| Occupational group | APPLICANTS IN EACH SPECIFIED OCCUPATIONAL GROUP | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | Per cent | |||
| Before fire | After fire | Before fire | After fire | |
| Professional service | 67 | 133 | 6.1 | 2.9 |
| Public service | 13 | 28 | 1.2 | .6 |
| Personal and domestic service | 259 | 1,205 | 23.4 | 26.6 |
| Unskilled labor | 243 | 935 | 22.0 | 20.6 |
| Transportation | 85 | 297 | 7.7 | 6.5 |
| Trade | 107 | 410 | 9.6 | 9.0 |
| Manufacturing and mechanical industries | 297 | 1,440 | 26.8 | 31.8 |
| Miscellaneous occupations | 36 | 89 | 3.2 | 2.0 |
| Total | 1,107 | 4,537 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
[237] Data are not available as to the occupations of 443 of the 1,550 persons applying for relief before the fire, and of 1,414 of the 5,951 persons applying for relief after the fire.
In the two years before April 18, 1906, as in the two years following June 1, 1907, the largest percentage of persons was engaged in those vocations which are grouped as mechanical and manufacturing trades, as unskilled labor, and as personal and domestic service. The proportion of applicants in these three groups combined was, however, smaller before the fire, totaling 72.2 per cent before the fire as compared with 79 per cent in the later period. This is possibly due, in part, to the fact that the proportion of persons whose occupation was unknown was larger before the fire than after. The proportion of demand for help from persons in professional and public service was larger before the fire than after, for applicants in these occupations constituted 7.3 per cent of the cases in the period from April, 1904, to April, 1906, and only 3.5 per cent of the later cases. The disaster only slightly affected the proportion of persons in need who were in transportation employment or in trade. Before the fire 7.7 per cent of all applicants were in transportation employment and 9.6 per cent in trade, and after the fire 6.5 per cent were in transportation employment and 9 per cent in trade.
No specific data as to income are offered, because after some brief experimentation a study of income seemed futile. A person applying for aid may understate his income because he is humanly open to the temptation of trying to make as good a case for himself as possible, or may overstate it because he does not take into account the amount of irregularity to which he as a weekly or daily wage-earner is subject. In about 3000 of the cases in which income data were available for study, the potential earning power could have been in every case safely estimated by the occupations. The income for the average breadwinners, most of them semi-skilled, may be said to have approached during the periods stated the sum of $15 to $20 per week, an amount that represents something near the minimum earning power of the wage workers in San Francisco, a class of persons paid more highly than in any other part of the United States. For instance, among the American families burned out who were given aid, 32 gave their earning power at $10 to $15 per week, 27 at $15 to $20, and 21 at $20 or over.
It is of course of fundamental importance that the relief agent should know the total income of the families or individuals applying for aid. Only by learning what the income actually or approximately is can treatment be made to fit actual need. The record hurriedly written under pressure of work may fail to reveal the facts used by the investigator in determining treatment. The record may not, therefore, show the actual sum of knowledge held and used as the basis for treatment. The record, on the other hand, may be no more meager than was the investigation that it records. In the latter case, investigation, as well as treatment, has been in the hands of an agent who has lacked either time or training, or both, to do work such as is called for by the present standards of adequate case work.[238]
[238] See [Part III], [p. 173], for method of determining income of persons owning their own business.
Summarizing the facts concerning the character of the cases and the situation that forced these individuals to seek aid, it would appear that the cases group themselves into three leading types.
1. Dependency because of abnormal conditions.
2. Dependency because disaster had converted semi-dependency into complete dependency.
3. Dependency because character and circumstance, irrespective of abnormal conditions, induced dependency.