The Teen-Age Tide

The coolest customers in the U.S. these days are the nation's teenagers, who number 22 million and are growing as a group three times faster than the total population. Today's teen-ager seems less excited by his new Impala or Honda and his closetful of clothes than his father was about a new baseball glove. The real excitement is coming from the merchants, the admen and the market researchers, who are just beginning to realize fully the enormous potential that faces them. Teen-agers now have an income of about $12 billion a year--and they spend it almost as fast as they get it.

Last week, at a Philadelphia meeting of economists from all over the U.S., this spending was given major credit for keeping the U.S. economy advancing. Teen-agers have a far greater impact than even their large income suggests, said Du Pont Economist Charles B. Reeder, the father of a teen-age son. Reeder based his prediction of continued economic advance in the nation largely on the growing economic power of the twelve-to-19 group, chided his colleagues for "paying too little attention to the teen-ager's existence, economically speaking."

Bigger Allowances. It is quite an existence. Teen-agers now own 20% of all the cars sold in the U.S.; and 7,000,000 with driving licenses presumably find wheels when they want them. Teenagers spend more than $1.5 billion a year for entertainment. Though they comprise only 11% of the female population, teen-age girls account for 23% of all cosmetic and toilet goods sales (or $450 million worth each year), take home 20% of all women's clothes sold ($3.6 billion worth last year). The boys spend $120 million a year on such items as hair cream, mouth wash and deodorant. The number of teen-age stockholders has tripled to 500,000 in five years; minors hold fully 10% of the stock of the new Communications Satellite Corp.

Where does the money come from? Increasingly indulgent--and affluent--parents have steadily raised allowances, which now average $6 a week for boys, $4 for girls. But the allowance is just the beginning; it is almost always supplemented by "emergency loans," money for clothing and extras and gifts. Beyond that 272,000 teen-age boys and 220,000 girls work fulltime, averaging $2,221 and $2,933 respectively a year. Even for those still in school, work has become the style: 35% of the boys and 22% of the girls hold year-round part-time jobs, and more than half work during vacations. Today's teen-ager pulls down three times more money than his counterpart right after World War II.

Carrier of News. The boys' funds go for sports, dates (10% of all they spend), movies and clothing. The girls splurge on clothes and jewelry, records ($321 million last year) and cosmetics. Larger purchases are often financed by installment credit; one 17-year-old girl in five and two boys in five have their own charge accounts. But a large part of the teen-ager economic power is the influence he has on what his family buys, from the new car to the food and appliances that come into the home. Experts calculate that this influence controls the purchase of up to $30 billion-more a year. "The teen-ager," says U.C.L.A. Market Researcher Charles R. Campbell, "originates most mass buying trends that reach the adult market. Youth is the carrier of news into the family circle."

Aware of this power, shrewd corporations work hard to develop teen-age loyalties, catering to teen-age fads and fashions, talking their language and stressing youth in their advertising. Teen-agers may never take over the country, but the thought must occasionally occur To them. They now make up 12.% of the U.S. population, but because of high postwar birth rates, within five years they will constitute 20%. By that time, teen-agers will have a direct annual spending power of about $21 billion a year.

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