[Questions 13 - 18 were asked of persons 10 years of age and older.]
17. What wage or salary do you earn?
Salary B/s. ____ per ____
Commission B/s. ____ per ____
Pension B/s. ____ per month
(Only for persons 10 years old or older)
Keep in mind that questions 13-18 of this section correspond only to persons 10 years old or older.
The answers obtained in question 13 are the basis for classifying the population of persons 10 years old or older as economically active (employed or unemployed) and as not economically active (homemaker, student, retired, pensioned, rentier, or other inactive persons).
The questions relating to the section are applied to the situation existing in the week immediately before the day of the Census (reference week).
Definition of reference week or "last week": It is the complete calendar week from Sunday to Saturday that for census purposes goes from May 3 to May 9, 1970.
Question 17 What wage or salary do you earn?
This question is only for persons who declared to have worked last week (box 1 of Question 13) as [p. 47] an Employee of the Government, of a Private Company, or of the Panama Canal Zone (box 1, 2 or 3 respectively of Question 15). Do not include in these cases [here] persons pensioned for food, divorce, etc.
Write down in Balboas, in the corresponding space, the total amount of the wage or salary that the person earns, according to whether it is hourly, daily, weekly or monthly. If the person also receives income by commission, pension or retirement, write down the sum in the corresponding space. It is very important to note that this question can have more than one answer.
Examples:
Salary B/0.60 per hour even when the payment is given weekly.
2. If the payment is established as B/150.00 monthly make the annotation in the following manner:
Salary B/150.00 per month even when the payment is paid every two weeks. Such is the case with Government employees, whose wage is fixed in a monthly sum, but receive payment every two weeks.
3. If the person works as salesperson for an electric appliances shop with a fixed wage of B/200.00 monthly, plus a monthly commission according to the total amount of the sale (let's say that the commission in the last month was B/160.00), the annotation of this information will be done in the following manner:
Salary B/200.00 monthly
Commission B/160.00 monthly
4. If the person is retired with a pension of B/60.00 monthly and also works as a watchman with a monthly wage of B/90.00, this information will be written down as:
Salary B/90.00 per month
Pension B/60.00 per month
[p. 48]
It should not be forgotten that the question refers to the gross wage or salary, that is to say without deducting Social Security payments or Income Taxes or any other deductions like a loan from a bank or other credit institutions. Do not forget that this question applies to those persons who were on vacation, sick or on leave during the reference week and were classified in box 1, 2, or 3 of Question 15. You will ask these persons for their last salary or wage before going on vacation, on leave or getting sick.