Economic Boom
The United States emerged from World War II in strong financial shape. The gross national product (GNP) soared 250 percent between 1945 and 1960, and per capita income (total income divided by the population) grew35 percent. During this fifteen-year period, the average real income (actual purchasing power) for American workers increased by as much as it had during the fifty years preceding World War II. Equally striking, 60 percent of Americans achieved middle-class status, and the number of salaried office workers rose 61 percent. Factory workers also experienced gains. Union membership leaped to the highest level in U.S. history, reaching nearly 17 million. In the mid-1950s, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) merged to increase labor union bargaining power, and the new AFL-CIO concentrated on improving its members’ income.
The affluence of the 1950s was much more equally distributed than the prosperity of the 1920s had been. As the middle class grew, the top 5 percent of wealthy families dropped in the percentage of total income they earned from 21.3 percent to 19 percent. Though poverty remained a persistent problem, the rate of poverty decreased, falling from 34 percent in 1947 to 22.1 percent in 1960 (Figure 25.1). A college education served as a critical marker of entry into the middle class. Traditionally, colleges and universities had been accessible only to the upper class. That began to change in the postwar era. Between 1940 and 1960, the number of high school students who went on to college more than doubled, with the percentage of Americans who went to college vastly exceeding that of the British and the French.
In addition to purchasing paperbacks, transistor radios, and rock ’n’ roll records, consumers bought televisions. TV sets became a household staple in the 1950s, and by 1960, 87 percent of Americans owned a television. Americans also continued to purchase automobiles—75 percent owned a car, most likely one produced by General Motors, Ford, or Chrysler. With gas supplies plentiful and the price per gallon less than 30 cents, automakers concentrated on size, power, and style to compete for buyers. With more cars on the road, motels built by chains such as Holiday Inn sprang up along the highways. Fast-food establishments proliferated to feed motorists and their families. McDonald’s hamburger restaurants, which first appeared in 1940 in San Bernardino, California, became the prototypical franchise chain for roadside fast food.