POUND PRICE OF DAMP WASH

Almost the same degree of uniformity within a city was found in prices of damp-wash bundles as was found in shirt prices. On comparing the price level itself in different cities, one finds that 5 cents a pound is most popular in southeastern laundries, whereas a slightly higher price, 5 to 6 cents, is characteristic of the Middle West.

This service was not offered in over a fifth of the laundries visited, many of which had not offered it even before the war. Possibly the increased use of washing machines in the home may reduce the demand for this type of service from commercial laundries.

POUND PRICE OF FAMILY FINISH

This price, much more than either of the others, appeared to be sensitive not only to the conditions within the establishment itself but also to the characteristics of the city. Ability of the customer to pay appeared to affect price, whereas the influence of this factor was hardly noticeable in the price level of shirts and only slightly evident in damp-wash prices.

In 30 cities where 2 or more laundries offered this service, 16 showed .price standardization, but in each of the other 14 cities prices among competing laundries generally differed from one another. Many more cities showed standardization on prices of shirts and of damp wash.

Unlike prices of other services, there was no single family-finish price that was charged by a large proportion of the laundries. Prices in southeastern cities were generally lower than in the Middle West. About three-fourths of the southeastern laundries charged less than 15 cents a pound, but some two-thirds of those in the Middle West quoted 15 cents or more. Prices as low as 10, 11, or 12 cents a pound were quoted in several southern laundries but only rarely, if ever, were found in the Middle West. Relatively popular prices in the Southeast were about 12 or 14 cents, but in the Middle West they were about 14, 15, or 17 cents. The prevailing price in Chicago was 21 cents, higher than in any other city surveyed.

Among the wartime effects on laundry service discussed earlier was the elimination of family-finish service-in about one-sixth of the establishments visited. Apparently the relatively high cost of finishing wearing apparel, coupled with the shortage of labor, induced some laundries to dispense with this service.

PRICE AND SIZE OF CITY

There were no consistent differences between prices charged in larger cities and those in smaller cities of the same State. Prices in the smaller cities were often as high as or higher than those in the larger cities. Sometimes the situation was reversed. In Indiana the prevailing prices of shirts and of family finish were higher in each of the smaller cities than in Indianapolis. Similarly, in South Carolina, prices in the smaller cities were higher than in Columbia. In Georgia, however, Atlanta's prices for shirts and for damp wash were about the same as in the smaller cities, but prices for family finish were substantially higher in Atlanta than elsewhere in the State.

SUMMARY

Table 9 presents the price information supplied by employers which formed the factual basis for the preceding analysis.

PRICES AND EARNINGS

OVER-ALL RELATIONSHIP

In order to determine the exact relationship between prices charged the customer and earnings received by employees, it would be necessary to convert all prices in an establishment, on the basis of business done at each price, into a single price unit comparable to what the average hourly earnings figure represents for employees' wages. To secure this type of information would have required far more intense study of each individual plant than was undertaken in this survey. Some general and rather crucial conclusions can nevertheless be drawn from the available information.

Although, on the whole, there was a slight tendency for higher prices to accompany higher earnings, so many laundries deviated from this tendency as to warrant the conclusion that higher prices were not an inevitable concomitant of higher earnings.

DEVIATIONS FROM OVER-ALL RELATIONSHIP

One has only to compare the lack of wage standardization within a city with the highly developed price standardization to realize that many laundries paying lower wages than others capitalize on the advantage of charging the same prices. In practically every city large enough to support several laundries, some establishments paid higher wages without charging higher prices than competitors in the same city. To allow some employers to undercut wages while adhering to the city's standard prices constitutes unfair competition. Such practices are a constant threat not only to wage standards but also to the industry's stability.

Observations of the earnings and prices actually in existence among competing laundries in the same city demonstrate that good wage standards do not inevitably mean high prices. Efficiencies in management and operating methods and increased productivity can often enable employers to pay adequate wages without proportionate increases in prices. While sometimes higher earnings were reported in laundries quoting higher prices, it was not uncommon to find that higher earnings went hand in hand with lower prices.

In addition to the wage-price situation within a city, the relationship between one city and another should be considered. Such a city-to-city comparison lends supporting evidence to the observation described previously that higher earnings do not necessarily cause higher prices. Sometimes they went together, but practices in several cities prove that they need not. For example, prevailing prices for each of the three services studied were identical in two South Carolina cities, but in one of them, Charleston, the 34-cent average earnings of women workers were 7 cents higher than in the other, Spartanburg. Even more conclusive is evidence provided by the cities in which prices were lower but earnings higher than in the others. Prices in both Springfield, Mo., and Portsmouth, Va., were substantially lower than

in Wilmington, N. C., but women's earnings were considerably higher. Similarly, Jacksonville, Fla., charged less and women earned more than in Greenville, S. C.

EARNINGS IN SPECIFIC OCCUPATIONS RELATED TO PRICES

Further evidence that prices do not always reflect wages was found in comparing prices for two services with earnings in two occupations-earnings which might be expected to influence price. The list price of shirts was compared with earnings of shirt operatives, and the pound price of family finish was compared with earnings of machine pressers, who finish the wearing apparel in family-finish bundles. It is recognized, of course, that even in plants or industries of relatively well rationalized price structure unit labor costs of a specific item are not necessarily covered by the price of that item but, instead, may be defrayed, for a variety of reasons, by prices of other items. Despite this accepted business practice, it is nonetheless striking to observe the relatively minor influence earnings in these occupations exercise on price.

Within each region earnings tended somewhat to be higher in laundries quoting higher prices. More significant, however, are the marked variations in earnings in laundries charging the same price.

Tables 10 and 11 group those laundries quoting the same price for a service and show the differences in earnings in these same laundries. For example, midwestern laundries charging a 15-cent list price for shirts reported average hourly earnings of shirt operatives ranging from a low of 34%1⁄2 cents in one laundry to a high of 571⁄2 cents in another. Compare this with the Southeast. Here, laundries charging the same price, 15 cents, showed shirt operatives' earnings which averaged only 19 cents in one plant but climbed all the way up to 68 cents in another. The variations in earnings among laundries charging another popular price, 16 cents, were just as striking, if not

more so.

The same observation holds true when earnings of machine pressers are examined in relation to the pound price of a family-finish bundle. Admittedly, the entire problem of establishing a rational relationship between prices and wages does not yield itself readily to quick solution of a-b-c simplicity. Worthy of mention is the future course suggested by one industry spokesman in a manual written to guide war veterans interested in establishing a laundry. Glancing at the industry's postwar problems, this spokesman looks toward a period of lower prices, a fair profit, and a 60-cent minimum wage for women workers.4

See: Victor Kramer, Establishing and Operating a Laundry. U. S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, 1946. pp. 189, 190.

Num-
ber of
plants
report-
ing

plants

242