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WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD
WORLD HEADQUARTERS
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91123
HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG
Garner Ted Armstrong
President and Pastor
Executive Vice-President
February 27, 1976
Dear Inner Family of Co-Workers with Christ:
It's time we take notice. The trend is now unmistakable.
You need to understand what it means!
Suddenly the United States no longer enjoys the highest per
capita income of any nation. Sweden has now risen above us.
The United States' world's highest living standard has
started on the way down. You need to understand WHAT is now
actually happening--WHY it is happening--and WHERE it's going to
take YOU and your family--your relatives--your neighbors!
Buying power of the average American family dropped nearly
3 percent last year. And that was the second year in a row!
Actually, the typical family's REAL income last year was even
less than it was six years before--and that in spite of the fact
that more wives are working now. Forty-three percent--or twenty
million wives--are now working. More than that, some 5 percent
of laborers are now holding down two jobs. Still, total FAMILY
INCOMES are on the decrease.
What CAUSED American prosperity to rise so high above all
other nations in the first place? And what has CAUSED this trend
of decline?
I was involved in a personal experience that explains in
part the rise of the average American income.
In early January 1914, I was traveling eastward in upstate
New York from Buffalo, as editorial representative of America's
largest trade journal. At Utica I received a telegram from the
magazine's home office to go immediately to Detroit to interview
Henry Ford. A news bombshell had broken the same day. The Ford
Motor Company had startled the nation--and the world--with the
sensational announcement of a new $5.00 per day wage scale. The
union scale for automobile workers was then $3.75 per 10-hour day.
Ford had announced a $5.00 per day wage for a 9-hour day.
The magazine editors wanted an on-the-spot story by their
own editorial representative.
I did see Henry Ford, but the real story came from John R.
Lee, head of Ford's Sociological Department. He had originated
the plan.