Prosperity

Compared with the good old "parity" years from 1910 to 1914, farmers had a 28% greater increase in their earnings last year than the rest of the population. So the Department of Agriculture showed last week in a 29-page study for once devoid of any talk about how hard up the farmer is.

This year farm wage rates are 26% over 1941; farm supplies are up 16%; but still the total net earnings of U.S. farmers are $1,000,000,000 higher than last year (see chart). They are higher than at any time since 1919--four times as much as in 1932, and twice as high as in the parity base years (when there were 2,000,000 more people living on farms to get a share of them).

Based on official Agriculture Department figures, the graph shows that U.S. farm operators took in $14,213,000,000 last year, spent $7,465,000,000 for wages, tools, seed, fertilizer, rent, and mortgage interest, had $6,748,000,000 left for themselves.

This year's showing is expected to be far better: $16,500,000,000 gross income, $8,744,000,000 total expenses and a smacking $7,756,000,000 net.

Back in 1933 subsidy payments of $397,000,000 were 29% of U.S. net farm income; last year's $514,000,000 from AAA was only 8%.

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