Should Trained Office Workers Be Paid Starvation Wages? 1934

“$30 a Month,” from the Durham Herald as reported in the Rocky Mount Herald, Friday, June 15, 1934. Two articles on the same page. This one is sympathetic of the woman's plight, not making enough working for the state to afford food. The next article says people are lucky to have a state job and should pay more in taxes.

North Carolina was shocked last week by a report from Raleigh that one of the stenographers in the office of the revenue department had fainted at her desk of malnutrition. Another report was to the effect that the girl was suffering from anemia. Anemia might easily be brought on by the process of slow starvation.

Whether or not the State of North Carolina is starving its employes to death, it is clear enough that $30 a month is not a living wage and $30 a month is what the girl in question was being paid. Nor is she the only one.

We have millions many millions, for highways in North Carolina. We are contemplating spending of something over $100,000 for two causeways. We should be able to do better than $30 per month for office workers serving the State.

There are school teachers whose financial condition is no better. It is a source of amazement that they continue to carry on. We wonder how they manage and remain healthy and presentable.

This is no argument for diversion of highway funds. We oppose that method. We protest the unfairness of saddling all the costs of government on automobile owners.

It is a sad commentary on the resource and manhood of the State that it is either lacking in sufficient intelligence or lacking in courage to work out an equitable taxation system. The unfair automobile burden reveals that the money is in North Carolina. We have not been adverse to squeezing it out through the equally unfair sales tax. The State should be able to find a better way. However, in any event, and at any cost, it should feed its own workers.