This executive order also included a freeze on rate hikes for shipping and utilities – all aimed at stopping inflation. The order was lifted just two years later. But it had a huge impact on American life – and it still does. Because employers couldn’t raise wages for two years, they offered benefits to those employees they wanted to keep on the payroll. The big benefit that everyone wanted was health insurance. This is a key reason why - in the U.S. - health insurance is traditionally tied to employment.
Excerpt from FDR’s “Hold the Line” speech, shortly after signing his Executive Order 9328 “To hold the line we cannot tolerate further increases in prices affecting the cost of living or further increases in general wage or salary rates except where clearly necessary to correct substandard living conditions. “No one straw may break a camel's back, but there is always a last straw. We cannot afford to take further chances in relaxing the line. We already have taken too many…. “Some groups have been urging increased prices for farmers on the ground that wage earners have unduly profited. Other groups have been urging increased wages on the ground that farmers have unduly profited. Any continuance of this conflict will not only cause inflation, but will breed disunity at a time when unity is essential…. “I am exerting every power I possess to preserve our stabilization program.”
On this day in 1943, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt froze all wages and prices across the country – and even prohibited workers from leaving their jobs, unless leaving helped the Allied war effort.
#PriceControl #Health #Insurance #History #OTD
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