tell us what percent of these 38,000 are heads of household. The District of Columbia census, 1960, shows that 16,000 families had total incomes of less than $2,000 per year and we can surmise that this was due in large part to our wage structure. I do not feel that I need to prove to this committee that a family cannot live in decency on this level, as you have said.

The District of Columbia is a socially conscious community. We give vast sums to United Givers Fund, we have a program to fight delinquency, we are working hard to help school dropouts; but in order to make our social planning more complete, we should include minimum wage legislation. The minority of businesses which are paying less than $1.25 an hour are forcing people to live in subhuman conditions, thus increasing the size of our slums, and thus increasing our taxes. This is a time when all men of good will should realize that incomplete social planning is unintelligent.

Incidentally, the passing of this legislation will benefit the business community because we know that money given to poor persons is spent immediately on goods and services and not saved. Thus it will increase consumption and promote our economic growth.

In our opinion $1.25 is a very small wage for a single person. The District of Columbia Minimum Wage Board compiled a minimum budget for a single woman. They point out that a gross income of $47 per week means a net income of $39 per week (Federal income tax $6.10; District of Columbia income tax $0.58; social security tax $1.40) and in our city this is hardly adequate for rent, food, drugs, transportation, clothes, haircut, etc.

I would now like to turn my attention to statements made at a previous hearing on minimum wage by those opposed to it. These representatives of some business firms said that:

(a) Some companies cannot afford to pay $1.25 an hour.

(b) Some workers are not worth $1.25 an hour.

(c) A minimum of $1.25 an hour would increase unemployment by: (i) accelerating the advent of automation;

(ii) accelerating the flight of business to the suburbs.

I intend to refute these arguments and describe the wage picture in the District of Columbia.

A Bureau of Labor Statistics study made on the metropolitan area of the District of Columbia describes, for example, the occupation of switchboard operators. In December 1962, it shows that: 123 switchboard operators working in some financial establishments, insurance and real estate companies, were making less than $50 for a 40-hour week, while 690 switchboard operators working in public utilities, retail trade, services, and other financial, insurance, and real estate companies were making between $50 and $115 per week. Should one conclude from this data that those financial, insurance, and real estate companies which pay their switchboard operators less than $1.25 an hour cannot afford to do so, while service industries can afford it? Or should one argue that the personnel departments of some financial establishments, insurance and real estate companies were not able to locate competent switchboard operators and hence the low wage is justified on this basis? Surely the facts presented above raise questions as to the validity of the arguments of the opponents.

I would like to give another example, this time from an occupation for men. In December 1962, the figures in Washington, D.C., reveal that 491 male janitors, porters, and cleaners earned less than $1.20 an hour while 1,639 male janitors, porters, and cleaners earned between $1.20 and $2.60 an hour. Companies paying the highest wages were in public utilities and wholesale trade, services were in the middle range while finance and retail trade were generally in the lowest range. We wonder if the fact that many companies pay more than $1.25 an hour would not convince other companies that giving decent salaries is a good investment-it decreases labor turnover, increases employer satisfaction, production, health and morale. Does this committee seriously think that the majority of companies would pay more than $1.25 an hour if they found this procedure to be against their economic interests?

Turning now to the argument about automation, in my opinion a wage of $1.25 an hour will not materially influence the decision to automate. Firms are going to automate if they see a profit in it. We are deluding ourselves if we think that raising a few employees wages by 10 or 20 cents is going to substantially influence such a decision.

With reference to the flight to the suburbs, I hope employers do not consider us so naive that they would believe that a substantial number of restaurants, laundries, parking car companies are going to fly to the suburbs leaving the center city without these facilities.

Lastly we come to the moral question in wages. Is it moral to pay a man a wage that is so small that he cannot live decently? Which is the worse crime: to steal $10 or to pay a man 50 cents an hour, and thus force him to be hungry and cold?

In conclusion, we support S. 860 because socially and economically we consider the policy of paying a living wage the only sensible one. It benefits the community in every way and ethically there is no alternative.

Senator MORSE. Thank you very much, Mrs. Furth. I have no questions.

