info about consumerism, false PROSPERITY, and the income gap
"Interesting, the gap between the rich and the poor is not as great as we thought." This political cartoon depicts the government failing to recognize the incredibly large income gap. It also shows that while an outsider saw the huge income gap, a citizen could hardly recognize it.
In this political cartoon, the rats are following the signs to happiness, but after they work hard and buy more things, they realize it is hard to keep going because they are poor. The path to happiness is never ending in the cartoon because in the 1920s, one had to start rich in order to experience the happiness of an increased income.
The picture to the right displays an ad from the 1920s for a typewriter. "$3 down and it's yours" represents an installment plan, similar to using a credit card to pay for an item.
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Americans across the nation were buying outrageous amounts of consumer goods, known as consumerism, which made the country seem a lot more prosperous than it really was. New items of the era included cars, washing machines, radios, and sewing machines, which were being rapidly produced. Most citizens believed that America's economy was about to boom, which is why people kept buying products they couldn't afford -- 80% of Americans at the time had spent all their money and had no savings whatsoever.
Installment plans, similar to modern day credit cards, allowed citizens to spend imaginary money that they did not really have, which caused them to have a great amount of debt. Additionally, the general hope that America was about to prosper explains why there was false prosperity. Only 40% of people lived above the poverty level. This ties perfectly into the income gap that Americans experienced during the 1920s. The 1% of the population at the top of the economic food chain witnessed their income increase by a skyrocketing 75%. Th other 99% of citizens saw their income increase by a mere 9%. |