Why was the USA so prosperous in the years 1945 - 63?

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Why was the USA so prosperous in the years 1945 – 63?

By 1963 America was seen as the great world power. This was very hard to believe because of the 1929 Wall Street crash in which the economy had effectively collapsed. The whole of America was going through a great Depression, which would eventually last until World War II. This indeed was the trigger that would gradually give America unrivalled wealth for years to come.  

Americans were becoming more accustomed to a government with greater powers because of Roosevelt’s New Deal. During the New Deal, the Federal government introduced a more centralised administration and was in a better position to extend this role during the war.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Americans enjoyed exceptional wealth. This was because of the huge economic growth, in which most middle class white Americans were provided with a comfortable lifestyle and a suitable amount of money. The Gross National Product increased from $284.6 billion to $502.6 billion, which meant that the USA was now producing half of the world’s goods! Between 1939 – 1959 the percentage of factory workers wages increased by 240%. Unemployment in 1939 stood at 9.5 million (17%). In 1944 unemployment rapidly decreased to just 670,000.

During the war, the US economy was starting to produce a large sum of military supplies. These military supplies could also be exported overseas to make even more profit. In 1942, the War Production Board was set up to transform the peacetime industry to the war production. Examples of this were:

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  • Carmakers were starting to produce tanks.
  • Producers of stoves and refrigerators were now manufacturing munitions.
  • Airforces needed more aircraft’s, so they were built.
  • Coal, iron, oil and steel all expanded vastly to deal with the extra $175 billion of government war contracts.

Because these businesses were expanding so greatly, they obviously needed more employees to work for them. So this therefore gave people much more jobs. People with much more jobs, means people with much more money. This money would be spent, which would make the economy grow because businesses could expand and employ more people. This ...

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