Show Wages Wages Taxes Taxes Inflation Cause The earch earth for lor the causes Cl of oC Inflation is Js as much of a puzzle as S the answer to Who killed cock robin Organized labor Jabor economists have long been trumpeting the charge that rising prices is the cUlprit Organized business through the Nat National onal Association of Manufacturers j has made madea a good case naming high wages and taxes as th the real rent offenders It offers an analysis of where there the huge income in the the- war post-war years from 1948 to 1956 1056 has gone to prove its point In that time employee wages rose 23 per cent for each unit of output while corporate taxes climbed 32 per cent on the same sam basis The amount paid In compensation for each hour of labor increased tWice as fast as the amount produced by each hour of labor These cost increases were reflected only partially in higher prices for manufactured manu manu- d goods which rose just 10 This price cost squeeze resulted in a drop of 25 per cent in the profit per unit No industry group showed Improvement improvement improve improve- ment mint in Its tax after profit margin in fact not a single group even held its own in that respect The conclusion is inescapable that the current inflationary push is du due to the rising cost of labor and the continuing continuing continuing ing heavy teavy tax burden and not to the greed of manufacturers for exorbitant profits as some people claim the study points sales gales have have- suffered suffer suffer- out Profit margins on ed just as the American consumer has suffered from the power of monopolistic unions to exact wage gains unrelated to productivity Coupling the consumer with the corporate corporate corporate cor cor- stockholder is another way of saying saying saying say say- ing that a large number of American families families fam fam- suffer double from inflation With tens of thousands of Americans today owning shares in American Industry the base of ownership has spread until consumer consumer consumer con con- sumer ad stockholder are one and the same in the vast number of families The traditional return of the investor in the th enterprise whose expansion depends on his continued contribution is growing leaner r while his two p partners labor and are growing fatter off the production of his compa company High wages and taxes are arc actually the primary primary causes of inflation J I |