I am not saying that single workers who are only supporting themselves do not need protection. Of course, they do. But if we are trying to eliminate the greatest suffering and need, we ought to work more with the family breadwinners.

That is what is troubling me in these things.

Mr. MUNSEY. Could we have the page reference there, please?
Mr. ALGER. Yes. It is table B-12.

I am mentioning these things, Mr. Chairman, so that if the record could be left open we could benefit from the help of the legislative staffs of the AFL-CIO to add to these figures.

I certainly will study them myself as you present them to us. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Meany, if it is the thought that any additional information can be added to this record in answer to any questions, we would like to have it.

Without objection, that information will be inserted in the record. Mr. MEANY. Yes, we will be glad to supply, to whatever extent possible, any of the statistical data that either we have available or that we can secure for you on any of these questions.

(The following material was received by the committee:)

Congressman Alger's statement (stenographic transcript of hearings, p. 721) “*** that this particular publication shows that Michigan has 37 percent that are drawing unemployment compensation at this time-and this is a typical week-did not have dependents." Congressman Alger states that he is referring to table B-12 in the "Adequacy of Benefits under Unemployment Insurance."

I would like to point out that table B-12 has to do with weekly benefit amounts relative to earnings of unemployment beneficiaries and the 37 percent for Michigan is the weekly benefit amount payable to workers with no dependents as a percentage of their net wages after paying Federal payroll taxes. It has nothing to do with the proportion of single people among unemployment compensation claimants.

The Department of Labor's Bureau of Employment Security has provided data from its beneficiary studies on the status of unemployment compensation claimants. These data are summarized on the attached sheet which I understand has been made available to the committee. It should be noted that in each of the areas studied, members of two-or-more-person households drawing unemployment compensation benefits are 83 percent or more of the total, and between 42 and 58 percent are heads of households. In each of the studies, 17 percent or fewer were one-person households (this distinction between one-person and twoor-more-person households is more meaningful than single or married status for obvious reasons.)

Two other sources of data on the composition of the unemployed for the U.S. Department of Commerce "Current Population Reports on the Labor Force," issue No. 86 of September 1958, and Issue No. 87 of January 1959. The former shows that of 9,528,000 persons experiencing unemployment during 1957, 6,576,000 were males and 2,952,000 were females. 4,312,000 of the males were married and living with their spouse; 1,631,000 of the females were married and living with their spouse.

The duration of unemployment for these people (expressed as a percentage) can be summarized as follows:

The second issue of Current Population Report, No. 87, shows the marital and family characteristics of unemployed workers in March 1958. Of the 5,199,000 unemployed that month, 1,409,000 were single and 2,339,000 were family heads. 61 percent were primary wage earners, 39 percent were secondary wage earners. The Survey Research Center, University of Michigan, has provided us with considerable information about the impact of unemployment in 1958 on American families, "Significant Findings on the Impact of the 1957-58 Recession in Relation to Unemployment Insurance, February, 1959." Following are selected paragraphs from these findings:

"Eighteen percent of all families in the Nation had one or more family members unemployed during the 12-month period prior to October 1958.

"In 14 percent of the families the head experienced some unemployment; "In an additional 4 percent of the families another member experienced some unemployment.

"The number of unemployed during the 12-month period of 1957-58 was roughly 35 to 40 percent greater than in the calendar year 1956. The duration of unemployment also substantially increased. In 1956, according to the census, about one-third of all individuals experiencing unemployment during the year had only 4 weeks or less of unemployment, while the corresponding October 1957-58 figure from the survey was about 13 percent. On the other hand, the proportion experiencing unemployment for more than 26 weeks increased from about 11 to 22 percent during the same period.

"About 25 percent of all families reported in October that they experienced unemployment or shorter hours at some time during the previous 12 months. In four-fifths of these families, the main breadwinner was affected. About two-thirds of the unemployed, and half of those whose working hours were cut, attributed this to the recession.

"Income losses were unevenly distributed among the unemployed families. The median net income loss (after taking into account unemployment insurance benefits) for the year reported in the families where the head was unemployed was approximately $900. About 3 percent of the families, where the head was unemployed, reported that they suffered no net income loss and about 18 percent reported they suffered a net income loss of $2,000 or more in the year.

