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Article: Price and Wage Controls
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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PRICE AND WAGE CONTROLS
PRICE AND WAGE CONTROLS.
The federal government uses price and wage controls to address the inflation of wages and prices. During wartime, wage and price controls function as a means of mobilizing resources. In a modern economy, inflation is usually stopped only by a recession or a depression, but the government can also decrease, or at least attempt to control, the rate of inflation by imposing price and wage controls.
Price and wage controls were used as early as the seventeenth century. In 1630, diminishing job opportunities and rising wages in Massachusetts Bay caused great consternation among workers and employers alike. To solve the problem, the Court of ...