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In 1936, Edna Clark Wentworth and
Frederick Simplich Jr. studied the living standards of 101 Filipino families on a sugar
plantation.
The average family received an annual income of $682.81 which included the earnings of all
family members. More than half of the families, 57%, ended the year with an average
deficit of $85. Less than half of the families, 43%, ended the year with an average
surplus of $99 a year. The average deficit of all families was $8.35 for the year.
By 1939, wages had increased only slightly. The average sugar worker earned about 27 cents
an hour, or $587 a year. Most of the plantation families had to spend 50% of their income
for food and the larger families were “apt to suffer from malnutrition,” noted
James Shoemaker in the 1939 Bureau of Labor Statistics Report on Hawaii.
Photo by Augie Salbosa.
Detail from the ILWU mural “Solidaridad Sindical” by Pablo O’Higgins. A plantation family is depicted contemplating a paycheck that is not enough to make ends meet.