Word: indexers
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...consumer price index put out monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics directly controls the wages of well over 1,000,000 workers; a fractional miscalculation could cost U.S. employers millions of dollars in paychecks. The farm support program is based on the Agriculture Department's calculations of how much farmers must pay for such essentials as tractors, seed and fertilizer. Since these calculations in turn affect the prices of farm products, the U.S. housewife meets Government statistics every time she stops at the check-out counter of the supermarket. Department stores use Federal Reserve Board retail-sales figures...
...because they are far from perfect. Says Arthur F. Burns, head of the President's Council of Economic Advisers: "Although the construction industry is of strategic importance in our economy, statistical information about the industry is very weak . . . Prices of consumer durable goods entering into the Consumer Price Index are official or quoted prices; they are not 'actual' prices taking full account of variations in markdowns, discounts, trade-in allowances, or premiums and other forms of surcharges...
...stock market also took a breather. The Dow-Jones industrial index closed the week at 339.96. off 1¼ points from the previous week-the first time in a month that it was down for the week. But aircraft stocks were helped along by the Air Force decision to sign contracts for $1 billion worth of new planes in the next four months-many climbed to their bull-market peaks...
French politics may be subject to ups and downs, but French production is going in one direction-up. In May the official index for industrial production climbed to an alltime high of 158 (on a scale in which 1938 production is 100). Automobile output in April rose 33%, textiles 11%, chemicals 20%, electricity 15% over the same month in 1953. Altogether France's total industrial output is nearly 8.2% higher than a year ago. The difficulty is that higher production has yet to reflect itself in substantially lower prices or higher wages for the average Frenchman...
Unemployment -compensation claims dropped to the lowest full-week levels this year, and the Commerce Department reported "modest improvement" in manufacturing since the first of the year. In May, for the first time in three months, the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index went up, thus averting a 1?-per-hour pay cut for a million railroad workers...