313
6
ity differentiations and because the of
one city employee group to gain wage
ferings of merchants vary-w ith their
increases of 10 to 15 per pent. Figures
own particular supply of specific
between January and August, 1947,
showed that the wage earners’ salaries items), here is what a rough com
in that city had increased only 30 per parison shows,” says the writer:
194&
1940
cent while the cost of living climbed
■. Sugar, lb.
§
^59 per cent, leaving real wages at a
Coffee, lb. — -m—— 2 5 c || 50 c
minus 18 per ce'nt. An analysis of the
18c
Canned corn
°c
increases showed the hounds of HCL
' Margarine^^ ^ ^ ^ & y l5 c a 40c
gobbling Up the following increases:
92c
Butter
-——40c
Dairy products, 74.9%4
'70c
Egg» / ————r—
- 3K
Meat, poultry, fish 125.?% \
He
| . ’ Soap
Fruits and vegetables, 114.1% /
42p ’
Cooking oils, pt.
20c
Clothing, 74.9'%, I '
Bread'
' 22c
House furnishings, 71.7'%%'
50c
Pork roast, lb. ---- 12 %c
Kent,
Pork steak
—-15c g| 5,5 c
The Oregon Statesman in Salem list
45c
Ground beef' — —— 13c
ed the- following comparison of food
Smelt
' 26 c
prices in Salem as of February,’ 1940
50c
Pot roast
18c
and 1948. "Taking a general average
(Partial list reprinted here.)
(difficult td estimate because of qual
fl
Mees Climb, Set State employee
"forgotten Mao"
•
The taxpaying public, the merchants,
legislators, contractors and others,'as
well , as state employees, have an in
terest in a satisfactory solution of the j
state’s present wage problem and in
other improvements in the public serv
ice rendered by state governmental
state functions.
Some pertinent facts and figures
which follow should be of interest to
all.
Merchants will be interested because
it will show why the employee is forced
to ask for extended credit when he
does buy.
Some members of the 1947 st^te leg
islature will be interested because they
can now determine how far wrong
their predictions were when, a year
ago, they predicted a decrease in living
costs beginning in the summer of that
year, and introduced a bill to cut em
ployees’ salaries 5 per cent along about
January, 1948? supposedly in the
middle of the "depression.”
The tax-paying public will be in
terested because the tabulations will
show that their tax dollars are, not go
ing to "high-salaried” employees, but
do' show why service to the public is
sometimes not all that it should be.
State employees will be interested be
cause it will show them that theyj,are
justified in being critical d i the way
the state has handled the salary prob
lem. It will show why many hundreds
of their fellow workers have taken em
ployment in private industry and why
they themselves must do extra work
on the outside or put the "little woman”
to work in order to pay the grocery*
man.
The following tabulation was p iw
pared by the state budget division and
reflects salaries paid in December, 1?47>
to employees in the classified service,
i. e. employees under civil service. It
does not include elected officials, mem
bers of boards or commissions, depart
ment heads, judges, legislators or the