Note:
Gunnar Myrdal died in 1987, less than 70 years ago.
Therefore, this work is protected by copyright,
restricting your legal rights to reproduce it.
However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now.
Read more about copyright.
Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - Appendices - 6. Pre-War Conditions of the Negro Wage Earner in Selected Industries and Occupations - 2. Domestic Service
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
Appendix 6. Conditions of Negro Wage Earner 1085
servants hired them for only a few hours a day, or a few days a week, but In the South
more than two-thirds of these families had full-time domestics.*
These findings are highly significant. They confirm the impression that there is a limit
to further increases in the employment of Negro domestics. In the South, where such
a large part of the demand comes from families in the middle, or even lower, income
groups, the situation must be characterized as unstable. Any decline in family income or
any improvement in working conditions that add to the expense of having a servant
may actually bring about a curtailment of the job opportunities for servants. And it is
particularly in the South that the working conditions for domestics need to be improved.
According to the previously quoted village and small city samples from the Consumer
Purchases Study, cas^^ wages for domestics showed a marked tendency to be low when
the income of the family they worked for was low.’*
By and large, domestic work is a low wage industry. The estimates of the state employ-
ment offices, for instance (Table 3), indicate that wages as low as $3-5 per week occur
even in the North. Some of the largest Northern cities, however, have “typical’’ wage
rates of $15-20, but these figures do not indicate a uniform level. Even in New York
TABLE 3
Range Between Local Wage Rates for Domestic Work, in Selected States, According
TO Estimates by State Employment Offices: January, 1939
State
Cooks General Maids
Resident Board Only Resident Board Only
New York $5.00-21.00 $5.00-20.00 $4.00-12.00 $4.00-15.00
Illinois 4.00-15.00 4.00-1 5.00 4.00-12.00 4.00-13.00
Minnesota 5,00-10.00 m 3.00- 6.00 3.00- 5.50
North Carolina 3.00- 7.00 3.00- 6.50 3.00- 5.00 3.00- 8.00
Georgia 1.75- 5.00 2.50- 5.00 2.75- 5.00 2.75- 6.00
Alabama 2,00- 7.00 3.00- 5.00 2.50- 6.00 2.50- 5.00
Source: Gladys L. Palmer. **
A MemorandumReport on Negroes in Domestic Service." unpublished manu -
script prepared for this study. (1940). pp. 249-251. Based on reports to U.S. Employment Service. The
State Employment Offices had indicated the wage rate most typical in about 6 to Z2 different places in each
state which were considered as representative of the various labor market situations existing within the State
* Complete data not available.
wages are often low. It is a well-known fact that the wages at the “slave-markets’^
for Negro domestics in the Bronx and other places® are frequently far below what is
considered to be typical for the better organized part of the domestic service market in
New York. In the South, however, wages are low much more generally, and there are
even localities where the usual wage Is scarcely $2 per week.
There are few data on wages for Negro and white domestics separately. Nevertheless,
since Negroes are largely concentrated in the South, there is no question but that on the
average they receive lower wages than whites. They do have some representation, how-
^ Idem,
^ Idem,
*CarI Offiord, “Slave Markets in the Bronx,” The Nation (June 29, 1940)1 PP* 7*0-781.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
