io n W o r k e r s ' C o m m it t e e . [1919.] ♦ N o. 251. P r e v e n t a b le d e a t h in t h e c o t t o n -m a n u fa c t u r in g in d u s t r y . [1919.] ♦ N o. 256. A c c i d e n t s a n d a c c id e n t p r e v e n t io n in m a c h in e b u ild in g . [1919.] N o . 267. A n t h r a x as a n o c c u p a t io n a l d isea se. [1920.] N o . 276. S t a n d a r d iz a t io n o f in d u s t r ia l a c c id e n t s t a tis tic s. [1920.] ♦ N o. 280. I n d u s t r ia l p o is o n in g in m a k in g c o a l-t a r d y e s a n d d y e in t e rm e d ia t e s . [1921.] ♦ N o . 291. C a r b o n m o n o x id e p o is o n in g . [1921.] N o . 293. T h e p r o b l e m o f d u s t p h t h is is in t h e g r a n ite s t o n e in d u s t r y . [1922.] N o . 298. C a u se s a n d p r e v e n t io n o f a c c id e n t s m th e ir o n a n d steel i n d u s t r y , 1910-1919. N o . 392. S u r v e y o f h y g ie n ic c o n d it io n s in th e p r in t in g tra d e s. [1925.] N o . 405. P h o s p h o r u s n e c r o s is in t h e m a n u fa c t u r e o f fir e w o rk s a n d in t h e p r e p a r a t io n o f p h o s p h o r u s . [1926.] N o . 427. H e a lt h s u r v e y o f th e p r in t in g tr a d e s , 1922 t o 1925. N o . 428. P r o c e e d in g s o f t h e I n d u s t r ia l A c c i d e n t P r e v e n t io n C o n fe r e n c e , h e ld a t W a s h in g t o n , D . C ., J u l y 14-16, 1926. N o . 460. A n e w t e s t for in d u s t r ia l le a d p o is o n in g . [1928.] N o . 466. S e t t le m e n t for a c c id e n t s t o A m e r ic a n s e a m e n . [1928.] N o . 488. D e a t h s fr o m le a d p o is o n in g , 1925-1927. ♦ N o. 490. S t a tis tic s o f in d u s t r ia l a c c id e n t s in t h e U n it e d S ta te s to th e e n d o f 1927. ♦ N o. 507. C a u se s o f d e a t h , b y o c c u p a t io n . [1930.] ♦ N o . 582. O c c u p a t io n h a z a r d s a n d d ia g n o s t ic s ig n s : A g u id e to im p a ir m e n t s t o b e l o o k e d for in h a z a r d o u s o c c u p a t io n s . ( R e v i s io n o f B u i. N o . 306.) [1933.] ♦ N o . 602. D is c u s s io n s o f in d u s t r ia l a c c id e n t s a n d d isea ses a t t h e 1933 m e e t in g o f t h e I n t e r n a t io n a l A s s o c ia t io n o f I n d u s t r ia l A c c i d e n t B o a r d s a n d C o m m is s io n s , C h ic a g o , 111. Industrial relations and labor conditions. ♦ N o. ♦ N o. ♦ N o. N o. ♦ N o. N o. N o. N o. N o. N o. 237. 340. 849. 361. 380. 383. 384. 399. 483. 534. I n d u s t r ia l u n r e s t in G re a t B r it a in . [1917.] C h in e s e m ig r a tio n s , w it h s p e c ia l r e fe re n ce t o la b o r c o n d it io n s . [1923.] I n d u s t r ia l r e la tio n s in t h e W e s t C o a s t lu m b e r i n d u s t r y . [1923.] L a b o r r e la tio n s in t h e F a ir m o n t ( W . V a .) b it u m in o u s -c o a l fie ld . [1924.] P o s t w a r l a b o r c o n d it io n s in G e r m a n y . [1925.] W o r k s c o u n c il m o v e m e n t in G e r m a n y . [1925.] L a b o r c o n d it io n s in th e s h o e i n d u s t r y in M a s s a c h u s e t t s , 1920-1924. L a b o r r e la tio n s in t h e la c e a n d la c e -c u r t a in in d u s tr ie s in th e U n it e d S ta tes. C o n d it io n s in t h e s h o e in d u s t r y in H a v e r h ill, M a s s ., 1928. L a b o r c o n d it io n s in t h e T e r r it o r y o f H a w a ii, 1929-1930. [1925.] Labor laws o f the United States (including decisions o f courts relating to labor). ♦ N o. ♦N o. ♦ N o. ♦ N o. N o. N o. N o. N o. ♦N o. N o. 211. 