THE FUTURE: $750 Billion Economy

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What will the U.S. find just over the next economic hill? Last week, in the fourth of a series of FORTUNE articles on the course of the economy, the U.S. public got an idea of the prosperity it can expect in the decade ahead. "From 1965 on," said FORTUNE, "the U.S. should enter a new age of abundance that will make even the great days of the 1950s look a little austere."

The prospective increase in U.S. production in the 1960s is almost as much as the combined current production of Europe's two fastest-growing industrial powers, the Soviet Union and West Germany. In 1960 the effect of increasing defense efforts plus rising capital investment will boost gross national product from $475 billion to an even $500 billion. By 1970, ten years later, U.S. production will have soared to $750 billion for the greatest growth in any decade in U.S. history. To U.S. consumers, the growth will mean $355 billion available in disposable income to spend on goods and services in 1965. Five years after that, in 1970, the well-heeled consumer will be spending at the rate of $436 billion a year—a sum equal to the entire U.S. gross national product last year.