The Daily Alaska empire., 1938-10-04
Business Opportunity
Philadelphia Record)

One of the things that good businessman does is to make a carefully study of his market He tries find the kind of people likely to buy his pro- ducts how many afford them at the current price. how many could buy at lower price. The incomes of his potential customers the basic data of his business.
 The basic data of all American business lie in the incomes of the American people their capacity to buy The National Resources Committee has just completed a survey of Consumer Incomes in the United States: Their Distribution in 1935-36' We think it ought to be of the greatest interest to every businessman copy be obtained for 30 cents from the committee at the North Interior Building in Washington.
 The shocker in the report is that the average income of the families in the poorest third of the American people-the "ill-cad ill-fed ill-housed'- was cny s471 year PER FAMILY This figure includes not only cash income but "the money value of the occupancy of owned homes and of rent re- ceived pay and-for rural families-of home grown food and other farm products used by the family ; Tn other words, many of these families far less than $471 a year in cash.
 The report alssf shows very unequal distribution of income Nine-tenths of the population in families that receive less than S250O year Two percent have incomes of $5,000 more. Less than l percent have incomes of $10OO0 or over. The poor est two-thirds of the population received little less in income than the richest one-half of percent.
 What do these figures mean to the businessman and what can be done about it?
 It seems to us these figures mean that if Ameri- can business deals ntelligently with the national market a whole specific businessmen have dealt with parts of that market-say, the market for automobiles the market for radios-American busi- look forward to the greatest of expansion and prosperity in its history.
 For this is not a problem of the soapboxer It is not a problem of dividing up the income either more fairly equally. Tn 1935-36 the average income per family was S1622 The problem is not so much maldstribution of income-as a failure to generate enough income.
 The picture becomes clearer if one stops to con- sider what income" really It does not mean dollars-these merely symbols It means shoes clothes shirts furniture radios automobiles housing These figures not only that too few Americans automobiles housing. They also mean that we are not making enough of them
 vast market for these products awaits us and this report, far from causing pessimism should make us optimistic. For it shows that our own American market is far from used up that there aplenty for more business expansion and that what few manufacturers have done in the case of automobiles and radios American business as a whole can do for all our products
 Who would have dreamed two genera tons ago that millions of families would some day have auto- mobiles? Is it impossible to imagine that the day may come when every American family will be able to buy decent clothing decent housing decent furni- ture? When that day comes will not have divided up our wealth We will have produced more of itthe lowest third will have without the highest brackets having less for economic problem is the problem of dividing up apple It is the prob lem of adjusting economic machinery that it will yield MORE apples.