229. 285. 321. 322. 343. 370. 408. 581. 583. N o. N o. N o. ♦ N o. 590. 592. 596. 603. ♦ N o. 609. N o . 619. L a b o r la w s a n d th e ir a d m in is tr a t io n in t h e P a c ific S ta tes. [1917.] W a g e - p a y m e n t le g is la t io n in t h e U n it e d S ta tes. [1917.] M in im u m - w a g e la w s o f t h e U n it e d S ta tes: C o n s t r u c t io n a n d o p e r a t io n . [1921.] L a b o r la w s t h a t h a v e b e e n d e c la r e d u n c o n s t it u t io n a l. [1922.] K a n s a s C o u r t o f I n d u s t r ia l R e la t io n s . [1923.] L a w s p r o v i d i n g fo r b u r e a u s o f l a b o r s ta t is t ic s , e t c . [1923.] L a b o r la w s o f t h e U n it e d S ta te s , w it h d e c is io n s o f c o u r t s r e la tin g t h e r e t o . [1925.] L a w s r e la tin g t o p a y m e n t o f w a g e s. [1926.] L a w s r e la tin g t o e m p l o y m e n t a g e n cie s in t h e U n it e d S ta te s, as o f J a n u a r y 1, 1933. P r o c e e d in g s o f t h e N a t io n a l C o n fe r e n c e for L a b o r L e g is la t io n , h e ld a t W a s h in g t o n , D . C ., F e b r u a r y 14 a n d 15, 1934. L a b o r le g is la t io n , 1931 a n d 1932. D e c is io n s o f c o u r t s a n d o p in io n s a ffe c t in g l a b o r , 1931 a n d 1932. L a w s r e la tin g t o p r is o n l a b o r in t h e U n it e d S ta te s , as o f J u l y 1 ,1 9 3 3 . C o m p a r a t iv e d ig e s t o f l a b o r le g is la t io n fo r t h e S ta te s o f A la b a m a , F lo r id a , G e o r g ia , S o u t h C a r o lin a , T e n n e s s e e . [1933.] D is c u s s io n s o f l a b o r la w s a n d th e ir a d m in is tr a t io n a t t h e 1933 c o n v e n t i o n o f t h e A s s o c ia t io n o f G o v e r n m e n t a l O fficia ls in I n d u s t r y o f t h e U n it e d S ta tes a n d C a n a d a , C h ic a g o , 111. D is c u s s io n o f la b o r la w s a n d t h e ir a d m in is tr a t io n a t t h e 1935 c o n v e n t i o n o f t h e I n t e r n a t io n a l A s s o c ia t io n o f G o v e r n m e n t a l L a b o r O fficia ls, A s h e v ille , N . C . Labor laws o f foreign countries. ♦ N o. N o. N o. N o. N o. N o. N o. N o. 142. 494. 610. 529. 549. 554. 559. 569. A d m in is t r a t io n o f la b o r la w s a n d fa c t o r y in s p e c t io n in c e r ta in E u r o p e a n c o u n t r ie s . L a b o r le g is la t io n o f U r u g u a y . [1929.] L a b o r le g is la t io n o f A r g e n tin a . [1930.] W o r k m e n ’ s c o m p e n s a t io n le g is la t io n o f t h e L a t in A m e r ic a n c o u n t r ie s . [1930.] L a b o r le g is la t io n o f V e n e z u e la . [1931.] L a b o r le g is la t io n o f P a r a g u a y . [1931.] L a b o r le g is la t io n o f E c u a d o r . [1931.] L a b o r le g is la t io n o f M e x i c o . [1932.] [1914.] 41 LIST OP BULLETINS Labor organizations. •N o. N o. •N o. N o. 342. 461. 465. 618. I n t e r n a t io n a l S e a m e n 's U n io n o f A m e r ic a : A s t u d y o f its h is t o r y a n d p r o b le m s . L a b o r o r g a n iz a t io n s in C h ile . [1928.1 B e n e fic ia l a c t iv it ie s o f A m e r ic a n t r a a e -u n io n s . [1928.1 H a n d b o o k o f A m e r ic a n t r a d e -u n io n s : 1936 e d it io n . [I n p ress.] [1923.1 Minimum wage. •N o. •N o. •N o. •N o. 167. 176. 