An analysis of Cleveland's contribution to one of the P. W. A. projects, the Outhwaite, costing $3,500,000, shows that the city government actually contributed in money by virtue of street vacations, utility-department damages, repaving, and so forth, the sum of $74,711.16. The cost of a large community development, including building, swimming pool, tennis courts, playgrounds, and so forth, amounts to $641,260. In fairness it should be said that this development was begun prior to the housing development, but had it not been under way and nearly completed the P. W. A. would have had to put these facilities in, and it thus would have added to the cost of the project. Therefore the city of Cleveland contributed nearly $716,000 to the cost of the development. Had the necessary schools not been present, an additional sum would have been expended by the P. W. A. The present value of the schools which will serve the neighborhood is $1,150,000. So that, even without requiring a local participation in meeting the cost of houses, the city has made a very large contribution.

The man in the street is apt to neglect entirely this type of assistance. It is, however, quite as necessary to well-designed modern housing undertakings as cash paid out to builders and architects.

The Wagner bill further makes possible financial assistance by local governments to Federal housing projects in the form of agreements to accept service charges for the ordinary municipal services. These charges might be less in amount than the full taxes assessed against similar properties. Agreements of this kind may make substantial contributions to lower rents. They are further justified by the fact that the ability of low-income families to contribute to the expenses of local governments is not increased merely because they may move into public housing projects.

I do not wish, however, to becloud the main fact by discussing details of local government cooperation. This main fact is that in the near future local governments, with their present sources of revenue and their present duties and obligations, will not be able to contribute large amounts for housing loans and subsidies. This is clearly recognized by the Wagner bill. The United States Housing Authority is therefore very properly given broad powers to make both annual and lump-sum grants to projects undertaken and owned by local agencies.

In conclusion, may I again repeat that we believe in a wellrounded-out housing program which will result in improvement of housing conditions not only of the lowest income group, through the aid of a government subsidy, but also in improving the conditions of more fortunate members of society by the aid of low-interest money which costs the Government nothing and through participation by Government, through an insurance or guaranty system in a program to encourage home ownership by those who can afford it.

However, the problem that the low-income group present is so great and the solution has been neglected so long that this is the problem requiring our immediate attention. There is no reason why the solution of low-cost housing cannot go forward while the rest of the program is being developed.

The previous national administration as well as the present one has issued statements indicating their interest in the solution of the

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housing problems of the low-income group. The Wagner bill points the way. It should be enacted this session of Congress. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Green, will you come forward?

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM GREEN, PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR

The CHAIRMAN. Will you state your full name?

Mr. GREEN. William Green.

The CHAIRMAN. And you are president of the American Federation of Labor?

Mr. GREEN. Yes; president of the American Federation of Labor. The CHAIRMAN. Appearing both personally and in your official position, I assume?

Mr. GREEN. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. We will be pleased to have your views on this matter of slum clearance, and particularly the bill by Senator Wagner.

Mr. GREEN. I appreciate the opportunity of coming this morning and presenting to the committee what I think are the views of the officers and members of the American Federation of Labor regarding this very important piece of legislation.

First of all, I wish to say that the American Federation of Labor extends to the bill sponsored by Senator Wagner its unqualified support. We regard this measure as of tremendous importance. I think it is not exaggeration to say that we look upon it as one of the most important pieces of legislation introduced into the Congress of the United States at this session.

We regard the measure as of deep economic and social significance, and we interpret it as being in a very large degree a remedy for unemployment.

I wanted to make that preliminary statement, before presenting to you in detail a statement of my view.

As the current business revival gathers momentum, pressing questions present themselves in the minds of the people. How lasting will be this revival? Will it produce enough employment to absorb the mass of those who are today without jobs and dependent on public relief? Will this recovery mean a balanced unfolding of productive activity in all phases of economic production and distribution or will it mean a sporadic revival confined only to certain segments of industry and trade?

I am keenly aware that today these questions command the thoughts of workers, consumers, employers, and investors alike. They do because on the answers depends the entire economic, social, and political future of our Nation, because these answers will furnish the measure not only of the immediate well-being of the people but the greatness of America that is to come.

But I am no less convinced that the American workers as a class are more keenly alive to the significance of these problems than any other group because during the past 6 years the worker and his family shouldered the heaviest load in the staggering burden of the depression, and today it is also the worker whose economic future is the least definite and the least secure. Knowledge of the fact that there are still 12,000,000 men and women without jobs haunts the

existence of every wage earner in America. That is a challenge to our social order.

Out of this realization of a vital need for effective safeguards against permanent unemployment and economic stagnation comes organized labor's demand for prompt action by this Congress designed to insure for the workers a full measure of reemployment and an equitable share in the balanced economic progress.

The United States housing bill of 1936, now before your committee, contains a program at once simple and far-reaching, which will not only provide an expedient solution for the housing problem but also will sustain and rectify the course of economic recovery.

There are four points in this measure which stand out with striking emphasis, it appears to me, and they are the points embodied in this measure, representing in my judgment, the real crux of the housing problem:

First, decentralization of responsibility.

Second, adequate safeguards against Government competition with legitimate private enterprise.

Third, recognition of the necessity of Federal grants in the form of loans and grants.

Fourth, measures to keep down the Federal expenditures to the minimum by encouraging as large investment of private capital as possible.

Those are the four important points I get out of the bill as I read it.

We are well aware that industry as yet shows no signs of sustained reemployment of any significant portion of the jobless. Total unemployment in February of this year stood at 12,550,000.

No one will question that the answer to unemployment is not relief but work in industry.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Green, do you mind telling us the method by which you reach that figure?

