Clague, Ewan, 1896-1987

Economist.

Ewan Clague was born December 27, 1896, in Prescott, Washington, the son of immigrants from the Isle of Man. He married Dorothy Whipple. He attended the University of Washington and, after serving as an ambulance driver during World War I, attended the University of Wisconsin, where he studied under John R. Commons. On Commons recommendation, Commissioner Ethelbert Stewart brought him to work at the Bureau of Labor Statistics on productivity indexes. When that project ended, he worked at the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and the joined the Institute of Human Relations at Yale University, where he studied the effects on workers of the shutdown of rubber mills at Hartford and New Haven. Connecticut. He moved to Philadelphia as Director of Research and Professor of Social Research at the Pennsylvania School of Social Work. While in Philadelphia, he made a number of studies for the Lloyd Commission on Unemployment Relief and the Philadelphia County Relief Board. In 1936, he returned to Federal service as Associate Director, and later Director, of Research and Statistics for the Social Security Board. In 1940, he became Director of the Bureau of Employment Security. Clague served as Commission of Labor Statistics from August 1946 to September 1965. During his tenure, he established formal advisory relations with trade unions, formed a business advisory committee, directed the reconversion statistics program for employment and unemployment statistics, and developed job vacancy statistics. He continued improvements on labor force studies, wholesale and consumer price measurement, standard consumer budgets, studies of wages and industrial relations, and productivity indexes. He also reaffirmed the voluntary nature of the reporting process and the necessity for strict confidentiality of the data provided by respondents. He died in April 12, 1987, in Bethesda, Maryland.