THE ECONOMY: Up

The U.S. boom roared on. The Departments of Commerce and Labor reported last week that during the months of July and August:

¶Employment climbed above the 65-million mark for the first time in history, up 494,000 since July, 3,211,000 since last year; unemployment meanwhile declined to 2,237,000, down 31% since August 1954, to the lowest level of joblessness since the fall of 1953. ¶Personal incomes climbed during July to an annual rate of $304.7 billion, up $17.6 billion since last July; Government and manufacturing incomes were higher, with average weekly factory earnings up to the alltime high of $77.11 a week; farm income was lower by 9.3%, but August farm employment, often seasonally lower, held close to the July level of 7,704,000.

¶Construction volume during August climbed 7.7% above last August’s high to an estimated $3,978,000,000, boosting construction outlays for the first eight months of 1955 to an alltime high of $27.1 billion.