AS 1953 began, many economic prophets, both abroad and at home, publicly predicted an early U.S. recession or depression. But by year's end, despite the soothsayers' continuing gloom, the facts were plain: instead of a slump, the U.S. had racked up the greatest business year on record. Americans made more money and provided more things to spend it on than ever before. With only 7% of the world's population, the U.S. turned out 65% of the world's manufactured goods.
Not only did the U.S. economy prove its durability; it also proved its stability by fluctuating less than in any year since prewar days. To the free world, this was a guarantee that the political commitments of the U.S. would be solidly based on its continuing economic strength. Thus, while the Man of the Year was a European statesman (see FOREIGN NEWS), the men of the year who enabled him to stand so firmly for freedom and free enterprise were those who had proved how well it works. They were the businessmen who planned the U.S. production and the 62.1 million workers who turned it out.
The U.S. produced $43 billion in military goods in 1953—about one-half the dollar value of the peak World War II military production. Chief item: 12,000 military planes, of which hundreds were MIG-killing Sabre jets of "Dutch" Kindelberger's North American Aviation, Inc. But the economy was not strained by its huge defense load. The National Planning Association estimated that the U.S. could turn out almost twice as much in arms and still keep the standard of living rising.
In 1953 Americans slipped behind the wheels of 6,000,000 new cars (the second biggest auto year on record) and drove off over 46,000 miles of new roads worth $3 billion. They put their feet into 500 million pairs of new shoes, walked into 1,100,000 new houses and apartments, spent a record of $34.7 billion on construction of all types. Housewives cleaned their homes with more new vacuum cleaners (3,000,000) than in 1952, and washed their clothes with more new washing machines (3,700,000); to do the job, they bought a record $400 million worth of soap and detergents. They sat down before more new TV sets (7,000,000 v. 6,000,000 in 1952)—so many, in fact, that TV sets outnumbered telephones in six U.S. cities, and even outnumbered bathtubs in one (Chicago). They bought more food ($60 billion worth) than ever before. Per capita, Americans last year ate more than their average weight in meat alone—151 Ibs. v. 144 Ibs. in 1952.
Dynamic Force
Part of the reason for this standard of living was that the year was free of industry-wide strikes and had far fewer minor stoppages (27 million man-days lost v. 59.1 million in 1952). The Eisenhower Administration, which freed wages and prices from controls, also thought that collective bargaining should be free from the kind of governmental interference that contributed so directly to the long steel strike of 1952. With the bargaining balance restored, both labor and management found it to their advantage to come to terms.