Teen-Age Taxpayers

From Emporia, Kans., made famous by the late William Allen White as the archetypical U.S. small town, came a surprising fact: though the town has had no particular war boom, last year no less than 10% of the Senior High School's 640 pupils earned enough (i.e., $500) to make them file federal income-tax returns (64 reported paying taxes.)

Polled on "How Are You Helping to Solve the Manpower Shortage?" the high-schoolers showed that, after school, they were doing the work of 120 men & women on a regular 40-hour week. Some worked as little as one hour a week, but 25 students worked 40 to 56 hours. Not counting those who merely did chores around house and farm, 39% of the high-schoolers earned wages.

The Emporia boy & girl wage earners (median age: 16) worked at 62 different jobs, mostly the usual peacetime ones of selling, waiting on table, house and farm work, soda-jerking, tending filling stations.

P: A Future Farmer of America, Ernest Farr, of Route 4, Emporia. had the top 1944 income. His farm record book showed an income of $2,617.20 (of which he saved $2,167.94).

P: One 16-year-old boy, a machinist's helper at the Santa Fe Railroad roundhouse, earned the top salary: $45 a week.

P: A 16-year-old girl, who got A and B grades in school, earned $12 for a 53 1/2-hr. week as a fry cook in a small cafe.

According to Associate Principal Hugh Brogan, who made the survey, results were not all money in the pocket: they included sleepiness in class, sluggishness in football and dramatics, a general burning of the candle at both ends. But these high-school taxpayers were more independent and assertive than prewar classes, needed less discipline. Some of them, already dollarwise, flatly declined to report their incomes on their questionnaires. Wrote one: "None of your nose!"

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