"The most important measures taken by families to adjust to the unemployment of the head of the family were in the order of importance: use of savings, cutting down on buying, help from relatives, piling up bills, and borrowing money. Some families moved to cheaper quarters, were able to have another member of the family go to work, or sought relief from a public welfare agency. The average family with unemployment took two of these measures. The larger the income loss, the more measures were taken to meet the unemployment situation."

Mr. ALGER. What percentage of unemployment would you consider to be minimum if you defined minimum unemployment as the number of people who really do not have to work or are working by choice, or possibly too lazy to work unless they get exactly what they want? I think this is important.

Mr. MEANY. You are not talking about what we call technological unemployment. You are not talking about people who are between jobs. You are talking about people who just should not figure in the working force at all. In other words, they do not need to work or they are too lazy.

During the war there was a figure came up which was one-half of 1 percent of the working force.

Mr. ALGER. I appreciate your point on that. I have a feeling from some of the material I am getting that the figure is larger than that. But again I think here is an area that needs to be explored so that we do not feel mistakenly that a certain percentage means there is heavy unemployment when actually a lot of these people are the secondary breadwinners.

Mr. MEANY. Could I say this, that, by rule of thumb or some more or less accepted theory, with the potential work force of 65 million,

something under 211⁄2 million would be considered, let us say, a normal unemployment. In other words, people between jobs and people not seeking work because they want to lay off for a while and do not need work and so on.

Mr. ALGER. That sounds fair, and certainly I want to keep that in mind.

Mr. MEANY. In other words, we never got excited when the unemployment was at that figure or below, but when it starts to go up, then we get concerned.

Mr. ALGER. To continue on in the middle of the next page, page 2, and it refers again to it on page 3, you state:

When the fundamentals are so generally accepted, when the sights of so many are fixed on the same target, why is it that year after year we continue to fall short of the mark?

I am impressed that the States are trying to do a job and that they seem to be doing it.

We of this committee report back to the people, and so do the State legislators. As a matter of fact, the State legislators have less latitude than we do, I think. They are right there at home with their people.

Has it ever occurred to you that, good or bad, the present unemployment compensation system is what the legislators and the people themselves actually think is proper?

Mr. MEANY. I cannot buy that.

When you say the people themselves, I do not know who you mean. You are surely not speaking for the potential beneficiaries of the system.

Mr. ALGER. These legislators keep going back home and are buttonholed by their constituents, and then they are reelected or rejected, and you mention Texas on the next page of your statement and you find fault with our system.

But you know we have to go back to our people, and justify our positions up here. Even more with the State legislators. If they have not been pleasing the people in this matter of providing unemployment compensation, I am sure the people back home would have gotten after them. Or, to put it another way, maybe the people feel the unemployment compensation system is coming along satisfactorily enough. And they do not want us to cram something down their throats.

Mr. MEANY. You realize that the State legislature is made up of people with diverse backgrounds and obligations and from various areas, and the legislators who are in a nonindustrial area do not hear from the people on this because there is no problem. The problem lies in the large urban areas where you have an industrial situation.

Mr. ALGER. We all have unemployment whether industrialized or urban, and I think all of us are troubled by it.

Mr. MEANY. I might say in my State the dice are loaded against the industrial areas by a system of representation that has existed for many, many, many years. The people in two small counties, for instance, over in the southern tier of the State of New York, from the point of view of representing people, outweigh the cities 30, 40 to 1. Mr. ALGER. I can appreciate that, and a lot of us have been very puzzled, frankly, by the pattern or the path that Michigan has taken,

and the city of Detroit. It seems very odd to me that this heavy industrialized and heavily unionized area should be the one most in trouble.

Mr. MEANY. Your theory would be correct, I would say, if the legislators voted on the basis of numbers of people they represent affected by this law and the numbers of people they represent also who are unaffected by the law. In other words, if it was a weighted vote, if everybody had a numerical vote the same as we vote at AFL-CIO conventions, I would accept your theory that the law is what the people want it to be.