Our next witness will be the Reverend Father Geno C. Baroni, of the Catholic Interracial Council.

Father, we are very glad to have you before us. You may proceed in your own way.

STATEMENT OF REV. FATHER GENO C. BARONI, SS. PAUL AND AUGUSTINE PARISH CENTER, ON BEHALF OF THE CATHOLIC INTERRACIAL COUNCIL OF WASHINGTON, D.C.

Father BARONI. Mr. Chairman, my name is Father Geno C. Baroni, assistant pastor of SS. Paul and Augustine parish. I am happy to appear before you today in behalf of the Catholic Interracial Council of Washington, D.C.

While June 1963 marked the silver anniversary of the Fair Labor Standards Act, this piece of social legislation was recommended by the American bishops as early as 1919 in the "bishops' program of social reconstruction." Once again some consider the proposed extended coverage and the increase in the minimum wage now being studied by this subcommittee for the District of Columbia as further examples of illegitimate governmental interference in the national or local

economy. However, no one familiar with the social teachings of the Popes would ever think of citing minimum wage legislation as an example of unwarranted governmental interference with private enterprise. On the contrary, it is an altogether necessary and wholly laudable fulfillment of the appeal which Pope Leo XIII made more than 70 years ago for State protection of the rights of the defenseless workingman. Pope John XXIII reemphasized the norm by which to judge the moral right and/or duty of government to intervene in private enterprise. In his encyclical "Christianity and Social Progress" Pope John underscored the pertinence of this priniciple in our own day:

The evolution of history itself teaches that there can be no well-ordered and prosperous society unless both private citizens and public authorities unite in contributing to the economy. And each, insofar as it is possible under changing circumstances and vicissitudes of human existence, must participate in this harmonious effort to the degree demanded by the common good.

We believe that every man willing and able to work has a natural right to a job from which he derives a living wage. It is easy to say that this is a basic demand of justice, and world theologians and ethicians are eloquent in so doing.

But what of the poor workingman of America? As a clergyman in the midst of the Cardoza area of northwest Washington, I see the condition of the workingman of our community as one of the scandals of a society that has the ability to provide a decent life for every man, woman, and child. In our city the poor are the depressed in terms of what society could provide, if it had the will. The poor among us live on the fringe, the margin of life. One of the most important single facts about the culture of poverty in our city is that it tends to cluster misery. Consequently, it is common to find a person who is victim of a whole chain of disadvantages, a Negro, for example, facing job discrimination and often exempted from the protection of a minimum wage law, with inferior educational training, and living in a family unit headed by a woman, would not be an untypical figure in the center city.

Let us illustrate with a few specific examples how both young and old are victims of wage discrimination. What do you tell a boy named Barry in our 8th grade class? He knows that his father is an unskilled laborer, often unemployed, bringing home the lowest of wages when work is available. Barry is old enough to know that his father never had a chance to learn a trade-like bricklaying. How do you tell Barry to work, to discipline himself, get an education, and throw off the slings and arrows of his environment to aspire to an affluence that he doesn't see? What of the minimal levels of decent housing, health, and food that are denied to Barry's family because of a wage insufficient to meet the necessities of life? The American bishop's statement of 1948 on "The Christian Family" may well be applied to Barry's family:

When in a wealthy and prosperous Nation, diligent and willing parents are forced to live in grinding poverty; when the aid of the Government is extended to those who raise crops or build machines but not to those who rear children, there exists a condition of inequity and even of injustice. Social legislation and social action must concur to improve man's economic opportunity, to enable him to marry and to raise a family and to afford him some certainty of sufficiently gainful employment.

A considerable number of younger persons in our city are starting life in a condition that Michael Harrington has aptly described as "inherited poverty." Should this poverty be defined in terms of another example: a young father of four came to us recently to discuss a deteriorating family situation. John's problems were complex but we shared his frustration when simple arithmetic showed that he had earned only $48 net for a 96-hour week. Should this poverty be defined psychologically in the terms of a young man whose place in society is such that he is already an internal exile, already developing attitudes of defeat, pessimism, and exclusion? What happens, for example, to a 23-year-old young man I know facing marriage “for better or for worse" -on a net salary of $27.80 for a 60-hour week as a dishwasher what will happen to his future family? Will the vicious circle of his poverty produce a kind of "hereditary poverty” new to our American society?

