Loose talk about the refusal of persons on relief to take jobs in private industry is growing rather than diminishing in volume. "They'd rather live on relief" has become a theme song among reactionaries, who find in it an argument perfectly suited to their purposes. A correspondent in California writes to tell us of an anonymous feature story which appeared in the Los Angeles Times of August 4 entitled I Found Independence on the Dole. It purports to be a true story written by a woman who with her husband has been living on relief for several years. The author of the article boasts of numerous pleasure trips and other luxuries. "You see, during the past three or four years I've averaged $12 a week on my sewing and that's all for extras. I do not keep the cash in the house but send it by post-office money order to a friend back East who banks it for us." Once in a while, she says, she feels rather sorry for the woman who holds the mortgage on their property. "I try to be fair with her though. Last winter when she was ill and without funds I gave her $5." The Times calls the article to the attention of the "small home-owner who is struggling to keep off the charity rolls," a category which probably includes a majority of the Times readers. "The Times," concludes our correspondent, "unlike the Hearst papers, is well edited and usually ably written. It dominates the breakfast tables in Southern California. Is it any wonder that the lunatic fringe in Los Angeles is probably a little wider than anywhere else in the United States?"
The viciousness of such propaganda is apparent. This particular story bears all the earmarks of having been manufactured. Yet the person of small means is in no mood to disbelieve it. It provides him with a scapegoat--the unemployed--on whom to blame his increasing misery. And it is easier to attack the poor devil clinging to the next lower rung of the ladder than to understand and combat the forces which are pushing both of them slowly downward.
Two weeks ago we adduced evidence to show the falseness of the charge that "they would rather live on relief." Since then Harry L. Hopkins, Federal Emergency Relief Administrator, has made public a study of alleged job refusals among relief clients in Washington which shows that out of 220 cases studied only 4 were found that could with justice be attributed to unwillingness to work. We have also received a copy of a bulletin issued in June by the FERA which contains the results of a similar investigation in Baltimore, Maryland, of 195 cases of alleged refusals. Here, too, the number of actual refusals was 4, while in a study made in Memphis, Tennessee, in 39 cases only one genuine refusal was found. Since the newspaper publicity given to these government findings has been conspicuous for its absence, we print below in much-abbreviated form the results of the investigation in Baltimore. They are more or less duplicated in the other two studies.
- The many broad generalizations about "job refusals" have been based upon a few sporadic incidents and much loose talk.
- Of the 195 cases against which the accusation of "job refusal" was leveled in March and April, only 4 were clear cases of unjustified refusal.
- Of the total cases, 31 involved domestic servants among whom "unemployability" by reason of family composition was found to be acute. This group was also peculiarly subject to wage scales below the minimum-subsistence levels established by the relief administration.
- Of the 164 cases involving other occupations, 65 were found to be persons who had never been on the relief rolls; 65 were either at work or were permanently or temporarily unemployable; 15 did not receive the call or did not get the job; 10 refused for extenuatory reasons; and in 5 cases the records were confused but pointed toward the guiltlessness of the client.
- On the whole, the notion that "forcible measures should be introduced into the relief program to get able-bodied persons to work" is a gross extravagance.
What were the "extenuatory reasons" in the ten cases cited in Finding number 4?
A mother with four small children failed to accept a job because there was a contagious disease in the employer's home. Two persons failed to accept temporary jobs because of serious illness in their own homes. A daughter, thirty years of age, could not leave her seventy-five-year-old blind mother in order to accept work. One mother refused to accept a job and leave her two children nine and ten years of age. (In this case, further relief was withheld because she had a sister, not on relief, who might have been able to care for the children.) One worker said he had asked for and was refused transportation for an out-of-town job. (His case was "closed" and further relief denied while the case was investigated.) Having had all his tools stolen, a carpenter was obliged to remain on a work-relief job, although he had been offered private employment. Another worker failed to leave a work-relief job and accept private employment because he did not understand that his work-relief job was "relief." (Relief was cut off in this case.) In one case a job was refused because a strike was on in the plant. One worker, whose trade wage was $1.10 per hour, refused to work for 65 cents an hour at the trade. (His relief has been cut off while the case is investigated.
The bulletin devotes a special section to the situation of the 31 domestic servants included in the survey. Their reasons for refusing jobs were:
|
Unable to provide transportation for out-of-town jobs |
2 |
| Failed to secure jobs for which they reported |
2 |
| Unable to leave home for out-of-town job |
1 |
| Needed at home to care for sickness |
3 |
| Unable to accept "live-in" jobs on account of family
Responsibility |
5 |
| Unable to leave small children (three were unmarried
mothers) |
8 |
| Accepted job, leaving after first day because not as
Represented |
1 |
| Had part-time job paying more than the job offered |
1 |
| Refused jobs primarily because of low wages |
8 |
It will be noted that 8 of the 31 refused jobs primarily because of low wages. Since this is the unforgivable sin for those who earn their living by exposing the unemployed let us examine some of these cases. A two-day odd job at $1.20 a day was refused because it was overloaded with washing. (The usual wage for such work is $1.50 to $2 a day.) A widow with a ten-year-old daughter refused a job the net wage of which would have been $2.60 a week; a seventeen-year-old girl who recently had an operation for appendicitis, who has a serious hernia, and who is an incipient tubercular, refused a job requiring that she do the housework, the washing and ironing, and care for two children at $5 a week; the mother of three small children refused a part-time night job (estimated to require thirty-five hours) paying $2.50 a week; an unmarried mother refused a full-time job netting $4.60 a week because it would be insufficient to support her and her four-year-old son; a widow, the mother of three small children, refused a job paying $5.60 a week, on the ground that this wage would not permit her to provide for care for her children during working hours; a recently deserted mother of four small children would not accept a temporary job at $1 a day.
We cannot better the conclusion of the government bulletin itself: "Until reasonable and just standards are established and maintained, merely to affirm that 'some of them find more security in relief than in work' is to beg the main question."
