Abstract

Prosperity - How Long Will It Last?

Americans still have prosperity: profits are exorbitant and unemployment is low, even though workers are less well off because wages have not kept pace with rising prices. In his recent report U.S. President Harry S. Truman said: "Americans today live in a either and more productive economy than ever before in peace-time history." But the fact that Americans have prosperity today does not assure of having it tomorrow. "The United States has produced and consumed more goods in proportion to population than ever before in its history. American standard of living has therefore been the highest in our history and is, of course, the highest its the world." These words are taken not from the report, but from the 1926 Annual Report of the Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover.