How Many?

How Many?

Most people agree that the No. 1 U. S. domestic problem is unemployment. But nobody knows how many U. S. citizens are out of work. Expert guesstimates range from under nine million to twelve.

The Federal Government publishes almost no figures on unemployment.* There are three standard sources for unemployment statistics: 1) A. F. of L., 2) C. I. O., 3) the employers' National Industrial Conference Board. These three authorities agree on one point: unemployment in the U. S. is dangerously high. For last December, for instance, they found unemployment as follows:

A. F. of L. 9,379,000 C. I. O. 10,469,000 N. I. C. B. 8,407,000

Last week a statistical novice, buxom Columnist Dorothy Thompson, told her 7,500,000 readers that the experts were screwloose. Speaking through her mythical breakfast companion The Grouse (grouch), who quarrels with her for being stupid and writes on the tablecloth,*Miss Thompson proved to her own satisfaction that not nine nor ten nor twelve million, but only two million were unemployed.

Quoting N. I. C. B. figures for December 1929, she found that in that month 46,344,000--38% of the population--had jobs. In December 1939, 48,609,983 were working. Increase by Miss Thompson's subtraction: 1,865,983. Increase by old-fashioned subtraction: 2,265,983. In those ten years the population had upped 10,000,000. Of this increase, 38% would normally be expected to have reached working age. Net loss in employment, therefore, was 1,934,017.

Miss Thompson's startling discovery was hailed next day by Washington Pundit Arthur Krock. Writing from his New York Times office, on the seventh floor of Washington's ivory-colored Albee Building, Mr. Krock hinted further that the Government dared not admit the wonderful truth lest it get no more money for relief funds. Likewise, the Republicans ignored the truth for fear of conceding that Roosevelt had actually produced recovery.

"Only from 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 private jobs need be supplied to find work for everyone employable," said Mr. Krock, quoting from "private economists" (a report by Du Pont Statistician Edmond Earl Lincoln which had been around Washington since late January). Mr. Krock's economists even showed that 3,724,000 more persons were employed in December 1939 than ten years earlier.

New Dealers' first impulse was to laugh. Nimble-brained, birdlike Isador Lubin, chief numbers man of the New Deal as Commissioner of Labor Statistics, declined to dignify the Thompson-Krock "discovery" with a reply. But by the time the columnists had each propounded a second column in defense of their discovery, their detractors gulped.

Well they knew that the Thompson-Krock figures were right up the alley of economy-minded Congressman Clifton Woodrum, who starts hearings this week on the Relief Bill, now budgeted down to $1,000,000,000--a third less than last year. Twenty worried masterminds hurriedly gathered to deplore, plan, act. Cried Assistant WPAdministrator Corrington Gill: "I am not worried that the unemployed themselves will be misled by Miss Thompson's attempt to conjure away . . . unemployment. ... I am concerned about the confusion that may be created in the minds of the employed." Quicker than Isador Lubin could subtract three from four, the New Dealers counterblasted:

> Skeptics can call the U. S. Employment Service, learn that it has about 6,000,000 job-seekers registered. Total unemployment must be much higher because: 1) skilled workers rarely register, 2) USES has offices in few rural areas.

> Statisticians of all tinges agree that, of the decade's 10,000,000 population increase, at least 6,000,000 (instead of 3,800,000) are employables. Reasons: fewer babies in the '30s, more babies of the fertile '20s maturing into age of employability; geometrically increasing percentage of women over 16 looking for jobs (25% to 31% from 1930-37).

> December 1929 wasn't all Dorothy Thompson cracked it up to be. In that dawn-of-the-Depression month conservative N. I. C. B. estimated 1,919,000 unemployed, as against 429,000 average for 1929 as a whole.

> The Arthur Krock-Edmond Lincoln figures overestimated December 1929 agricultural employment by 2,000,000.*

> The columnists figured WPAsters as employed. Otherwise their figure for unemployment would be over 5,000,000.

> All things considered, from 9,000,000 to 12,000,000 employable Americans had no jobs last December./-

As in any fracas, non-combatants had the most fun. Miss Thompson's readers, recalling many a column industriously blackening New Deal relief spending as waste and boondoggling, now chortled at her sturdy defense of WPA as necessary work, necessarily financed by the Government.

Krock connoisseurs had even more laughs. Recently Pundit Krock has raised a hullabaloo about census questions, as an outright invasion of individual rights. Now perforce he had to eat his indigestible words, since the U. S. Census is the only way yet devised to count the unemployed.

Many a citizen, happily contemplating the spectacle of the experts refuting themselves, got their loudest laugh from another bystander, bluff General Hugh S. Johnson, who grunted: "I wouldn't go to sleep with my thumb in any mouth on either side."

* The Government does compile a monthly report on employment. Unemployment would equal employables (an unknown figure) minus employed.

* Actually Miss Thompson breakfasts in bed.

* Speaking to farmers at Des Moines last month, FSCC Head Milo Perkins said: "The man getting public assistance has to live on about 5-c- a meal. . . . When it's possible for him to get off relief and get a job at good wages he spends about 12-c- a meal. Every time an unemployed man gets a job, therefore, every farmer in America ought to yell hallelujah!"

/-By January the figures had risen 10.6% (N. I. C. B.) to 14% (C. I. O.).

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