285. 467. M in im u m - w a g e le g is la t io n in th e U n it e d S ta te s a n d fo re ig n c o u n t r ie s . [1915.] E f f e c t o f m in im u m -w a g e d e t e r m in a tio n s in O re g o n . [1915.] M in im u m - w a g e la w s o f t h e U n it e d S ta te s: C o n s t r u c t io n a n d o p e r a t io n . [1921.] M in im u m - w a g e le g is la tio n in v a r io u s c o u n t r ie s . [1928.] Old-age care, pensions, and insurance. •N o. •N o. N o. •N o. N o. N o. 386. 465. 477. 489. 505. 561. C o s t o f A m e r ic a n a lm s h o u s e s . [1925.] B e n e fic ia l a c t iv it ie s o f A m e r i c a n t r a d e -u n io n s . [1928.] P u b lic -s e r v ic e r e t ir e m e n t s y s t e m s . U n it e d S ta tes, C a n a d a , a n d E u r o p e . [1929.] C a re o f a g e d p e r s o n s in t h e U n it e d S ta te s. 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S u g a r p r ice s , fr o m r efin er to c o n s u m e r . [1913.] W h e a t a n d flo u r p r ice s , fr o m fa rm er to c o n s u m e r . [1913.] B u t t e r p r ice s , fr o m p r o d u c e r t o c o n s u m e r . [1914.] F o r e ig n f o o d p r ice s as a ffe c t e d b y t h e w a r . [1915.] C o s t o f l iv in g in t h e U n it e d S ta tes. [1924.] T h e u s e o f c o s t -o f-liv in g fig u re s in w a g e a d ju s t m e n t s . [1925.] R e t a il p r ice s , 1890 to 1928. Safety codes. ♦ N o. ♦ N o. ♦ N o. ♦ N o. N o. N o. ♦ N o. N o. N o. N o. N o. N o. N o. No N o. N o. 336. 350. 351. 375. 382. 410. 430. 447. 451. 463. 509. 512. 519. 527. 556. 617. S a fe t y c o d e for th e p r o t e c t io n o f in d u s t r ia l w o r k e r s in fo u n d r ie s . R u le s g o v e r n in g t h e a p p r o v a l o f h e a d lig h t in g d e v ic e s for m o t o r v e h ic le s . S a fe t y c o d e for t h e c o n s t r u c t io n , ca re, a n d u s e o f la d d e r s . S a fe t y c o d e fo r l a u n d r y m a c h in e r y a n d o p e r a t io n s . C o d e o f lig h tin g s c h o o l b u ild in g s . S a fe t y c o d e fo r p a p e r a n d p u l p m ills . S a fe t y c o d e fo r p o w e r p resses a n d fo o t a n d h a n d p resses. S a fe t y c o d e fo r r u b b e r m ills a n d ca le n d e rs. S a fe t y c o d e for fo rg in g a n d h o t -m e t a l s t a m p in g . S a fe t y c o d e for m e c h a n ic a l p o w e r -t r a n s m is s io n a p p a r a tu s — first r e v is io n . T e x t i l e s a fe t y co d e . C o d e fo r id e n t ific a t io n o f g a s-m a sk ca n isters. S a fe ty c o d e for w o o d w o r k in g p la n t s , as r e v is e d 1930. S a fe ty c o d e for t h e u se, ca re, a n d p r o t e c t io n o f a b r a s iv e w h e e ls , as r e v is e d 1930. C o d e o f lig h tin g : F a ct o r ie s , m ills , a n d o t h e r w o r k p la c e s . (R e v i s io n o f 1930.) 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P r o d u c t i v i t y c o s ts in t h e c o m m o n -b r ic k in d u s t r y . [1924.] ♦ N o. 358. W a g e s a n d h o u r s o f la b o r in t h e a u t o m o b ile -t ir e in d u s t r y , 1923. N o . 360. T i m e a n d l a b o r co s ts in m a n u fa c t u r in g 100 p a irs o f sh oes, 1923. N o . 365. W a g e s a n d h o u r s o f l a b o r in th e p a p e r a n d p u l p in d u s t r y , 1923. N o . 