Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

Statement by the President on the Cost of Living.

October 24, 1958

I WAS GRATIFIED to learn from yesterday's report on consumer prices that the cost of living, virtually stable since last May, has continued unchanged. It shows that for the second successive month the retail cost of food to the American housewife is down. To be sure, some retail prices have gone up in recent months, but others are lower than they have been in a year or more.

This means that the recent gains in weekly earnings of American workers represent real increases in buying power, not just offsets against higher prices. These earnings have increased more than 5 percent since February. Their actual buying power is higher than it has been for well over a year and is 15 percent above what it was in 1952.

Most important to all Americans, it confirms the fact that recovery is possible without inflation. We must preserve this stability in the value of the dollar without recourse to stifling controls.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Statement by the President on the Cost of Living. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/234183

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