Government+Agenices-1

My name is Mariam Goldman, i am a 27year old women, who is married to Morty Goldman, i am currently not in a job, i stay at home taking care of my 1 year old son Jacob, 3 year old son Nathan, 5 year old son Jesse, 7 year old son Aaron, and a baby on the way hoping its a girl. My Husbands owns at a deli,and makes $1,000 a year. We live in Lakewood, New Jersey in a nice house, which i grew up in, i went to Fairview high school were i met Morty.

The economy was starting to turn bad as war production increased, there were fewer consumer products available for purchase. Much factory production was earmarked for the war. With demand increasing and supplies dropping, prices seemed likely to shoot upwards. Roosevelt responded to this threat by creating the Office of Price Administration (OPA). The OPA fought inflation by keeping prices on most goods the same. Congress also raised income tax rates and extended the tax to millions of people who had never paid it before. The higher taxes reduced consumer demand on scarce goods by leaving workers with less to spend.It rationed foods, such as meat, butter, cheese, vegetables, sugar and coffee. In addition, the government encouraged Americans to use their extra cash to buy war bonds. Morty and I had bought some war bonds but inflation remained below 30 percent for the entire period of World War II which was about half that of World War I (Danzer 567). In April 1942 the Office of Price administration announced sugar would be rationed--Philippine imports had been cut off and ships carrying Cuban and Puerto Rican sugar were needed for defense use. Large amounts of sugar were also required to manufacture the alcohol used in explosives. By 1943 coffee, canned meat and fish, canned, frozen and dried fruits and vegetables and fresh meat, fish, butter and cheese quickly joined the list ("Welcome" 1).

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Besides Controlling inflation, the government needed to ensure that the armed forces and war industries received the resources they needed to win the war. The War Production Board (WPB) assumed that responsibility. The WPB decided which companies would convert from peacetime to wartime production and allocated raw materials to key industries. The WPB aslo oraganize nation wide drives to collect scrap iron, tin cans, paper rags, and cooking fat for recycling into war goods. Rationed fuel, materials vital to the war effort, such as gasoline, heating oil, metals, rubber and plastics. Across America children scoured attics, cellars, garages, vacant lots, and back alleys, looking for useful junk. During one five-month-long paper drive in Chicago, school children collected 36 million pounds of old paper about 65 pounds per child (Danzer 568). My oldest son Aaron and his friends would go look for these items everywhere and i would let them sometimes take Nathan, Jesse, and Jacob since those two also wanted to help out. The WPB was established in January 1942 by executive order to direct war production and the procurement of materials in World War II. The chairman Donald M. Nelson was granted sweeping powers over the nation's economic life. The WPB converted and expanded the peacetime economy to maximum war production; controls included assignment of priorities to deliveries of scarce materials and prohibition of nonessential industrial activities. During its three-year existence the WPB supervised the production of $185 billion worth of weapons and supplies("War" 1). The National War Labor Board (NWLB) was also created it limited wage increases, allowed negotiated benefits, such as paid vacation, pensions, and medical insurance and it kept unions stable by forbidding workers to change unions (Danzer 567).

http://www.philaprintshop.com/images/wwiiwstp.jpg

Works Cited Danzer, Gerald A. et al. __The Americans.__Boston:McDougal Littel, 2003

"Welcome to the 1940s." __City Net.__ 2007. 24 Oct. 2007. 

"War Production Board." __The Columbia Encyclopedia, sixth edition.__ 2007. 24 Oct. 2007.//<//http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-WarProdu.html