notes on the Working Class 1913 - 2002

note: statistics were sparse before WWI, and the call up for WW

Size of wc and prop of society 1913 and now

before WWI labor data is very sparse and not considered accurate. The data below includes all occupations AND farming, both tenant and family farm operations

There were 300,00 workers in the Horse and Buggy industry in 1900.  Virtually none 30 years later.

• 1910 total workforce -- 51 million in 1900 census

38,000,000 men

13 million women

51 million workers

1913 total population  97,225,000

• 2020 population  331,4 million

        2020 workforce 149.8 million

1910 -- 2015 workforce division of labor graph comparison

Notes on 1910 - 1915 data

Comprehensive data by industry do not exist for 1915, but we have information for 1910 from the decennial census. Data from the 1910 Census show that 32 percent of nonfarm jobs were in manufacturing; in 2015, manufacturing accounted for less than 9 percent of total nonfarm employment. The number of people employed in manufacturing was 8 million in 1910 and 12 million in 2015. While employment in manufacturing grew over the past 100 years, employment in other industries grew more.

Transportation and public utilities also declined in percentage terms over the last century, from 13 percent in 1910 to 4 percent in 2015. The number of people employed in transportation and public utilities was 3 million in 1910 and 6 million in 2015.

From 1910 to 2015, employment in mining and the percentage of total employment in mining both decreased. In 1910 there were 1 million people employed in mining, accounting for 4 percent of nonfarm employment; in 2015, the number employed was 25 percent lower than in 1910 and less than 1 percent of total 2015 employment.

Domestic service, such as maids and cooks in private households, accounted for about 9 percent of nonfarm employment in 1915; comparable data for recent years are not available.

Employment in wholesale and retail trade, including eating and drinking places, increased from 3 million (or 13 percent of nonfarm employment) in 1910 to 33 million (23 percent) in 2015.

Far fewer people worked in professional services in 1910. Today’s economy includes professional services related to computers and electronics that didn’t exist a century ago. Fewer than 1 million workers were employed in professional services, accounting for 3 percent of nonfarm employment in 1910. In 2015, 41 million people were employed in professional services, 29 percent of the nonfarm total.

• Over the course of the 20th century, the composition of the labor force shifted from industries dominated by primaryproduction occupations, such as farmers and foresters, to those dominated by professional, technical, and service workers.
• At the turn of the century, about 38 percent of the labor force worked on farms. By the end of the century, that figure was less than 3 percent. 
• Likewise, the percent who worked in goods-producing industries, such as mining, manufacturing, andconstruction, decreased from 31 to 19 percent of the workforce. 
• Service industries were the growth sector during the 20thcentury, jumping from 31 percent3 of all workers in 1900 to 78 percent4 in 1999.

Include sharecroppers

Sharecropping continued to be a significant institution in many states for decades following the Civil War. By the early 1930s, there were 5.5 million white tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and mixed cropping/laborers in the United States; and 3 million Blacks.

Gdp 1913 to now

1913 -- 571 billion

2020 -- 20.1 Trilliion

    

Labor movement size relative to wealth distribution over century

 






Voting rights for labor no data found, except rise in immigrant and informal work, and incarceration has had negative impact.


Bea lumpkin -- shorter work week

1914  -- 50.8 hrs

2020 --  34.6 hrs