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Diminishing Family Income In Harlem [ 1 ]
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A social scientist from the Milbank Fund peers beneath the surface of the recent turbulence in Harlem. --The Editor |
In 1933 the Milbank Memorial Fund conducted a house-to-house survey of 2061 Negro households in the area of lies between 126th and 135th Streets and between Lenox and Eighth Avenues. The chief purpose of the study was to secure birth rates and sickness rates among Negroes of different occupational and income levels. This section, known as Health Area 12, was chosen because available census tract data pertaining to rentals, infant mortality, general mortality, and tuberculosis mortality indicated it _ to be neither the best nor the worst economically or socially. It appeared to be a "middling" Harlem section.
The immediate occasion for undertaking the survey in 1933 was the opportunity to secure Negro "white-collar" investigators from the Emergency Work and Relief Bureau. With the help of white enumerators from the Bureau, a similar investigation was carried out at the same time in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. Contemporaneous with the above two studies were essentially similar investigations conducted in nine other cities by the United States Public Health Service with the assistance of the Milbank Memorial Fund. The additional studies are mentioned as indications that the Harlem study was not ill-prepared or hatched up only for the purpose of giving employment to white-collar workers. Several weeks of careful planning intervened between the offer of help from the Emergency Work and Relief Bureau and the gradual launching of the field work. Each enumerator was required to study the set of instructions and to demonstrate a thorough knowledge of the schedule before he was sent to the field.
At this time a description of data collected will be confined to those aspects with which this report deals. In addition to basic fertility and morbidity data, the schedules provided for detailed enumeration of the husband's usual occupation and for entries of income of any members of the household during the four years 1929-1932. The income data were solicited in a detailed manner. The informants were asked to state for each of the four years under consideration the type of employment, regularity of work and income received for any member of the household who was gainfully employed during any part of that time. In addition, the schedule provided for entries concerning income from renters, boarders or lodgers, relief, aid received from relatives, insurance benefits, compensation, etc.
On the basis of the husband's [ 2 ] reported usual occupation, the Harlem families surveyed were classified into professional, proprietary, clerical, skilled worker, and unskilled laborer classes.[ 3 ] As expected, the laboring classes predominated in the sample. The skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled classes combined comprised 84 per cent of the families and nearly 45 per cent fell in the unskilled class alone. Only 4 2,061 cent were professional, the same proportion were proprietary, and approximately 8 per cent were clerical and kindred workers. For the purpose of the survey of it was not essential to secure a cross-section of Harlem in regard to social class distribution. However, the above proportions are probably fairly indicative of the total Harlem situation in this respect.
In Table I and in the accompanying chart the percentages of families of designated income groups are given for all families and for each occupational class. In 1929 less than a quarter of all families earned less than $1,200 In 1932 approximately 60 per cent earned less than this amount. Families receiving less than $600 numbered about 4 per cent in 1929 and 24 per cent in 1932 During this time the median family income fell from $1,808 to $1,019 [ 4 ] a decline of about 44 per cent. (See Table 2.)
Even in 1929 the median family income of the unskilled laborers was approximately only $1,600. In 1932 the median for families of this class fell to $907. This means that 50 per cent of these families had incomes of less than $75 per month. In fact, slightly more than one quarter of them had incomes of less than $50 per month. At this point, it should be mentioned that in cases in which "doubling up" occurred, the total income for all in the household was used in the computation. Usually those who "moved in" came without a job, so the per capita income would probably indicate an even bleaker picture.
The skilled workers suffered a somewhat greater proportionate decrease in family income than any other class. The median changed from $1,955 in 1929 to $1,003 in 1932 a decline of almost 50 per cent. The white skilled workers in the Brooklyn area studied also underwent a somewhat greater proportionate drop in income than any other social class represented in the survey of that area. This situation is doubtless due to the special inactivity of building trades and other industries requiring skilled workers.
Among the relatively small white-collar groups the income decreases were 35 per cent in the professional class, 44 per cent in the proprietary class and 37 per cent among clerical and kindred workers. In this group the highest 1929 median family income was $2,250 among the proprietors. In 1932 the professional class showed the highest median income and this amounted to only $1,440 or $120 per month.
