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constructed for a postv,'ar New Deal on a much broader basis than the prewar New Deal. This new structure will rest upon a base of guaranteed prices for farmers and assurance of high wages for workers, plus a deliberate effort to hold down prices and to limit profit margins of business through competition and through control.
"Part of the structure of postwar pohcy is being shaped in action, part in attitude. The action already taken assures a further rise in the guaranteed price of wheat and cotton. Action scheduled to be taken, barring a last-minute change of mind, will assure a further rise in the level of hourly wage rates in basic industries. The attitude disclosed is that industry and trade shall absorb increased costs of labor and materials in narrower margins of profit.
"In brief, the moves now being made that foreshadow a postwar New Deal include the ones that follow:
"For farmers: The Government now guarantees, as a result of action just taken, that farmers shall receive full 'parity' prices for the 1944 wheat and cotton crop, minus the cost to the Commodity Credit Corporation headed by J. B. Hutson, of carrying that crop. This means an increase of about three cents a bushel to wheat growers, with a record 1,115,000,000 bushel crop; and it means about three quarters of a cent a pound more for cotton. Higher prices are ordered by the Government at a time when farm prices generally are 90 per cent above prewar average, and when farm cash income is more than twice the pre
January, 1945
war average. Congress ordered the White House to use every means to assure full parity.
"For wage earners: Added income to farmers is a prelude to action that is to result in a further moderate increase in hourly wage rates of labor. This action, unless present decisions are altered at the last minute, is to add about eight cents an hour on the average to the wages of workers in the steel industry. The increase would be within the framework of present wage controls, supervised by Fred M. Vinson, Director of Economic Stabilization. An increase to steel workers then would be followed by increases to workers in automobile, aluminum, electrical, shipbuilding, packing-house and glass industries, among others. Wage earners, on an average, are enjoying hourly wages, on a straighttime basis, that are about 50 per cent above prewar. These wage rates arcto be pushed up to about 55 per cent of that level if present plans go through.
"For industry: United States industry is to be told that it can assume the wartime increase in wage rates, plus the increase now scheduled, without raising prices. These increased costs are to come out of profit margins, on the basis of existing plans. The White House is assured by economists of the Office of Price Administration, of the Commerce Department and of the Labor Department that United States industry will be well able in peacetime to absorb the higher costs by getting along with a smaller margin of profit and by depending upon increased volume to