Forty-nine percent of wage-earner and clerical-worker families owned their homes in 1952, compared with only 30 percent in a similar study in 1934-36.6 More recent information shows that the trend toward home ownership has continued. Home ownership in 1952 ranged from 17 percent of the sample families in the New York urban area, to 71 percent in Lodi, a small California city included in the study. The average market value of the homes owned by workers ranged from $2,662 in Middleboro, a small city in Kentucky, to $12,600 in Washington, D. C. Fifty-four percent of the owners were engaged in buying the home through a mortgage. Average principal payments on the mortgage were $180 during the year, per owner. (For further data on ownership and other characteristics of housing, see p. 81.)

Ninety percent of the persons who bought homes in 1952 incurred mortgages, which averaged 68 percent of the purchase price. The average interest rate on the mortgage was 4.7 percent; the average term was 16 years.

About two-fifths of wage and clerical-worker families bought furniture or major household appliances in 1952. The average cost to all families that bought furniture was $220; to families that bought refrigerators, $270; and for those who bought washing machines, $190. Wage- and clerical-worker families averaged the following expenditures during 1952. Note, however, that some families spent nothing on these items, whereas others spent more than the amounts shown.

Housefurnishings.

Reading and recreation, including radio, television, and musical instruments__

Medical care..

Automobile purchase and operation__

$297

245

220

455

About three-fifths of the wage-earner and clerical-worker families owned automobiles in 1952, compared with 44 percent in 1934–36. There were great differences between cities, however, from the New York urban area, where only 35 percent of wage-earner and clericalworker families owned automobiles, and 34 percent in one small southern city, to 94 percent in Lodi, California.

7

Data from the 1956 Survey of Consumer Finances show that the

• Where "wage-earner and clerical-worker families" are referred to they are, except in paragraph 4, families whose expenditures were studied by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to provide the basis for the Consumer Price Index (p. 72): with data adjusted by price and income changes that occurred between 1950 and 1952. For incomes and expenditures of these families see pages 69 and 78. In addition to BLS data on expenditures of wage-earner and clerical-worker families, some information above is derived from a Federal Reserve Board study of a sample of all families.

1 Conducted by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in cooperation with the Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan. "Spending units" as used in the survey are defined as "all persons living in the same dwelling, and related by blood, marriage, or adoption, who pool their incomes to meet their major expenses."

middle and lower income groups usually bought used cars. Among spending units with annual incomes of $3,000 to $5,000, about threefourths of the purchases made in 1955 were used cars, and one-fourth new cars; among those with incomes of $7,500 or more the proportions were reversed. The former group made two-thirds of its purchases on credit, the latter less than half.

The following table, from the same survey, shows the distribution of automobile ownership in early 1956 by occupation of the head of the spending unit:

TABLE 38.-Percent Distribution of Automobile Ownership by Occupation of Head of Spending Unit, Early 1956

The percent of households with and without television sets in

TABLE 39.-Individual Savings: Investments of Individuals in Savings Accounts, United States Savings Bonds, and Life Insurance Reserves, Selected Years, 1920 to 1955

Note. For types of savings included in each column see Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1956

(p. 457, table 534).

Source: U. S. Federal Home Loan Bank Board.

Output

UTPUT in the United States has risen steadily to meet demands in all three important sectors of the economy: consumption, business investment, and government. A large part of the change has been in those activities that meet the needs of the rising population and increase its level of living.

TABLE 40.-Gross National Product or Expenditure in Constant Dollars, United

Note.-"Gross national product or expenditure" is the market value of the output of goods and services produced by the Nation's economy, before deduction of depreciation and other allowances for business and institutional consumption of durable capital goods.

"Personal consumption expenditures" consist of the market value of purchases of goods and services by individuals and nonprofit institutions and the value of commodities and services received by them as income in kind.

"Gross private domestic investment" consists of acquisitions of newly produced capital goods by private business and nonprofit institutions and of the value of the change in the volume of inventories held by them. It covers all private new dwellings, including those acquired by owner-occupants.

"Net foreign investment" is the net change in international assets and liabilities, including the monetary gold stock, arising out of the current international flows of goods and services, factor incomes, and cash gifts and contributions. Thus, it measures the excess (1) of domestic output sold abroad over purchases of foreign output; (2) of production abroad credited to United States-owned resources over production at home credited to foreign-owned resources, and (3) of cash gifts and contributions received from abroad over cash gifts and contributions to foreigners.

Source: U. S. Department of Commerce, Survey of Current Business, July 1956 (p. 24).