The Rising Cost of Living Hits Washington Workers
As inflation outpaces wage growth, labor organizers argue that true relief for the worker can only be found in shorter hours and better conditions.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The year 1911 promises to be prolific of industrial disputes. Thousands of coal miners in the Crow's Nest district of Canada are out, 2,500 coal miners are out in our own state, and now the machinists the country over, 100,000 strong, threaten a strike on May first for the eight-hour day. An increased cost of living out of all proportion to increased wages is responsible for the general feeling of unrest among the working classes. Four dollars a day instead of three isn't very satisfactory if the four dollars has less purchasing power than the three had. And that is what has happened. In these days of Morgan and Guggenheim an increase of wages has a boomerang effect upon the workers. The trusts simply gather back that extra dollar plus interest for the trouble they've been put to, so the worker is worse off than he was before. Decrease in the hours of work and better working conditions seem to be the only real methods of relief within the grasp of the workers under present conditions.
“Four dollars a day instead of three isn't very satisfactory if the four dollars has less purchasing power than the three had.”
The economic analysis presented here—that wage gains are often neutralized by corporate-led inflation—remains a core point of contention in labor and housing affordability arguments over 100 years later.
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