Affluent Society
... race or social class, preference for returning to their prewar jobs or up to a year of weekly payments while seeking employment. It entitled veterans, too, to loans to buy a house or start a business, and to up to four years of education - including tuition and a living allowance. The loans fueled a postwar housing boom. The educational grants supported thousands of G.I.s who enrolled in colleges, graduate schools and trade schools. The ensuing social mobility made the attributes of middle class status - home ownership, a college degree and a good job - accessible to millions. By the end of the 1950s, for the first time in American history, there were more white collar workers than blue collar workers, and two-thirds of Americans owned their own homes. These changes characterized the generation of Americans who came of age during World War II, a generation who in their lifetimes received more education, enjoyed a longer spate of prosperity , spawned more babies, and consumed more goods than any previous American generation. Characteristically, the men of that generation worked for large corporations with hierarchical bureaucracies and strict behavioral rules. Both corporate and federal policies spurred the boom. Federal subsidies underwrote the burgeoning highway program, essential for suburbanization. Federal military procurement, fostered by the Cold War, gave heavy industry a continual boost. But government at all levels short-changed primary and secondary education and, except for highways, the economic infrastructure. By the end of the decade private affluence existed alongside public squalor. F...