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SMALL BUSINESS AND THE COMMUNITY

TABLE 53.—Estimated monthly labor requirements and theoretical source of labor supply: Arvin

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Work performed by 133 farm operators reported in Agricultural Adjustment Agency records, assuming encb operator works 2:0 hours per month for a maximum of 23,000 hours in any 1 month.

Work performed by 940 family heads who are laborers, assuming that each works 200 hours per month when work is available, for a maximum of 160,000 hours in any 1 month.

Work performed by 690 family members other than heal. assuming each works 100 hours per month during all months when work is available, for a maximum of 69.000 hours in any I month.

• Residual employment opportunity for itinerants, following from above assumptions.

TABLE 54.-Estimated monthly labor requirements and theoretical source of labor supply: Dinuba

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1 Work performed by 722 farm operators, reported in Agricultural Adjustment Agency records, assuming each operator works 250 hours per month, for a maximum of 180,000 hours in any 1 month.

Work performed by 550 family heads who are laborers, assuming each works 200 hours per month when work is available for a maximum of 110,000 hours in any 1 month.

Work performed by 600 family members other than head, assuming that each works 100 hours per month during months when work is available, for a maximum of 60,000 hours in any 1 month.

Besidual employment opportunity for itinerants, following from above assumptions.

A comparison of these tabulations reveals a number of significant facts: The total labor requirement in Dinuba is greater than in Arvin, but because of the larger number of operators, over half the work can be done by the operators and the number of hired laborers required is greater in Arvin than Dinuba. While the number of workers resident in Arvin is greater, and they can have a longer season for working, both communities require imported labor for short seasons. The amount of such labor is approximately the same. If a thousand hours of work per month requires four laborers, then Arvin requires nearly 1,000 migrant workers in June, and Dinuba, 1,500 in September.

APPENDIX D

METHOD OF Obtaining POPULATION FIGURE'S

Population data on the town proper and the rural area within the boundary of the community as delineated have been developed from the schedules. They are based upon the total number of houses and the average persons per family interviewed. In Arvin the number of housing units on the DiGiorgio farms were included and the population determined on the assumption that the number of persons per household was the same as the average number among Arvin-farm labor families generally.

The number of houses was established by a map of the community in which each house was spotted. These maps were made for each rural area and each town proper, and may be considered as substantially accurate.

: The size of family was taken from the schedule and included all persons living in the home at the time of interview. The following tabulation shows the basic data and calculations for the population of the two communities:

TABLE 55.-Calculations in the computation of Arvin and Dinuba population from schedule data

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APPENDIX E

METHOD OF DETERMINING LEVEL-OF-LIVING INDEX

The level-of-living index is a figure which summarizes the quality of living conditions or material possessions of any group within the total sample from the two communities. It expresses differences within the sample, and should not be used to compare this sample with others in other parts of the country.

The index is based upon eight items, each weighted according to the square root of the inverse of the frequency of its occurrence, rounded to the nearest whole number. This may be expressed:

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where W is the weight of each item and r is the percent of the total population possessing that item. Table 56 shows the method of computing the value of each item.

The level-of-living index for any family is the sum of the values for each item, a range from 0 to 44. Because of the few items on the scale and the high degree of association between items, the resulting curve is not as smooth as would be desired.

The evaluation of the condition of the home was determined by assigning differential values to each of the categories within the three questions calling for such evaluation, and taking the sum of these values. The values were: 3 for best conditions, 2 for second best condition, 1 for third best condition, and 0 for poorest condition. In one question only three categories were supplied, and these were given the value of 3, 2, and 0, respectively. No special weighting was given since the data are not amenable to further refinements in quantitative evaluation.

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TABLE 56.-Frequency distributions of items on the material level-of-living scale

and value of items

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APPENDIX F

ASSOCIATION BETWEEN SOCIAL PHENOMENA

The assumption that a whole series of social phenomena, from level of living to type of social activities, were associated with occupation and income was subjected to statistical tests. The Chi Square test of significance and the use of T as a measure of relative association were found most useful. The following tabulation shows the value of T for those associations subjected to the test, and the annotations indicate the level of significance by the Chi Square test. The value of T expresses the degree to which independent employment and higher income are respectively associated with (1) each other, (2) above median level of living as determined by the level-of-living index, (3) membership of individuals 12 years old and over in clubs, (4) reported social activities other than those sponsored by club or church, (5) above median in the index of condition of the home as established by subjective evaluation, (6) membership of persons 12 years old and over in any church, and (7) membership of persons 12 years old and over in churches of highest standing, in contrast with membership in the intermediate and lower status churches.

The procedure was to reduce all sets into dichotomous classifications, using for all seriated data the break nearest the median and for other data mutually exclusive attributes. The fundamental occupational dichotomy between laborers and independently employed persons was used. The remaining dichotomies are self-explanatory.

The formulas used were:

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Because Q is frequently used as a measure of degree of association, calculations of its value were made for a number of the associations here analyzed. Since Q is 1 when one cell is 0, since this is not actually a measure of perfect association, and since in some instances the number of cases in one cell is small, this measurement was rejected. Q values of items which meet the X test of significance at the .001 level ran between .60 and .85.

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