Government spending can jumpstart the economy in wartime. Every factory was pushed into 24/7 production of war material. Especially when millions of working-age men are drafted out of the labor force.
...and the numbers of major items produced was staggering.
The US produced almost 300,000 aircraft during the war. 44,000 Sherman tanks. 650,000 Jeeps. 675,000 2 1/2 ton trucks.
The wartime economy wasn’t natural or healthy. After the war ended, there was another nasty recession.
“Government spending can jumpstart the economy in wartime. Every factory was pushed into 24/7 production of war material. Especially when millions of working-age men are drafted out of the labor force.”
They had to. The future of the country, indeed the entire world was at stake. Nobody was going to sit around waiting for their UI checks to arrive in the mail.
Just my point. The factories weren’t making cars, or radios, or refrigerators. They were making planes, tanks, bombs, etc. Everyone was working—but that’s not prosperity.
After the war ended, there was another nasty recession.
The war ended and millions of men were dumped in the workforce. It was hardly boom times.
I was born in 1946. I don’t remember much of the years immediately after WW II but my earliest memories were of my father being unemployed. He did find a paying position as an apprentice shortly after returning but there was a glut of machinists and he was out of work again. My parents took positions in an orphanage that paid room and board for us. Dad worked a few side jobs as a maintenance man. His first real job wasn’t until about 1951.
The GI bill did a lot more for the economy than all the government defense and infrastructure spending. It also paid for itself, with better job opportunities people paid more in taxes and with the housing boom construction jobs were plentiful, resulting in more income and property taxes paid.