MONEY AND WAGES
The weekly wage on which some girls live comfortably will give others only
the bare necessaries of life, and sometimes not even that.
The girl's real wages are what she is able to get for the sum of money
she is paid in exchange for her work. Before she can judge whether her
wage is good or poor, she must know how much her board and lodging will
cost, the cost of clothes, and the total amount of her other expenses.
She should know what additional advantages there are in the place where
she is working. If there are disadvantages, she should consider them also
before she can tell whether the wage offered is a good or a poor wage.
Local prices, and the difference in the cost of living between one place
and another, must be learned by the girl at work before she can estimate
the value of her wages.
During the time when she is becoming skilled in her occupation it is
difficult for the girl at work to support herself entirely. If she is
living at home, her family will help her. But she should always remember
the girl who is not living at home, and should feel that it is her duty
not to lower this girl's wages below a living standard. Every girl at work
should make an effort to know what a living wage is in the place--town,
city or country--where she is employed. Wages for skilled workers should
be of a good standard, that is, the wage paid should be sufficient to make
the worker efficient and comfortable. Even the beginner should have a
living wage.
Prices of food, clothing and board, and the other expenses which one
has to meet, are different in town, city and country. When the girl
wage-earner changes from the place in which she lives, she should find
out beforehand as accurately as possible how much she will need to live
on in the place to which she may be thinking of going.
If we do not think accurately and carefully about what we earn and what
we spend, we shall likely always remain undeveloped in judgment and
character, and shall not be able to take the responsibility which should
come to every mature person.
A girl worker in one employment may necessarily have a different scale of
expenses from a girl at work in another occupation. For instance, it costs
the average stenographer more to keep up her standard of efficiency than it
does the average girl in a factory. The stenographer also has to spend more
time and money in preparing for her occupation. A girl in a factory who is
earning twelve dollars a week is better off financially, therefore, than
the stenographer earning twelve a week. A woman physician may have a yearly
income of two or three thousand dollars. A teacher who has an income of
fifteen hundred dollars a year may be better off financially. The physician
has to pay the rent and upkeep of her office; she must have someone to
answer her telephone and to take messages; she may need a conveyance so
that she can get about to her patients. Her training and the equipment she
uses in her work are more varied and expensive as a rule than those which
are required by a teacher.
We should remember that while what we earn is important, there are other
considerations as important. The joy of the worker in her work is the first
consideration. The born teacher, like the born doctor, is happier in her
own employment. An income is a necessary possession, but it does not give
that happiness which work alone can give. Very few of us work for money
altogether, while many of us work to earn a living, which is a different
thing. To be self-supporting through work which we enjoy is one of the
greatest blessings of our existence.
It is impossible to state an amount which will represent accurately a
living wage for girls who are beginning work in all the towns, cities or
country districts of Canada. At present a living wage in a city may be
nine, ten, eleven or twelve dollars a week; in places outside cities it
may vary as greatly. Girls at work should look for an employer who
recognizes reasonable standards and pays such wages as far as possible.
The more loyal girls are to such employers the better working conditions
will be for everyone.
Skilled and highly trained workers require, and receive, wages far above
the sums mentioned in the preceding paragraph.
The girl should estimate the value of her yearly income. This is important.
She may be a milliner and have steady employment for only thirty or
thirty-five weeks in the year. If she is paid a weekly wage of twelve
dollars, her yearly income will amount to three hundred and sixty or four
hundred and twenty dollars. She must find some other occupation for the
rest of her time or her total income will amount to three hundred and
sixty dollars, or four hundred and twenty dollars and no more.
The trained nurse who is paid twenty-five or thirty dollars a week when she
is on a case, will make a mistake if she forgets that she will not be able
to work without intermission throughout the year. She may be engaged in her
employment only forty weeks in the year. Nurses may earn no more than eight
or nine hundred dollars in twelve months. Even the most capable factory
worker does not earn her highest wage every week in the year. She should
be careful to reckon her income by the year, not by the week.
The girl at work exchanges her yearly income for food, shelter, clothing
and a number of other requirements, such as doctor's and dentist's fees,
carfare, and washing, holidays, recreation, savings, etc. If she earns
twelve dollars every week in the year her income will be six hundred and
twenty-four dollars. Out of this she may pay five dollars each week for
board, or two hundred and sixty dollars a year. If she spends between one
hundred and twenty-five dollars and one hundred and fifty dollars for her
clothes in the year, she will have about two hundred dollars for other
needs.
What she uses her money for gives to the girl the real meaning of her wages.
Her income means food, clothing, and a house to live in. Besides that her
income means many small expenses, a little holiday and recreation, a little
kindness to someone, church collection, a gift to someone who is in need,
some small pleasure for the girl herself. It should also mean a savings
account. Something will be said about saving in the next chapter. But here
it may be said that if we spend everything we have from day to day, we are
left with little choice in spending. Choice in spending is a test of the
girl's character. We may choose to spend our spare money for candy. But if
we do we shall probably not be able to buy a volume of poetry which we
should love to keep and treasure. We may need a warm coat, but the money
we might have had for it we spent for a second expensive blouse when we
had one pretty blouse already. It was money we had saved which helped us
to go to a course of lessons in gymnastics, and that course may have cured
a tendency to headache.
The average girl hopes that her wages will increase, and this is right.
An employer once said of the amount that he was willing to pay his most
useful employees: "I feel that if a girl is not able to make a good
bargain with me for her work, she will not be able to make a good bargain
for me with others." The best and surest way for the girl to increase her
wages is to think out some plan for increasing the value of her work, and
then if necessary to say to her employer that she has been able to make
her work more valuable.
A word of warning about wages may not come amiss here. If our wages are
too low, the best way to go about raising them is to act ourselves, not
to expect others to act for us. The best results are likely to be obtained
by giving your employer some increased advantage, and by seeing at the
same time that he gives you an equal advantage in your income. But never
feel ill-used, because that lessens your happiness and your power to help
yourself. Remember it is your own difficulty and you are the person to
find the way out.