4 
THE RATE OF WAGES OF FARM LABORERS IN THE 
UNITED STATES. 
In a single hundred years a change has been wrought in this country which 
may well challenge the admiration of the civilized world, and all that has been 
accomplished is the direct result of labdr, and of that labor, the largest portion, 
if not the most productive of net profits, is the labor of agriculture. 
Only one branch of agricultural industry is to be considered at this time. 
Farm workers are here farm proprietors. Scarcely more than one-fourth of those 
who obtain their living by agriculture, in this country, hire out their service to 
farmers fora monthly or other consideration. It is of this class that a system- 
atic course of inquiry in every State and Territory has been made, and it is, 
as is believed, the first attempt of the kind ever made here. * 
The result shows an increase of the rates of wages in five years amounting to 
about filty per cent. This is less than the increase of the cost of living; still the 
purchasing power of a month’s wages is probably greater than in any other 
country in the world. Harm laborers, especially in the west, can enjoy more of 
the comforts of life, and attain a higher rank in the social scale, than those of 
any other country. They do not obtain the wages conceded to mechanics and 
other classes, perhaps better entitled to be considered skilled laborers, yet they 
enjoy an advantage, which is a partial compensation, in lower rents and cheaper 
subsistence supplies, and fewer temptations to extravagance and waste. 
In view of the superior condition of the class, in comparison with rural laborers 
in other countries, it is not strange that the European peasant should covet such 
advantages, and seek them even at the expense of exile from the fatherland. 
Immigration.—lt is a suggestive fact that the immigration of millions of for- 
eigners has not, as native laborers once feared, proved a serious competition, 
reducing the rate of wages. On the contrary, it has advanced great public works 
which have opened new and wider fields of industry, and has pushed the native 
laborer into the artisan ranks and the sphere of skilled labor, with higher wages, 
more exercise of mind, and less of muscle than before. When it is remembered 
that in 1860 there were 4,136,175 foreign residents, and at least 5,000,000 at 
the present time, or one-seventh of the population, and a still larger proportion 
of the actual labor of the country, this result must be acknowledged to be 
convincing evidence of the great resources and vast power of labor absorption 
possessed by the United States. 
Increase of rate of wages.—More than thirty years ago Mr. H. C. Carey 
made the following estimate of the average of agricultural labor in this country: 
“Aoricultural labor has not varied materially in these forty years in its money 
price; but the variation that has taken place has been in its favor—the wages 
of men having been very steadily about nine dollars per month and their board ; 
but higher wages are now not very unusual.” The average for white labor at 
the present time, as presented in the accompanying tables, is fairly stated at $28 
per month, or nearly $15 50 and board. ‘This indicates an advance of seventy 
per cent. in the lapse of a generation, mostly in the last six years, or fifty per 
cent. since 1861. 
