The Wrangell sentinel., 1943-01-01
By Claude 4. Jagger Financial Eidtor
AssociaLed Press

NEW YORK = For 1943s 1t will be work and fight
 This past year has been relative ly easy. True. we motor-mad Am ericans. or so others consider us, have given up driving. except to get to work and back; are a little short of coffee and sugar. find meat scarce and high, have trouble find ing a doctor when we need one.
 But just think of this More of Us are at work than ever before and wages are higher. Average weekly wages of factory workers are up nearly 65 e since August, 1889 U. s. Bureau of Labor figures show, while wholesale prices of farm pro- ducts are up 75 per cent Total cost Of living for wage earners, meanwhile. has risen little more than % per cent on the average. the U.s.B.L.S. calculates.
 Better Paid
 We are better paid, better fed, better clothed, better housed than any other people We have begun to make sacrifices, and before we attain victory, they will be big. It should be easier to do with less, when we have had so much by any standards the world knows.
 II has been a year of organization tOoling up. laboriously deciding up on workable regulations, building factories, converting existing fac tories, But We are coming out of that phase. We are no longer con tracting for additional plant cap acity. Some contracts are being can eelled.
 Fhe production and fighting phase is beginning. Now the prob lens are manpower, womanpower. and materials.
 Already. the average work-week per wage earner is close to 50 hours in machinery But for durable goods plants generally it is about 441a, and for non-durable goods, not quite 40.
 Whole industries have been con- yerted. Automatic production-the of the industry credited with the main spark of fabulous American in the years between the wars-was stopped a year ago. Now that industry is employing more workers than before to turn out weapons of war.
 Textiles, chemicals, foc3 - most major industries are overwhelmed with war business. To keep essential civilian supplies flowing, plans are developing for shutting down some plants not useful for war produc- tion, concentrating civilian output in a few plants
 With unemployment reduced close to the practicable minimum, man power has become the basic prob lem. War industries. employing less than 100000 last year, now have some 17,500,00O at work, will need to boost that total to 2O,000,0O0 or more in the coming year. Armed forces, now something over 5500O00 will rise to some 9,0O0,000 a year from now, maybe more.
 Employment in. civilian industries. already cut from 29,200,000 a year ago to about 21,100,OO0, will have to be reduced further. Farm Work CTS are estimated at about 8,100,O00 off 100000 from last year.
 Miracles In Production
 Miracles are being wrought in production of essential materials, but they are still short.
 Every ounce of copper is vital, and a substitute is even being de- Vised for copper pennles. Steel pro duetion this year rose to 86,0O0,- OOO tons, and present expanded cap- acity is some 5,000,000 above that. For all Axis countries, and the lands they control, it is only about 61,- OOO,OOO tons. Output of aluminium of flying-already increas- ed several times, will be more than six times that of 1899 in the com ing year.
 During 1942, an OWI summary shows, We have spent some SAT, ,O00- OOO,00O for munitions and war con struction, and in 1S43 will spend some $78,O0O,00O,000. The figures for all war expenditures, including pay and subsistence, will be higher, possibly s53,000, ,000, 900 for 1s42, $90.000,0o0,000 for 194S,
 New Tax
 Congress has passed a new tax law, after many months of hearings and debate, which will bring in about $21, 1,OOO, ,OOO. .000. It was quite a tax bill. The girl making $35 a week as a secretary, with no de- pendents, who was thinking about buying a fur coat, now finds she
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