e standard wage to be noted is that it is
only a minimum wage for the occupation for which it is enforced.
Standard wage rates are not of necessity the actual wage rates received,
by all or even a majority of the wage earners employed upon the tasks to
which they apply. They do sometimes become the actual rates received by
most of the wage earners concerned; they become the wage, ordinarily, of
those workers who fall around the average in skill and experience. This
fact is liable to misinterpretation. It may be taken to mean that the
more efficient workmen do not receive recognition for their greater
efficiency. What it usually would signify is that the wages of the less
efficient members of the group are increased.

As a matter of fact variations from the standard wage are commonly
found. Mr. Collier, after an analysis of Australasian experience,
concludes on this point "... But this is not saying that the minimum
wage is necessarily the maximum. Although statistics as to wage
distribution are largely lacking, the weight of opinion is contrary to
this supposition. In some industries, such as the building trades,
where contracts are made upon the basis of a legally fixed rate, this
rate is frequently the maximum. Yet such instances are in the minority.
Employers do not reduce the pay of their most competent workers because
they are compelled to pay those less qualified at a minimum rate."[72]
It will be found usually that the abler, the more skilled or more
experienced workers in particular occupations receive higher wages than
the standard, because of the special value of their services.[73]
Occasionally also agreements are entered into for the employment of a
small number of workers, who are acknowledged to be well below the
ordinary level of efficiency in their trade or occupation, because of
physical disability, old age or analogous causes. As Prof. McCabe has
said, "Nearly all unions permit members who have become unable to
command the minimum rate because of old age or physical infirmity to
work for what they can get."[74]

A second characteristic of standard wage rates is that they may take the
form of time-rates, or payment by results, or any combination of the
two. Trade union agreements in the United States include all these
varieties. It is true that a system of standard time rates is likely to
be more in accord with the sentiment underlying the standardization
movement. For under a system of payment by resu