Dividends and Wages in Periods of Depression

Archive Report

Dividend Tendencies in Present and Past Depressions

Total dividends paid by American corporations in the depression year 1930 are estimated to have exceeded similar disbursements during the prosperity year 1929 by some $2,000,000,000. Although earnings fell off in the twelvemonth following the stock market collapse, payments to shareholders, especially during the first half of 1930, were in general either maintained at their previous levels or increased. The effects of poor business and falling profits have lately begun to manifest themselves in the form of reduced or omitted dividends, but at the same time numbers of companies are still paying their stockholders at former rates, even though current earnings may be insufficient to cover such payments. Large surpluses accumulated in the recent prosperous years have made ...

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