Word: wage
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Planner, Inc. The name-Nathan-was familiar. Shortly after V-J day in 1945, Robert R. Nathan & his colleagues in OWMR predicted that there would be 8,000,000 unemployed in the U.S. before spring, 1946. Later he recommended a general wage increase. He said wages could go up without boosting prices. He was wrong in his prediction. There was no noticeable employment slump. And wages went up, but so did prices in a rising spiral of inflation...
Challenge to Labor. Nathan's unsurprising findings and explosive conclusions were these: although hourly wage rates have increased, labor's real wages have gone down because of 1) elimination of overtime, and 2) rising living costs (up nearly 20% since January 1945). If the present trend continues, he said, a wage increase of 23% will be necessary to bring real wages back to the January 1945 level...
...other words, Nathan concluded, U.S. corporations in 1946 made a "lavish profit," and show every sign of continuing to do the same in 1947. Therefore, industry can grant labor a substantial wage boost without raising prices. The total boost could be $5.1 billion for workers in manufacturing plants-in percentage, 21% ever present rates. U.S. business as a whole, he figured, could grant a 25% boost...
...effect, the "report" asked all U.S. workers: What are you waiting for? In a way, they were waiting for something just like the Nathan report to spark their long-planned wage drive with "facts...
...them showed a profit. But his report was enough to make them all targets of labor's new drive. C.I.O. leaders denied this, but the report was hardly out when the U.A.W.'s peppery redhead, Walter Reuther, announced a drive for a 23½?-an-hour wage rise in the automotive industry...