How did the end of the world war 2 affect consumerism in America?

Answer 1

The Great Depression hit in 1929. Soon, unemployment in the US was 25%, and in those days only a few unmarried women were in the work force. As soon as a woman got married she was expected to quit her job and stay home to take care of the children, who were expected to begin arriving soon. So that 25% was almost all men, mostly married, with families. There was no welfare, no food stamps, no government assistance to speak of. What assistance there was was done by the counties, on a county by county basis. Nothing was available until you had lost everything, including your home, and could prove you had absolutely no resources, and even after you went down to the county offices and put yourself through that humiliating process, you might find that even though you qualified, the county has no money to give for "public relief". So, people had NO MONEY. NONE. They could not buy food. Farmers did not bother to harvest crops, since no one could buy what they grew. Dairy farmers milked their cows and dumped the milk out on the ground, rather than go to the additional expense of driving the milk to town, when no one there had any money to pay them for the milk. It was a complete disaster. The Republicans controlled Congress and the White House, and then, as now, believed that it was not a proper function of government to give assistance to citizens in need, so they did not even try to help, instead preferring to wait for the "business cycle" to eventually - maybe in a few years - create some jobs. So this was the financial climate which persisted through the 1930s. Kids growing up in those years often had what we would think of as a very deprived childhood, and then had to go fight a world war as soon as they grew up. Because malnutrition, if continued over years when a person is growing up, has lots of permanent ill-effects on a person's growth and development, when the US did begin drafting men for military service in WWII, about one-fourth of the Depression-era babies had to rejected for medical reasons stemming from their starvation childhood. With the economy in that sort of shape few people had any money whatsoever to throw away on anything but the absolute, bare necessities. Those who had a job did whatever they could to keep it. Ford, for instance, cut its workers pay, and put fewer workers on the assembly line, to increase profits. If you didn't like it, there were ten men standing outside the factory gate, with starving children at home, who would be more than happy to start right away at your job. People who lived on a farm, or by the sea where they could fish, at least might get something to eat. But nobody had any money for cars, houses, washing machines, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, or any of the other "conveniences". A child might get one new pair of shoes per year, when school started. Even store-bought clothes were a near luxury. So the people who had worked in factories making consumer goods in the 1920s lost their jobs as demand dried up, and joined the millions of unemployed.

This situation really did not end until about 1940-42, as the US government began to spend massive amounts of money to equip its armed forces for the global struggle, and also to supply equipment, weapons and food to the allied nations through lend-lease. Now, if you weren't in the military, there was all the "defense work" any person could stand to do, at very good wages. Ninety hours a week, with time and a half for overtime, if you wanted it and could take the grind. Military people got paid too, and got paid extra for being overseas in combat. Many of the guys in the military had nothing to spend their money on, in whatever remote outpost they were at in the world. Back home, their families were at long last making money, but they had nothing to spend it on either, because there were no consumer goods in the stores. Every factory in the land was converted to produce something for the military. You had the money now, but you still could not get a washing machine or a vacuum cleaner. Manufacturers could not get raw materials to make consumer goods - they could not even stay open if they weren't making something for the war effort. The government seized control of all raw materials, and allocated them based on the most pressing "priority" of need in the military. All housing materials - lumber, nails, shingles, Plumbing supplies, etc were going to the military to build the hundreds of new army camps. You could not even pig out because food was rationed. Shoes were also rationed - two pairs per person per year. There were no new cars made in America from 1942-1946.

So when the war finally ended, the war workers had fat bank accounts, and many discharged servicemen also had saved a lot of their pay. People were flush, and finally, at long last, there were goods they could go buy, so they did. A housing boom began which lasted more than twenty years, as pent up demand was finally met. Returning servicemen had the right, under the GI Bill, to a no questions asked, no qualifying, microscopic down-payment home loan, and millions of them took advantage of this offer to buy a home for their new family. People bought cars, because they had to have one since these new houses they were buying were in the suburbs, served by the new four lane, limited access highways the government was building as fast as it could.

These economic good times will probably never be equaled again in America. During the 1950s, per capita income DOUBLED. DOUBLED. And this was a doubling of purchasing power, not just twice as many inflation-ravaged dollars, each worth half what it was a few years earlier, like we get now. The good times lasted until the late 1960s, when a new generation of government leaders decided that America was truly the goose that laid golden eggs, and promptly strangled it, by attempting to fund, with government money, the "Great Society" and Medicare, and fight a war 12,000 miles away in Vietnam, all without raising taxes. This put the American economy on the bobsled t hell, and soon energy costs (oil) joined in to complete the ravaging of the ability of the average American to enjoy a decent economic life. It was good while it lasted.

Answer 2

Consumerism increased because people wanted to spend the money they had saved