Economic Recovery: Lessons From The Post-World War II Period
We’ve talked about the myth that the post-WWII period demonstrates that Big Government fosters Big Economic Growth. A new report from Mercatus takes a careful look at the postwar boom. Particularly interesting, it addresses the left’s claim that much of the boom was a result of the GI Bill.
Although the GI Bill surely had a positive effect in the 1950s on the educational level of U.S. workers, the bill played a very minor role in keeping the immediate postwar unemployment rate low. At its height, in the fall of 1946, the bill only took about 8 percent of former GIs to college campuses and out of the workforce.[11] Before the war, a number of government programs attempted to move unemployed workers into the labor force, with little success. In the years under discussion, however, no new government program was facilitating this transition; indeed, it was the end of government direction of the economy that facilitated the postwar boom in private employment.
One Comment to “Economic Recovery: Lessons From The Post-World War II Period”
Under what timescale is the “post-war” considered? 5 years out? 10 years? And even if we were to grant the left’s claim that the GI Bill was significantly beneficial, does this study show that it’s inconsequential because the economy was already improving a mere 3 years after the war?