51 years ago this summer, Disgraced, Anti-Semite, EX-President Richard Nixon implemented a 90 day Wage and Price Freeze in America.
It was a poorly thought out reaction to inflation. It created shortages of goods in the marketplace.
Dad owned 15 childrens clothing stores. Many Back to School orders did not arrive from clothing manufacturers. The producers could get higher prices exporting the goods than delivering to domestic customers.
Grandpa was a shirt manufacturer. He was paying more for piece goods and trim all during the spring and July and planned to raise prices for Xmas season deliveries due in Chain warehouses by September 1. He immediately came out ‘new’ products and set the prices higher than the old, All mens dress shirts were now made with a locker loop below the rear collar. The added cost in material and labor was about 12 cents per garment, In fact the loop was added to the cutting room markers for the garments using material that would have been thrown in the scrap bin. The wholesale price for the shirts were raised about $1.50 which helped cover the overall increase in costs during 1971 til the freeze. His underwear factory stopped producing plain T-shirts. Now the designs were changed to be pocket T-shirts. New product, added feature meant he could set higher prices.
We were not a net importer of clothing back then, so US factories and manufacturers could react to the wage and price freeze quickly and not lose money.
The 90 day freeze was a colossal failure. There were shortages and as soon as the freeze was lifted, prices skyrocketed adding to the inflation spiral.
Back then, people and businesses obeyed government. Most adults had lived through rationing and price controls during WW2. Today, people are far more likely to ignore such a government order and take their chances with lax inspection and inforcement,