1940 - Commerce

Commerce

The $8.4 billion budget submitted by President Roosevelt January 3 has $1.8 billion earmarked for defense. "I should like to see this nation geared . . . to production of 50,000 planes a year," the president says later, and he asks in May for an additional $1.275 billion for defense. Congress appropriates $1.49 billion June 11 in a Naval Supply Act, another $1.8 billion June 26, $4 billion for the army and navy September 9, and another $1.49 billion for defense October 8.

The first U.S. Social Security checks go out January 30 and total $75,844, a figure that will rise into the billions as more pensioners become eligible for benefits (see 1935). The first check goes to retired Ludlow, Vt., legal secretary Ida May Fuller, 65, who has contributed for only 3 years, receives $22.54 and will receive more than $20,000 before she dies in 1975 at age 100.

U.S. unemployment remains above 8 million, with 14.6 percent of the workforce idle.

A Revenue Act passed by Congress June 25 to raise $994.3 million increases U.S. income taxes that heretofore have been levied only on the rich. A second Revenue Act passed October 8 provides for excess profits taxes on corporation earnings. The cost of living has risen on average only 0.2 percent per year since 1800, having actually fallen in 69 of those 140 years, and is only 28 percent higher than it was in 1800, but inflation will increase in the next 5 years (see 1946; OPA, 1941).

An Export Control Act passed by Congress July 2 gives the president power to halt or curtail export of materials vital to U.S. defense. Export of aviation gasoline outside the Western Hemisphere is embargoed July 31, and export of scrap iron and steel to Japan embargoed in October after large quantities of the metals have been shipped to the Axis partner, whose ambassador in Washington calls the action "an unfriendly act."

The U.S. Gross National Product (GNP) is $99 billion, down from $103 billion in 1929. Government spending accounts for 18 percent of the total, up from 10 percent in 1929 (see 1950; Kuznets, 1930).

Former Wall Street speculator Jesse L. Livermore has lunch alone at New York's Sherry-Netherland Hotel on Fifth Avenue November 28, goes back to the Squibb Building office that he opened last year, returns to the hotel's bar at 4:30, has a couple of drinks, goes into the men's room at about 5:25, pulls out a Colt .32 revolver, and shoots himself dead at age 63 (see 1934).

Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average rebounds somewhat from its June 10 low of 111.04 to close December 31 at 131.13, down from 150.24 at the end of 1939.