Every day we as clergymen see the devastating effects of a serious economic condition-insufficient wages for the decent support of the worker himself and/or his family. Every center city clergyman, I believe, must know the effects on the spiritual and temporal well being of a workingman and his family of a wage so low, that it must be supplemented by the wage of the wife and mother or by the children of the family before it can provide adequate food, clothing, and shelter together with the essential spiritual and cultural needs, that are so much a part of a living wage.

It will always be argued I suppose that direct Government intervention setting the minimum wage is not the best way to assure the worker of a decent livelihood. But the fact of the matter is that other means to assure this minimal level have not been effective. Many will propose three alternative devices in place of Federal intervention: collective bargaining, paternal management, and action on the part of the local government. However, these common alternatives to Federal intervention have failed, for one reason or another, to fill a very desperate need. The intervention of the Federal Government, then, would appear to be the only practical way in which a minimum wage floor can be built. Thus, the bill, presently being considered by this subcommittee, in our view, is a very necessary and legitimate exercise of Government intervention in the economy "to provide for the general welfare" through adequate minimum wage legislation. In the words of Pope Paul VI, at the beginning of his Pontificate, "Revelation teaches us to love all men, whatever their condition *** further-it obliges us to offer to those who have least, the means of arriving in dignity at a more human life."

Thank you.

Senator MORSE. Thank you very much, Father, for a very powerful statement. I have no questions.

The next witness will be Mr. Ladd Thurston, representing the District of Columbia Health and Welfare Council. We are very glad to have you.

STATEMENT OF LADD THURSTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA HEALTH AND WELFARE COUNCIL

Mr. THURSTON. I have submitted a prepared statement which I will ask be included in the record.

Senator MORSE. The statement will be included in the record.

Mr. THURSTON. My name is Ladd Thurston. I appear before you on behalf of the District of Columbia Health and Welfare Council (HWC). I am here to urge favorable consideration of S. 860 as introduced with certain amendments which I will discuss later.

WHO HWC REPRESENTS

HWC is a private organization which speaks for virtually all of the local private health and welfare agencies in the community. Among other functions, HWC is responsible for allocating a major portion of the funds obtained by the annual UGF drive among the participating agencies. Of some $8,290,000 collected by the UGF in 1963, HWC will distribute more than $4,780,000 among 72 welfare agencies to be used for private health, welfare, and recreational activities. Next to the District of Columbia government, it is the largest distributor of funds for these purposes in the metropolitan area.

Although it has a small professional and administrative staff, a very large measure of HWC's work is accomplished through the voluntary efforts of private citizens in the area who have no motive other than to improve the lot of their less fortunate neighbors.

HWC'S INTEREST IN MINIMUM WAGE LEGISLATION

HWC's interest in the pending legislation is obvious. To the extent that wages in Washington are inadequate to provide its families with the minimum necessities of life, the burden of making up the deficiency falls on the community's welfare agencies private as well as public. The answer to the problem of dependency is not limited to more buildings at Junior Village, greater numbers of foster homes, additional day care centers and increased numbers of social workers, although all of these things are needed. These matters deal with the end products of dependency. What is also needed is an across-the-board attack on the basic causes of dependency. The proposed legislation which deals with one possible cause of dependency is relevant to HWC's area of concern.

In 1959 HWC's Junior Village committee published a landmark report, entitled "What Price Dependency?" The report estimated that there were in Washington at that time some 11,500 low income families with an average of four children each. "Low income" was defined to mean income so low that recipients would be presumably eligible for public assistance. It was estimated, however, that two-thirds of those eligible for public assistance by such standard got along somehow on money that was not adequate to buy food, housing, clothing, and other essential personal and household incidentals.

The study showed that nearly all the fathers involved were unskilled laborers-construction workers, trashmen, street cleaners,