Mr. ALGER. That is a very interesting thought. In fact, I would like to paraphrase that this way:

If there are 67 million people in the work force, or whatever that total is, and 131⁄2 million of them are unionized and use that union properly to direct their own legislative thinking and then try to effect changes in legislation, here we legislators are torn between what the entire work force of 67 million want from Government in protecting labor as against what 132 million want.

Mr. MEANY. May I submit to you that you do not know what the rest of the work force wants, and there is no one in America that can say that they speak for the rest of that work force.

The only work force that has a voice is the work force that is organized, and I challenge you to show me anything, any single little item that gives anyone the right to say that he speaks for the other 50-odd million of the work force who are not organized.

Mr. ALGER. I respect your opinion, but you are hearing my opinion, that I, as a Congressman, and my colleagues are hearing from our constituents all the time.

Mr. MEANY. But you say it is the weight of the 132 million or the 17 million that are organized as opposed to the nonorganized work force. I say that nobody can speak for the unorganized work force because they do not speak for themselves, by the mere fact that they are not organized.

Mr. ALGER. I agree with that, but let me get back to my point.

The legislators and the Texas Legislature, representing the entire constituency, which includes that percentage of the total work force that resides within the boundaries of Texas, have seen fit to set up the kind of unemployment system we have.

You can say we are wrong, and you are entitled to your opinion. But the people in Texas think that we are right.

Now are we to completely negate what they say, at a Federal level, from 1,500 miles away, laying down the law and saying, "No. You legislators who are elected every 2 years, and you people whom they represent are wrong. We in Washington know better and feel that these Federal standards would be better for you than what you think yourselves."

That presents a dilemma, in a sense which I think all the legislators face.

The Texas Legislature sent me a resolution saying they feel that unemployment compensation should be left to the State.

Mr. MEANY. Is it not a historic fact that most of the legislators did not act until the Federal Government acted in this field?

Mr. ALGER. I think that is partly true, but I do not believe that that means the States do not have initiative. They have, but it is being taken from them.

I might say to you that when labor succeeds, if you are to succeed, in completely imposing Federal control on the States, labor itself could easily be the greatest loser. I do not think that is what you intend.

Mr. MEANY. I do not think that is so. But actually what we have here is Federal standards that are now imposed upon the States in this field, and we are pointing out from years of experience where we think these standards should be improved.

Mr. ALGER. I certainly appreciate your interest.

Mr. MEANY. We are arguing for a complete law, and certainly we do not agree there should not be any Federal standards, because the States have accepted some Federal standards, and Congress has enacted them.

We are saying, in fact, that the time has come to evaluate our experience in this field, and that the effect of Federal standards should be amended in certain respects.

Mr. ALGER. You mentioned original intent several times in your statement. While I was not so active in the original intent as certainly you were, I did listen with some interest to the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Farmer, plus men from four other States of the Interstate Conference of Employment Security Agencies who testified about how the States they represented and the organizations in which they participated, the employment security commission, I think it was, say as to how the State felt with regard to original intent.

The original intent, according to their understanding, was that the areas of decision on such things as eligibility, duration, benefit amount and the other provisions to be made in the compensation field were to be left to the States for the reason that they were closest to the people. They know the local and State needs better than the Federal Government. So, by intent, the States were to follow that. Is that not correct?

Mr. MEANY. Yes; I think so, but now we are saying it has not worked so well, and there is a precedent for Federal standards in this field. The Labor Department can verify that, and we are saying that the law has not worked so well. We are pointing out where, and we feel that the correction can be made by improving the Federal standards.

Mr. ALGER. In the final paragraph on page 4, Mr. Meany, you mentioned something that I think is at the heart of this, and sometimes we miss the obvious. You point out that the question of where Federal responsibility starts and where it ends is what we should be studying.

This is something that has troubled me and possibly some of the other Members of Congress. I went back to find out and I got the Employment Act of 1946. If I am not mistaken, that came about at the end of the war when people thought there was going to be largescale unemployment. We passed the bill, and yet the unemployment did not materialize as many people thought might be the case. But that is still the law today, and if you read the language in the preamble of that particular act, every conceivable Federal regimentation