THE POPULATION BOOM What It Spells for Prosperity

THE POPULATION BOOM

What It Spells for Prosperity

THE U.S., which was buying baby food at the rate of 270 million cans in 1940, this year is buying it at the rate of 1.5 billion cans. In the same period, the U.S. toy industry has grown from an $84 million-a-year stripling to a $900 million giant, and the sale of bicycles has almost doubled (2,000,000 last year). These are the measuring sticks of the Great Baby Boom--the greatest in U.S. history. They are also the advance signs of how the great growth in U.S. population in the last 13 years will transform the economy --and provide an expanding market for business which it will have to hustle to fall.

The boom, which year after year has confounded the experts, has shown no letup chiefly because World War II spurred early marriages, and high wages have made it possible to have bigger families. In addition, advances in medicine have greatly decreased the mortality rate.

Census Bureau projections had indicated a population gain, from 1940 to 1950, of only 8,000,000. The actual gain was 19.5 million, to 151,700,000. In less than three years since then, the U.S. has already topped 160 million. In the last year or two, the number of births had been expected to fall because the Depression generations of the '303, far smaller than those of the booming '205, were coming of marriageable age. However, the fewer couples of marriageable age have been counterbalanced by the fact that high incomes and steady employment are leading couples not only to marry younger but also to have more children. As a result, the population is still growing so fast that it will reach an estimated 175 to 180 million by 1960.

By 1975 the U.S. will need to set a "fifth plate" for every four persons now consuming. Setting this fifth plate will demand an increase in cattle production, for instance, equivalent to all the present production of Texas plus Oklahoma and Minnesota, and enough more lambs to match the great production of Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Nevada combined. To produce this much food, every five acres of U.S. land must produce as much as six acres today--creating a tremendous need for more tractors, fertilizer, soil conditioners and other means of increasing food production. Millions of new houses, telephones, appliances and autos, plus more schools, railroad passenger cars and freight cars, will be needed. Government experts estimate a minimum need of 1,400,000 new or rebuilt housing units a year for the next decade, just to keep abreast of growth. Many of the houses themselves will have to be bigger, for the size of families is increasing (the number of fourth children being born this year exceeds 1940's by 61%).

The demand for electric power is growing so fast that utilities reckon they will have to build as much new capacity in the next decade as in the past 75 years. General Electric estimates that in 1960 the growth and replacement market should mean total industry sales of 4,500,000 refrigerators v. 3,900,000 in 1951, 1,500,000 freezers v. 1,000,000, 2,500,000 ranges v. 1,400,000. As for the pivotal U.S. auto industry, which accounts for about 7.6% of U.S. manufactured-goods production, the predicted increase of 24 million population by 1960 will include some 10 million more customers of car-buying age (19 and over). All told, Congress' Joint Committee on the Economic Report has estimated, the needs for industrial expansion as well as public works will require a total expenditure of $500 billion by 1960.

The population boom will bring problems as well as opportunities. U.S. schools are already badly overcrowded, and an estimated $10 billion in new school facilities is already needed. As present-day youngsters grow into the work force, more jobs will have to be created by industry (perhaps an additional 8,000,000 within the next decade). Furthermore, the workers will have to increase their productivity, if high living standards for all are to be maintained, because two-thirds of the population growth will be between those either too young or too old to work. Those over 65 will number 16 million by 1960 (v. 12.5 million now). But many of the old, at least, will not be a direct burden. With their incomes from fast-growing retirement and pension funds, they will create big new markets for small houses, travel, gardening, etc. They are already creating new demands for housing, living less and less with their children, more in small units by themselves. At the other end of the scale will be vast increases in markets for children's and teenagers' consumer needs. In short, boom production for a 1953 population will be far too small for a 1960 population. Moreover, in the next ten to 20 years, as the babies of the Great Baby Boom reach marrying age, there is likely to be a new population explosion to make that of the '40s and '50s look small by comparison.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.