The Milwaukee Leader

UNEMPLOYMENT DOLE EXCEEDS QUARTER BILLION

MINNEAPOLIS—That America's unemployment dole through organized charity relief alone was more than a quarter of a billion dollars in 1930 and that it is mounting much higher in 1931 as millions of jobless men with family savings depleted face a third winter of unemployment, was the announcement of John B. Andrews of New York city in opening the joint session here today of the National Conference of Social Work and the American Association for Labor Legislation.

Characterizing the large sums doled out in charity as "grossly inadequate to meet the needs of the army of idle workers whose wage loss has recently run as high as $150,000,000 a week," Dr. Andrews declared that thinking people now realize that the problem of unemployment relief cannot be met without a comprehensive system of unemployment insurance."

Need Legislative Act.

Some employers and some labor unions, he said, have courageously set up their own unemployment reserve funds, but general adoption of the plan with reasonable promptness, he concluded, requires legislation.

"Reports compiled by the Russell Sage Foundation for the first quarter of 1931 show that out-door relief in leading cities of the United States was more than 100 per cent higher than for the similar period one year earlier," said Dr. Andrews.

"Moreover, the Federal Children's bureau has ascertained that expenditures by public and private relief agencies in 100 American cities were 89 per cent greater in 1930 than in 1929, an increase presumably due to unemployment. The relief outlay of 1931 will from all indications show a startling increase.

"According to the John Price Jones corporation $278,710,000 was spent in organized charitable relief in 1929. The painstaking studies of these organizations lead to the conclusion that, conservatively estimated, the American unemployment dole of 1930 amounted to at least a quarter of a billion dollars."

Cites Wage Losses.

"This quarter of a billion dollar unemployment dole," continued Dr. Andrews, has been only the merest pittance to offset the disastrous wage loss. According to the Standard Statistics Co., wage payments in 1930 decreased by nearly 10 billion dollars. A similar conclusion has been reached by the American Federation of Labor. Charity doles to the unemployed in 1930 therefore amounted to only about 2½ per cent of the wage loss."

"The American dole system is not only inadequate; it is demoralizing." the speaker concluded. It degrades the workers who, with savings exhausted after months of forced idleness, must appeal for charity; it is also depressing to public and business morale, and offers no incentive to industry to stabilize employment. Such a condition must no longer be tolerated in America. Business has learned to set aside reserves out of which dividends may be paid to stockholders when capital is idle.

Ask Wage Reserves.

"Public welfare now demands that similar reserves be set aside to pay a proportion of wages to involuntarily unemployed labor. Such unemployment reserve funds must be made universal throughout all industry by legislation, in order to equalize competitive conditions, to create the widest possible stimulus for unemployment prevention, and to provide substantial funds of purchasing power for workers during periods of unemployment."