Panama Canal Wages

[Rob Klein]

For Kriton:  The engineers working on the Panama Canal in the first years
after 1904 were mostly US citizens, but most of the physical workers were
Panamanians.  Thirty cents US for the latter at that time, to spend back in
Panama City or their other towns in Panama, would,  INDEED, have been a
princely sum.  

In the early 1950s, when Barks was writing his Uncle Scrooge stories, $0.30
per hour would not have been (to the best of my recollection) even a salary
for an adolescent, or an unskilled worker in USA.  $100 per week was a good
salary for a breadwinner at that time.  Many less fortunate or less skilled
people were getting by on $40 per week.  40 - 50 hours @ $ 0.30 = $12 - $15
per week.  That would have been enough to live in a cheap hotel(flophouse)
in big city centres, among the drunkards, cheap prostitutes and
down-and-outers, but that wouldn't have been enough for most of the
"general population" at that time.  It would have stretched farther in
small towns and the countryside, but still not enough.  

It seems to me, that Scrooge's comment is used by Don Rosa as an ironic
presager of the ongoing (running) gag of Donald's (and the Boys') salary of
$0.30 per hour.  He would NEVER pay such a PRINCELY sum (as it certainly
would have been to Panamanian ditchdiggers in 1904-1910) to ANYONE!  Then,
ironically, Scrooge pays his own next of kin that same amount (never
adjusted for inflation); when it becomes a very poor salary in the 1950s,
and almost totally worthless (to the novice Worldwide reader - who may
think the stories take place in the year 2000!).

As I am just remembering from my childhood, and as a "visitor", I wouldn't
"bet the farm" on the accuracy of my numbers.  I'm hoping that Don will
tell us exactly what he had in mind.   

Rob Klein