407. L a b o r c o s t o f p r o d u c t i o n a n d w a g es a n d h o u r s o f la b o r in th e p a p e r b o x -b o a r d i n d u s t r y . [1926.] ♦ N o. 412. W a g e s , h o u r s , a n d p r o d u c t i v it y in th e p o t t e r y in d u s t r y , 1925. ♦ N o. 416. H o u r s a n d e a rn in g s in a n t h r a c it e a n d b it u m in o u s -c o a l m in in g , 1922 a n d 1924. N o . 484. W a g e s a n d h o u r s o f la b o r o f c o m m o n street la b o re rs , 1928. ♦ N o. 502. W a g e s a n d h o u r s o f la b o r in t h e m o t o r -v e h ic le in d u s t r y , 1928. N o . 514. P e n n s y lv a n ia R a ilr o a d w a g e d a ta . F r o m R e p o r t o f J o in t F a c t F i n d i n g C o m m i t t e e in w a g e n e g o t ia t io n s in 1927. N o . 523. W a g e s a n d h o u r s in t h e m a n u fa c t u r e o f a irp la n e s a n d a ircra ft e n g in e s, 1929. N o . 525. W a g e s a n d h o u r s o f la b o r in t h e c e m e n t in d u s t r y , 1929. N o . 532. W a g e s a n d h o u r s o f la b o r in t h e c ig a r e tt e -m a n u fa c t u r in g in d u s t r y , 1930. N o . 534. L a b o r c o n d it io n s in t h e T e r r i t o r y o f H a w a ii, 1929-30. N o . 539. W a g e s a n d h o u r s o f l a b o r in c o t t o n -g o o d s m a n u fa c t u r in g , 1910 t o 1930. N o . 547. W a g e s a n d h o u r s o f la b o r in t h e ca n e-su g a r re fin in g in d u s t r y , 1930. N o . 567. W a g e s a n d h o u r s o f la b o r in t h e iro n a n d s teel in d u s t r y , 1931. N o . 568. W a g e s a n d h o u r s o f l a b o r in t h e m a n u fa c t u r e o f s ilk a n d r a y o n g o o d s , 1931. N o . 570. W a g e s a n d h o u r s o f l a b o r in fo u n d r ie s a n d m a c h in e s h o p s , 1931. N o . 571. W a g e s a n d h o u r s o f la b o r in t h e fu r n it u r e in d u s t r y , 1910 t o 1931. N o . 573. W a g e s a n d h o u r s o f l a b o r in m e ta llife r o u s m in in g , 1924 t o 1931. N o . 575. W a g e s a n d h o u r s o f l a b o r in a ir t r a n s p o r t a t io n , 1931. N o . 576. W a g e s a n d h o u r s o f la b o r in t h e s la u g h te r in g a n d m e a t -p a c k in g in d u s t r y , 1931. N o . 578. W a g e s a n d h o u r s o f l a b o r in g a s o lin e -fillin g s ta t io n s a n d m o t o r - v e h ic le r e p a ir g arages, 1931. N o . 579. W a g e s a n d h o u r s o f l a b o r in t h e b o o t a n d s h o e in d u s t r y , 1910 t o 1932. N o . 580. 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U n io n sca les o f w a g es a n d h o u r s o f la b o r , M a y 15,1933 . N o . 601. W a g e s a n d h o u r s o f l a b o r in b it u m in o u s -c o a l m in in g , 1933. ♦ N o . 604. H is t o r y o f w a g e s in t h e U n it e d S ta tes fr o m c o lo n ia l t im e s t o 1928. R e v is i o n o f B u lle t in N o , 499, w it h s u p p le m e n t , 1929-33. Portland N o. 613. Average annual wage and salary payments in Ohio, 1916 to 1932. 43 LIST OF BULLETINS Welfare work. ♦ N o. ♦ N o. ♦ N o. N o. N o. 123. 222. 250. 458. 565. E m p l o y e r s ’ w e lfa r e w o r k . [1913.] W e lfa r e w o r k in B r it is h m u n i t io n fa c to r ie s . [1917.] W e lfa r e w o r k fo r e m p lo y e e s in in d u s t r ia l e s t a b lis h m e n t s in t h e U n it e d S ta tes. H e a lt h a n d r e c r e a tio n a c t iv it ie s in in d u s t r ia l e s t a b lis h m e n t s , 1926. P a r k r e c r e a tio n a reas in t h e U n it e d S ta te s , 1930. [1919.] Wholesale prices. ♦ N o . 284. 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