Mr. GREEN. Well, it is the method followed by all of the statisticgathering agencies. We first secure the reports regarding unemployment from all of the industrial centers of the country. Those reports are submitted in a formula prepared by our statistics department. Then the total unemployed supplemented in the reports with the total of employables are figured out in a mathematical manner, and in that way we arrive at the conclusion.

I will admit, Senator, it may not be entirely accurate, but it is as accurate as it is humanly possible to make it, when we take into account the available sources of securing information.

Secondly, it includes within it those who are employed in the C. C. C. camps and upon relief projects throughout the entire country, because, of course, they are unemployed temporarily at work and must be considered as among the army of unemployed.

The number employed in the C. C. C. camps and upon relief projects, deducted from the 12,550,000 unemployed would, of course, reduce that number who are actually unemployed.

That is the method, as near as I can tell you at the moment, Senator.

The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed.

Mr. GREEN. It is significant, therefore, that our relief rolls last year exceeded the pay rolls of the five largest industries-textiles

and clothing, railroads, building, machinery, iron and steel and their products. These industries employed on the average of 4,737,000 in 1935, while relief rolls averaged 4,798,000 cases. These employed workers averaged in the spring earnings $23 a week and created by their work a total purchasing power of $5,600,000,000. At the same time, those on relief were maintained on a poverty income of less than $6.50 a week at a total cost of $1,978,000,000 in Government borrowings and taxes.

I know of no other evidence, not only economic evidence but evidence of human suffering, misery, and degradation, which is staring us in the face, that would point to the immediate action to create work, give these unemployed a chance to create wealth, and offer them an opportunity of decent living.

In considering the problem of unemployment we are brought face to face with the fact that, in addition to all the other types of unemployment, technological unemployment offers the most serious threat to our economic welfare in the immediate future. The increase in productivity per worker per hour was consistently sustained during the depression. Current trends indicate that this rate is being further accelerated. If this tendency continues during the next 10 years, as it unquestionably will, additional millions of jobless will be added to the already staggering numbers of unemployed.

I often hear that this threat of technological unemployment is brushed aside on the assumption that all historical precedents prove this problem to be unreal. Technological improvements have always been absorbed, it is said, and in the long run produced more employment opportunities. But those who take such an optimistic view lose sight of the fact that all technological changes in the past have taken place in an economy of expanding markets.

The industrial revolution took place at the time of a vast territorial expansion of industrial nations. More recently it was the expansion of domestic markets that enabled us to absorb this technological unemployment. Building and construction and production of capital equipment was the largest factor enabling us to approach balance and visible prosperity during the post-war years. Without further expansion of domestic markets the country cannot absorb the increased output which technological improvements will bring about.

Our western frontier is closed. Foreign trade offers but slim prospects of further expansion. The only hope of securing a balanced economic program lies in measures which will achieve some degree of redistribution of our national income, placing into the hands of the low-income groups sufficient purchasing power to attain a standard of decent living. To my mind, no other contribution toward the achievement of balanced economy could be more sound or more fundamental at this time of all times than a low-cost housing program envisaged in this legislation.

The experience of Great Britain during the past 4 years best illustrates the significance of housing as a factor in economic recovery. Between 1932 and 1934, in a period of only 2 years, the index of production in Great Britain on a 1928 basis rose from 88 to 105. During the same period production in steel rose from 62 to 104.

Building construction seems to serve as a sort of index to the heavy-goods industries. You stimulate building construction and

you stimulate and accelerate production in the heavy-goods industries, and I think any thinking man who knows anything about our economic troubles, realizes that the only thing that is retarding economic recovery is the failure of the heavy-goods industries to move along in parallel with consumers-goods industries.

During the same time the total employment rose from 94 to 100. None of these rising trends go back of 1932, except the building activity and particularly housing. While total building activity arose from a low of 93 in 1931 to 141 in 1934, housing alone rose from 101 to 173.

Here is a strong argument, an unanswerable argument, in support of this splendid measure.

Table I in which these figures are summarized illustrates most convincingly that the British housing program was one of the most important factors in sustaining British recovery.

I will submit at the conclusion of my statement table I and several other tables for your consideration.

There is also a vital national industrial problem involved in this housing legislation. The building industry, and above all, the business of producing homes for people to live in, is sick. Instead of meeting the fundamental needs of the average American family, it has been a "luxury trade", catering only to the richest one-third or one-quarter of the population. Instead of providing steady employment for workers, as any industry producing a basic human necessity like shelter would, it has been the most uncertain and fluctuating of all our great national industries.

There were 2,091,000 gainfully employed workers in the construction industry in 1929. But even in that year of "golden prosperity", 252,000, or nearly 11 percent of all workers attached to the building industry, were unemployed. Throughout 1935 there were 1,732,383 workers in the industry without employment.

I think I have stated on numerous occasions in a general way, based upon our statistics, that from 70 to 80 percent of building mechanics have been idle, fluctuating just a little during all of the intervening years between 1929 and 1936. No group of workers, in my judgment, has suffered from more unemployment that building mechanics. These figures are striking and impressive.

In other words, during the past year, 74 percent of all workers attached to the building industry were without jobs. In February 1936, in this month of seasonably low construction activity, 80 percent of the building-trades workers were unemployed, a rate of unemployment almost equal to that of March 1933.

Of course, January and February are bad months, but just think of it, 80 percent of these people out of work, men whose earnings are perhaps larger than other groups because of their skill and training, but a group of workers who constitute a very important part in the purchasing power of the Nation.

But it is not only unemployment in the construction industry itself that we are concerned with. It has been frequently estimated that as an immediate effect of reemployment in the construction industry for every worker reemployed another worker is reemployed in industries other than construction. This double effect of increased building activity is of course bound to give further stimulus