Baby Boom

One of the biggest props under the boom is another kind of boom: the vast increase in the U.S. population. Last week, the National Industrial Conference Board warned businessmen that it was time they began taking the population boom into account. Said N.I.C.B.'s Business Record: "The significance. . . to businessmen can hardly be overestimated."

Thanks to the rise in marriages during the war, and to general prosperity, the U.S. added 2,800,000 more consumers to its population in 1947. With an estimated population of 144 million today (v. 132 million in 1940), the U.S. has already hit a total the statisticians did not expect it to reach until the 19503. (The Bureau of the Census, whose population estimate of a year ago has proved 2,000,000 too small, gravely laid the unprecedented wartime growth to "maternity benefits, allotments to dependents . . . and occasional furloughs.")

The U.S. had been expected to reach its population peak of 155-165 million by the end of the century. But the "present surge of births," said the Record, indicates that the peak will actually be from 10 to 25 million higher and the crest of the growth curve has now been pushed beyond the year 2000. In effect, the U.S. economy, which was once regarded by some as "mature," has a long way to grow.

Concluded the Record:

"Manufacturers of children's clothing and toys, obstetricians and hospitals are immediately affected. Actually, the effects of a population bulge . . . will spread to every corner of the economy. One important aspect is the food situation. An era of food scarcity, such as now exists, has been the exception rather than the rule in our history. The population bulge may remove the edge from the problem of farm surpluses."

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