39. Describe the downs and ups of the economy in the years following WWII. In the initial postwar years, the economy struggled; prices elevated 33% from 1946-1947 after the wartime price controls were removed. An epidemic of strikes swept over the country in 1946. In 1947, the Republican Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act over President Truman's veto. It outlawed the all-union shop, made unions liable for damages that resulted from jurisdictional disputes among themselves, and required union leaders to take a noncommunist oath. Taft-Hartley was just one of several obstacles that slowed the growth of organized labor in the years following WWII. The CIO's "Operation Dixie," aimed at unionizing southern textile workers and steelworkers, failed in 1948 to overcome lingering fears of racial mixing. Congress passed the Employment Act in 1946 to promote maximum employment, production, and purchasing power. It also created a 3-member Council of Economic Advisers to provide the president with the data and the recommendations to make that policy a reality. The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, better known as the GI Bill of Rights or the GI Bill, made generous provisions for sending the former solders to school. By raising educational levels and stimulating the construction industry, the GI Bill powerfully nurtured the long-lived economic expansion that took hold in the late 1940s. 40. How did women benefit from the economic boom? 41. What evidence can you cite that shows the years 1950-1970 were good years economically?