Bedrock Living

The estimates transmitted herewith give the requirements of the bedrock standard of living.

So said energetic Joseph L. Weiner, WPB's Director of Civilian Supply, as he sent to Economic Stabilizer Jimmy Byrnes last week a report to answer the question: For the purposes of total war, just how much fat can be pared from the U.S. way of life?

Joe Weiner's answer was that U.S. civilians could play their part in total war with 68.6% of the goods and services they used in 1941. Civilians, he said, could carry on with 0.0% of 1941's jewelry and sterling ware, monuments and tombstones, passenger cars and boats. They needed merely 2.5% of 1941's phonographs and radios, 3.7% of washing machines and refrigerators. They would not suffer with a balanced 71.8% of food, yet "for morale" they should have 65% of beer & wine, 75.2% of tobacco.

Civilians must have 79.1% of 1941's toothbrushes--but only 35.1% of dentifrices (salt and bicarbonate of soda, said Joe Weiner, are just-as-good substitutes). They could do with 58.3% of packaged medicines but not without 107.2% of sanitary napkins ("with women entering industry to a greater extent, it is not possible to revert to improvised methods and materials"). They required no paper facial tissues but 92.1% of toilet paper. (The report said its use "has increased considerably since 1939.")

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