January 5, 1914Reputable sourceWell documented
Ford's Five-Dollar Day
On the timeline · around January 5, 1914 ·
What happened
On 5 January 1914 Ford Motor Company announced it would roughly double pay to a minimum of five dollars for an eight-hour day — a profit-sharing plan on top of the base wage. The move answered a crippling labour-turnover problem on the monotonous assembly line, which had reached some 370 percent, and it made Ford jobs among the most sought-after in America.
Why it matters
The five-dollar day slashed turnover and, in Ford's telling, let his own workers afford the cars they built. It became a landmark in industrial labour and helped create the mass consumer market that the automobile depended on.
Sources
- The Henry Ford. Ford's Five-Dollar Day · Reputable source