Employment Characteristics of Interstate Workers in Covered Employment in 1938

* Bureau of Research and Statistics, Div is ion of Coordination Studies. I N SPITE OF W I D E S P R E A D I N T E R E S T in industrial migration and of various efforts to accumulate detailed information on the nature of interstate movements and the characteristics of migrants, knowledge of this problem is still very limited. Current generalizations are necessarily based on numerous sample studies, covering comparatively short periods of time and often varying considerably in their conceptual approaches and their objectives. While the limitations of such studies are obvious, they must continue to serve as the primary source of information on the supply of migratory labor in this country, pending the development of a continuous sample of wage records or a system of periodic enumeration on a Nation-wide scale. The sample studies can perform the additional function of focusing attention on gaps and inadequacies in information and can thus serve as a guide in the formulation of more exhaustive studies. During 1940 and 1941 an analysis was made of the 1938 wage-record data of approximately 277,000 workers covered by the old-age and survivors insurance program, approximately 1 percent of all the workers with taxable wages under this program. While the major purpose of the study 1 was to estimate the effects of migration on the unemployment compensation rights of workers with wage credits under more than one State system, considerable data on the employment characteristics of migrants working in covered employment was obtained as a byproduct. Since these data not only corroborate the findings of some earlier studies but also add to the existing body of information on migration, i t seems desirable to make the material generally available. For the purposes of the study, workers with taxable wages under the old-age and survivors insurance program in more than one State during 1938 were designated migrants; workers with taxable wages in one State only were designated nonmigrants. I t should be remembered throughout the following discussion that the wage records of the Bureau of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance furnish data on only one segment of the total migrant population, that is, workers wi th taxable wages under the program. The wage records do not contain information on earnings or employment in agriculture, where a sizable proportion of the total migrant labor force is employed. Nor do they furnish information on earnings in other noncovered employment. Consequently, even for workers who have taxable wages in covered employment, the wage-record data are incomplete in that some covered workers have earnings in noncovered employment of which there is no record. However, since covered interstate workers are a very important element in the total migratory labor force, their wage and employment data provide an important check on current generalizations about migrants and at the same time indicate areas where further study must be done.