On June 23, 1869, the first bureau of labor statistics in the world was reluctantly established by the Massachusetts state legislature. Clearly an attempt by state elites to quell rising working-class unrest, local labor leaders were given control of the bureau. Inspired by the long-standing American “free labor” ideology, which focused on the power dynamics between producers and capitalists, the bureau heads concluded that to truly measure the health of an economy, one needed to collect not only wage and price data but also profit rates.
This would prove difficult. When the bureau sent out a prepared questionnaire on profits, not a single one was returned by business owners. Furious, the bureau heads turned to the legislature to demand the legal power to collect this profit data. Their request was denied, yet they did not give up.
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