Preparing the
Homefront Economy

This article appeared six months before the 77th Congress passed a price control law as a wartime measure in an attempt to stave off inflation (The Emergency Price Control Act of 1942). The column pertains to the early planning of a wartime economy as the nation prepared to devote itself to total war.

“According to current Washington dispatches, Administration leaders believe that it will be sufficient if Congress merely provides for placing a ceiling over industrial prices, with perhaps further action sometime later for holding down rents. And that is all. Nothing is to be done about wages. Nothing is to be done about agricultural prices.”

“‘sometime later” something was done about wages and something was done about agricultural prices.

Click here to read about Federal income control.

Click here to read about the income ceiling imposed on Hollywood actors.