| Income | Total | Professional | Proprietary | Clerical | Skilled | Semi-skilled | Unskilled | Other & Unknown |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 99.9 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 | |
| Under $600 | 4.4 | 1.6 | 0.0 | 2.6 | 2.3 | 4.3 | 6.1 | |
| 600-1199 | 18.9 | 9.5 | 14.3 | 8.6 | 17.5 | 14.2 | 23.8 | |
| 1200-1999 | 34.1 | 30.2 | 25.0 | 29.3 | 31.8 | 33.8 | 37.8 | |
| 2000-2999 | 27.7 | 33.3 | 37.5 | 36.2 | 30.9 | 31.0 | 22.6 | |
| 3000 & over | 14.8 | 25.4 | 23.2 | 23.3 | 17.5 | 16.7 | 9.7 | |
| Total No. of Families reporting incomes * | l579 | 63 | 56 | 116 | 343 | 281 | 677 | 43 |
1932 | ||||||||
| Total | 100.1 | 100.0 | 100.1 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 99.9 | 100.1 | |
| Under $600 | 24.4 | 14.3 | 17.2 | 15.2 | 25.5 | 20.8 | 28.2 | |
| 600-1199 | 35.1 | 27.1 | 31.3 | 26.9 | 32.8 | 35.0 | 37.9 | |
| 1200-1999 | 26.1 | 20.0 | 21.9 | 32.4 | 27.3 | 31.2 | 23.9 | |
| 2000-2999 | 11.1 | 24.3 | 17.2 | 17.9 | 12.3 | 10.4 | 8.0 | |
| 3000 & over | 3.4 | 14.3 | 12.5 | 7.6 | 2.1 | 2.5 | 2.1 | |
| Total No. of Families reporting incomes * | 1845 | 70 | 64 | 145 | 381 | 317 | 817 | 51 |
| Total | Professional | Proprietary | Clerical | Skilled | Semi-skilled | Unskilled | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Median Income 1929 | $1808 | $2229 | $2250 | $2167 | $1955 | $1941 | $1599 |
| Median Income 1932 | 1019 | 1440 | 1250 | 1364 | 1003 | 1100 | 907 |
| Per Cent Decline | 43.6 | 35.4 | 44.4 | 37.1 | 48.7 | 43.3 | 43.3 |
Further significance of the declines in family income in Harlem may be seen by comparison with changes in the cost of living during the same period. It is impossible to secure a cost of living index for Harlem, but the figures for the total New York wage-earners and low-salaried families, published by the United States Bureau of Labor, should suffice for suggestive trends. Although the family incomes for the total group studied in Harlem declined approximately 44 per cent from 1929 to 7932, the New York cost of living index declined only 17 per cent from June, 1929 to June, 1932 Further, more recent cost of living indices issued by the Bureau of Labor have indicated an increase of about a per cent from the "low" of June, 1933 to November, 1934. [ 5 ] It is extremely doubtful that there was a corresponding increase in income of Harlem families during the latter period.
There are, of course, other deeply embedded causes of tension in Harlem, such as high rentals, resentment against discrimination, and dissatisfaction with the relief situation. Probably none of these, however, is of as much importance as family income itself. Responsibility for the recent outbreak in Harlem may justly be laid at the door of the "red element" if-by that term we mean the color of entries in household account books.
2 Households having married individuals other than the head and/or wife of the primary family were treated as a single family and assigned to the occupational class of the husband in the primary family. A household was not included in the survey if no member of it had ever been married. The main reason for such omissions was that these households could not be used in the fertility analysis. However, it is not unfortunate that such households were excluded from the point of view of this income analysis. Much difficulty would have been encountered in classifying such households by social class. The complication of frequently changing constituency of such households would also have been met. 3 The assignment of families to these classes was not done by the field enumerators. These workers simply reported usual or last specific occupations and industry of the husbands. A slightly modified form of the 1920 United States Census occupational code was used in the office for routine division of the families into the above social-economic classes.
It is interesting to note the chief constituent occupations represented in the Harlem survey.
Professional: Approximately one-half were musicians and one-fifth were ministers. The remaining few were physicians lawyers, dentists, teachers, etc.
Proprietary: Real estate and renting agents comprised one-quarter of this group. Undertakers accounted for one-eighth. The remaining were largely keepers of small stores, stands, and shops.
Clerical: Composed largely of petty clerks and workers of a kindred nature, such as shipping clerks, baggage checkers, yard clerks, agents, and letter carriers. Actors and showmen were assigned to this class and they constituted approximately one-fifth of it.
Skilled workers: Cooks, painters (including glaziers and varnishers), carpenters, mechanics, etc.
Semi-skilled: Truck drivers, waiters, operatives in clothing factories and laundries, etc.
Unskilled: Porters, general laborers, elevator tenders, longshoremen, servants, janitors, garage laborers. boiler tenders, etc.
4 That is, half of the families received more and half less than these incomes in 1929 and 1932 respectively.
5 Computations from figures in Monthly Labor Review, February, 1935, p. 518.