Full & Growing

"Constant employment and well-paid labor produce, in a country like ours, general prosperity, content and cheerfulness."

--Daniel Webster, in the U.S. Senate

By Daniel Webster's standard, there was good reason last week for content and cheerfulness in the U.S. In a joint report, the Commerce and Labor Departments announced that U.S. employment in July reached an alltime record level of 64,995,000. This represented an upsurge of 5,000,000 jobs since February, far above the normal seasonal rise of 3,000,000, and put the number of U.S. workers on the job at a full 2,847,000 above a year ago. With average earnings of factory workers up to $1.88 an hour, 8-c- above a year ago, U.S. labor was better paid than ever before.

The new figures were the best possible answer to the doom criers of only a few months ago, who foresaw recession and automation creating critical unemployment. In July, unemployment stood at 2,471,000, a reduction of 200,000 in a month and nearly 1,000,000 below a year ago. During the first half of 1955, the number of jobs in the U.S. increased faster than the labor force. Of every six new civilians entering the work force in June, only one was without a job in July.

Is the U.S. at "full employment?" Almost, say economists. The July unemployment total was 3.7% of the U.S. labor force, which has increased to a record 67.5 million. Many economists regard 3% of the work force as an irreducible peacetime minimum of workers temporarily shifting between jobs or permanently unemployable.* With record employment in the second quarter of 1955, the U.S. was producing goods and services at the record annual rate of $385 billion (up $9.7 billion a year from the first quarter). Can this rushing pace of U.S. employment and production be maintained? Many economists believe it can. If the present rate is extended to 1975, U.S. employment will have trebled in the first 75 years of the 20th century, while the value of the national output, spurred by higher wages and rising living standards, will have increased sixfold (see chart).

The mainspring of this economic expansion is population. Right now, U.S. population is in the midst of its greatest buildup of the 20th century. By 1975 it can reasonably be expected to reach 221 million--an increase in 20 years equal to its total gain during the first 40 years of the century. Expanding apace with this lusty market, the U.S. economy should continue to create more and more jobs.

* In 1933, at depression's depth, 24.9% of the work force was unemployed. As late as 1940, the total was still 14.6%.

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