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aid yj
cE Bs Wages last year
enables ome as in 1961,
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oo salaries, eg
tha
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Joe's Recent had earn-
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er
a 16 Percent earned
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ae Ever, earned

B0in: :
eamied ether ‘way, 74
EN Workees 8M $5,000.
ar fared much
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having ;

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re earnings :

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bthe.

fear Poe viewpoint,
r Profitable busi-

Ple, experts say

ie = dollars —From Le Travail

work, except for a brief period
which only netted a small
amount of earnings. Do working
wives and single persons living
at home bring the income of
many families up to and beyond
Joe’s?

They obviously help some,
but this picture is still left:

In terms of total family earn-
ings, only 14 percent of all
wage-earning families are in
Joe’s $5,000-$6,000 category, and
56 percent earned -less than
$5,000.

An estimate by the Dominion
Bureau of Statistics has shown
that in 196] the average annual
expenditure of a two-child fami-
ly was $5,690 in order to provide
an average standard of living.
No wonder Joe had it toughs
since he has four kids.

If the DBS figure is taken as
a guide, a safe estimate would
be that half those in Joe’s in-
come range—some eight percent
—are below the DBS estimate.

Joe’s car, house, TV, fridge
and so on are the signs of the
affluent society. They are not un-
typical signs.

But Joe’s story shows they are
hard-won. To get them, and to
hold his own, he has to “run
like hell to keep from slipping
back.” 2

How much harder must those
who earn less than Joe have to
run?

that even under ideal condi-
tions, interest charges on a 20-
year mortgage will add up to at
least 75 percent of the original
mortgage.

The big department store sug-
gests that the only reason it of-
fers you a credit card is for con-
venience and goodwill. But Wil-
liam Whyte Jr., writing in For-
tune, insists U.S. stores are
-making more profit on finance
charges than they are on goods
themselves.

Ina series of articles on credit
called “The Borrowers,” Globe
and Mail reporter Betty Lee es-
timates'that at a “conservative”
rate of 10 percent Canadians are
paying at least $500 million in-
terest annually on what they
owe.

Interest on consumer credit is
an increase in the price of goods
and servies. It is like a sales tax,
but goes to private profit.

The credit time bomb is the
threat it poses against future
purchasing power. Our ability to
buy goods is called purchasing
power. It greatly influences the
health of the economy.

Faces of the poor
bear scars of

HE FACE of the poor can
be seen in many ways.
One in four Canadians 15
years or older had a total an-
nual income of less than $1,000
in 1961, according to a report
by the Dominion Bureau of Sta-
tistics.

The average income in Canada
was $3,131, but only three pro-
vinces — Ontario, Alberta and
British Columbia—had average
incomes above the national one.
Ontario was highest with
$3,331.

Total non-farm family incomes
below $3,000—23 percent of all
such families—also showed vari-
ations by province.

In. proportion to provincial
population, Newfoundland “led”
the way with 50 percent of its
families in the $3,000-or-less
category. Families in the other
Maritime provinces were also
well “ahead” of the rest of the
country in the $3,000 and less
bracket—45 percent in PEI, 38
perecnt in N.B., and 37 percent
in N.S.

Non-farm families in other
provinces in the $3,000-or-less
bracket ranged from 32 per-
cent of the total in Saskatche-
wan to the middle and low 20’s
for the others.

Ontario’s proportion of non-
farm families in the $3,000 and
less bracket was 18 percent.

At the same time, however,
of all wage-earner families in
Canada, Ontario has about 30
perecnt .of the total in this
bracket in all of Canada.

What type of Canadians are

in these low-income brackets? .—~

- There were some 58,000 fami-

One of the contradictions of
private enterprise is that pro-
duction has the habit of over-
reaching the working people’s
ability to buy back the goods
they produce. The private enter-
priser trims wages if he can, or
at least keeps them to a mini-
mum, so that he can get a big-
ger profit. This obviously re-
duces purchasing power.

When _ production overtakes
demand, inventories of unsold
goods build up. The factory has
to lay off workers. This lowers
purchasing power again. The re-
sult can be depression.

Of course this picture is too
simple, but in essence it is true.
In today’s world it is compli-
cated by the economic influence
of socialist countries, by wel-
fare benefits unknown in the
Thirties, by public works pro-
jects and a host of other factors,

including consumer credit.

In the past five or 10 years
the huge expansion of consumer
credit—which has gone up 225
percent since 1951—has created
an artificial purchasing power
that encourages private enter-

lies whose head has no school-
ing and whose total family earn-
ings are an average of $2,843
a year. Another 350,000 families
had heads with less than five
years’ schooling, whose average
family income is $3,397.

Low-paying occoupations in-
cluded the service industries
($2,132 a year for males) ; labor-
ers in construction and manufac-
turing ($2,157); loggers ($2,-
016); fishermen, trappers and
hunters ($1,531); and farmers
and farm workers ($1,401).

For women workers in all
occupations wages were in the
main about 40-50 percent lower
than for men.

Significantly, in terms of who
the poor are, of all wage-earner
households whose heads earned
less than $1,000, 25 percent had
female heads. Female heads ac-
counted for 23 percent of house-
holds whose heads earned from
$1,000-$2,000, 19 percent in the
$2,000-$3,000 category, and 13

prise to keep on expanding pro-
duction.

Some of the nation’s business-
men, especially those in the
credit field, seem to think we
have discovered a fountain of
youth that can keep our econ-
omy expanding for all time.

Research reporter Betty Lee
writes: “Without the complex,
often controversial, machinery
of credit, our economic system
would crumble, and no one
would keep up with the Joneses.”

Others are not so sure. Dr.
Jacques Singer, a Toronto con-
sulting economist, believes the
consumer debt level can safely
go up considerably higher, pro-
vided the upward trend of in-
come also continues among
people who use consumer credit.

Last year wages in Ontario
rose about six percent, although
they were partly offset by a two
percent increase in the cost of
living. They probably rose com-
parably in the rest of Canada.
But what if wages level off?

It seems clear that many peo-
ple would be forced to postpone

want

percent in -the $3,000-$4,000
category. j

The percentage of -household
female heads dropped to minute

‘fractions in all other households

where the heads earned $4,000
or more.

The aged are also among the
poor. Many are forced to get
along on only their old-age pen-
sion of $75 a month, or $900
a year.

Another look at the poor was
given by Dr. Albert Rose, of the
University of Toronto’s School
of Social Work. He estimat-
ed that there are 1 million per-
sons in Canada on welfare.

And, of course, the poor are
the unemployed, especially those
suffering from chronic unem-
ployment.

The poor have many faces.
But all of them are scarred by a
less than minimal existence in
a society called affluent.

eC:

credit purchases. Besides. that,
payments on past credit pur-
chases would bring down buy-
ing power. This would happen
immediately for the more than
one-third of credit users who
have no savings at all or savings

less than the amount they are
owing.

All this suggests that even a
moderate pause in the wage rise
could cause a recession to ripen
very quickly.

A danger sign of ill health de-
veloping in the economy could
be the rate of foreclosures on
goods bought on time. Some
people are already worried that
this rate is too high.

Harry Shannon, Ontario sec-
retary of the RCAF Benevolent
Fund, told a provincial select
committee recently that 30 per-
cent of Canadians: are in debt
trouble today compared to 15
percent two years ago.

But even misery is good busi-
ness for some. In Toronto in the
past few years the number of
private bailiffs, the leeches suck-
ing blood out of poverty, has
doubled!

March 20, 1964—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 7

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