TABLE XI.-Profits before and after taxes, 1936–39 average, 1943 and 1944, 134 retail trade companies 1 Before crediting refund of taxes due to carry-back of excess profits: Apparel $45,000; food $404,000 in 1943 and $22,000 in 1944; mail-order houses $640,000; and other retail stores $154,000 in 1943 and $280,000 in 1944. After renegotiation refund of $1,062,000. NOTE.-Profits are shown before minority interest and contingency reserves which are deemed to be nonallowable appropriations from current income. Source: Division of Research, Office of Price Administration, Financial Analysis Branch. TABLE XII.-Profits before and after taxes, 1936-39 average, 1943 and 1944, 134 retail trade companies TABLE XIII.-Profits before and after taxes, 1936-39 average, 1943 and 1944, 134 retail trade companies 1 Before crediting refund of taxes due to carry-back of excess profits: Under $5,000, $18,000 in 1943 and $151,000 in 1944; $5,000 to $24,999, $272,000 in 1943 and $22,000 in 1944; $25,000 to $49,999; $136,000 in 1943 and $174,000 in 1944; $50,000 and over, $772,000. 2 After renegotiation refund of $1,062,000. NOTE.-Profits are shown before minority interest and contingency reserves which are deemed to be nonallowable appropriations from current income. Source: Division of Research, Office of Price Administration Financial Analysis Branch. TABLE XIV.-Profits before and after taxes, 1936-39 average, 1943 and 1944, 134 retail trade companies TABLE XV.-Percentage return on sales and net worth before and after taxes, 1936-39 average, 1942 and 1943 1 Net worth is the sum of common and preferred stocks, surplus, and surplus reserves. Calculations are based on the average of net worth at the beginning of each year. * Represents food chains only. Since independent food stores are, for the most part, small and unincorporated, their profits are not reported in the usual sources. Source: War Profits Study No. 11. Office of Price Administration. Basic data from OPA Financial Reports, Moody's Industrials, and Standard & Poor's Corporation Records. TABLE XVI. Sales of retail stores, by kind of business, 1939 to 1944 Source: Business Statistics Unit Department of Commerce, August 8, 1945. 1 CHART II. Chain stores sales as percentage of all retail sales 1 Percentages are based upon seasonally adjusted dollar values, Source: U. S. Department of Commerce. Mr. GOODMAN. I would like to discuss with the members of the committee what our union considers to be the most important aspects of the pending legislation. We feel that sections of the act which exempt (a) employees engaged in executive, administrative, professional, or local retailing capacity, or in the capacity of outside salesmen, and (b) employees engaged in any retail or service establishment the greater part of whose sales or service is in intrastate commerce, are an unfair exclusion from the provisions of the act of one of the most important groups who are suffering from substandard wages in this country. Commissioner Hinrichs, of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, I think has already testified that the largest group of workers receiving substandard wages, wages below 65 cents, many of them below 50 cents, are in the distribution trades, the retail and wholesale industry. We contend that a company like Montgomery Ward which has 1,000 units scattered throughout the United States is engaged in interstate commerce. Every one of those units is in close and intimate relation with a national headquarters, with their central supply depots, with their distribution units; and each and every one of them, in our opinion, should be covered under the provisions of the act. I would like to submit for the record a listing taken from the current issue of Printer's Ink, the issue of October 26, which shows the number of stores in chain stores, and it is as follows: Kroger Grocery Stores has 2,789 stores; Safeway, 2,457; J. C. Penney, 1,605; and down a long list of thousands of units operated, in our opinion, in interstate commerce, all of whom are now exempt from the provisions of this act. |