If you were alive in 1974, or if you’ve spent any time digging through thrift store bins, you might have seen them. Little red and white pins with three letters: WIN. It stands for Whip Inflation Now, and honestly, it remains one of the most bizarre chapters in American economic history. It wasn't a law. It wasn't a tax cut. It was a PR campaign. President Gerald Ford stood before Congress and the American people to ask them to literally "whip" the rising cost of living by wearing buttons and planting vegetable gardens.
It didn't work.
Inflation was a monster in the mid-seventies. We’re talking double digits—hitting about 11% or 12%—and the public was panicking. Ford had just stepped into the Oval Office after Nixon’s resignation, and he inherited a mess. Prices for bread, milk, and gasoline were skyrocketing. The "Whip Inflation Now" movement was his attempt to use volunteerism to solve a macroeconomic crisis. It’s the kind of thing that looks surreal in hindsight, like trying to stop a hurricane with a megaphone and a positive attitude.
The Speech That Started the WIN Movement
On October 8, 1974, Ford delivered a televised address to a joint session of Congress. He called inflation "public enemy number one." He wasn't wrong about the threat, but his solution was... unique. He proposed a 12-point program. Most people remember the buttons, but the meat of the speech was about personal sacrifice. He wanted Americans to drive less, waste less food, and save more money.
"To help increase food and lower prices, garden every bit of your land that can be used for a garden," Ford told the nation.
It was a call to arms for the kitchen table. He was basically asking the American consumer to do the job of the Federal Reserve. The idea was that if everyone stopped spending so much, demand would drop, and prices would follow suit. Economically, that’s called contractionary behavior. Politically? It was a disaster. People were already struggling to buy groceries; being told to "waste less" by a guy in a suit didn't exactly sit well with the working class in Detroit or Des Moines.
The Infamous WIN Buttons
Then came the merchandise. The Whip Inflation Now buttons were everywhere. The White House produced them by the millions. There were WIN footballs, WIN sweaters, and even WIN earrings. It was the first time a presidency tried to "brand" its way out of a recession.
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Alan Greenspan, who was the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers at the time, later admitted in his memoir, The Age of Turbulence, that he thought the idea was "unbelievably stupid." He wasn't alone. Wall Street laughed at it. The public, initially curious, quickly turned cynical. It’s hard to feel like you’re "winning" against inflation when your paycheck buys half as much meat as it did two years ago, regardless of what's pinned to your lapel.
Why Voluntary Restraint Is a Tough Sell
The fundamental flaw in Whip Inflation Now was its reliance on the honor system. Ford asked businesses to hold the line on prices and for workers to stop asking for raises. Think about that for a second. If you’re a shop owner and your costs are up 15%, you can’t just "be a patriot" and lose money until you go bankrupt. If you’re a plumber and your rent just doubled, you’re going to charge more for a leaky pipe.
It’s called the wage-price spiral.
Economics isn't a team sport where everyone agrees to play fair. It’s a series of individual survival choices. By 1975, the WIN campaign was largely a punchline. Comedians mocked it. Even the WIN office in the White House was getting flooded with angry letters from citizens who sent back their buttons, sometimes attached to unpaid bills.
The Real Cause of the 70s Crunch
We have to look at the context. The 1973 oil embargo had sent energy costs through the roof. The government had been spending heavily on the Vietnam War and Great Society programs for years without raising enough taxes to cover it. The money supply had expanded too fast. You can’t fix a global energy crisis and a decade of bad monetary policy by telling people to "clean their plates," which was actually one of the suggestions in the WIN literature.
Economists like Milton Friedman were screaming from the sidelines that inflation is "always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon." In other words, the Fed was printing too much money. Ford’s WIN campaign ignored the supply of money and focused entirely on the behavior of the person spending it. It was like trying to fix a broken water main by asking everyone in town to take shorter showers. The pipe is still bursting underground.
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The Backlash and the "Lose" Buttons
The opposition didn't take long to react. Since the buttons said "WIN," critics started wearing them upside down. When you flip a WIN button, it spells "NIM." People joked it stood for "No Immediate Miracles" or "Need Immediate Money."
The media was brutal. The New York Times and other major outlets pointed out the hypocrisy of a government asking for austerity while running massive deficits. It felt out of touch. Honestly, it was out of touch. It’s a classic example of "jawboning"—a term in politics where a leader tries to use the prestige of their office to pressure the private sector into doing something that isn't in their immediate financial interest. Jawboning almost never works for long.
The Shift to Paul Volcker
Eventually, the "kinda-sorta" approach of the Ford and Carter years had to end. By the late 70s, inflation wasn't just a problem; it was an existential threat to the U.S. dollar. It wasn't until Paul Volcker took over the Federal Reserve that things changed. He didn't use buttons. He used interest rates.
Volcker jacked rates up to 20%. It was painful. It caused a massive recession in the early 80s. But it worked. It killed inflation. Looking back at Whip Inflation Now through the lens of the Volcker era makes the WIN campaign look even more like a fever dream of 1970s kitsch. One was a PR stunt; the other was a brutal economic surgery.
Lessons We Can Actually Use Today
So, what do we actually learn from the Whip Inflation Now saga? First off, don't expect a slogan to do the work of a central bank. If you're seeing inflation in the real world today, whether it's at the grocery store or the gas station, the "WIN" mentality of personal frugality is actually a decent survival strategy for an individual—but it's a terrible policy for a nation.
- Behavioral changes matter, but they aren't the cure. Saving money and reducing waste helps your bank account, but it won't stop the currency from devaluing if the macro factors are broken.
- Government messaging needs to be grounded in reality. If the public feels the message is just "marketing," they will turn on it instantly.
- Supply chains and energy are the real drivers. In 1974, it was oil. Today, it’s often tech components, shipping lanes, and energy transitions. Buttons don't fix ships stuck in a harbor.
The WIN campaign officially ended when Ford lost the 1976 election to Jimmy Carter. The buttons were tossed into desk drawers and eventually became collectors' items. They serve as a permanent reminder that in the face of complex economic forces, there are no easy shortcuts. You can't just "wish" inflation away, and you certainly can't "whip" it with a piece of plastic pinned to your shirt.
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How to Protect Your Own Finances When Inflation Hits
Since we can't rely on a government button to save us, here is how you actually handle a high-inflation environment based on the failures of the 1970s.
Look at your debt. In 1974, if you had a fixed-rate mortgage, you were actually winning because you were paying back the bank with "cheaper" dollars. Inflation hurts lenders and helps borrowers with fixed rates. On the flip side, keep an eye on your savings. If your bank is giving you 0.5% interest while inflation is at 7%, you are losing purchasing power every single day.
Don't panic-buy, but do be strategic. The WIN campaign told people to buy less. The smarter move is often to buy essential non-perishables in bulk before the price goes up again next month. It’s the opposite of what Ford suggested, but it’s the logical move for a household budget.
Ultimately, the best way to "whip" inflation on a personal level is to increase your own value. In the 70s, the people who fared best were those with specialized skills that allowed them to demand higher wages that kept pace with the cost of living.
- Audit your monthly subscriptions to cut "invisible" inflation.
- Prioritize paying off variable-interest debt (like credit cards) first, as those rates climb fastest when the Fed fights back.
- Diversify into assets that historically hold value, like real estate or certain commodities, rather than keeping everything in cash.
The WIN campaign was a well-intentioned flop. It tried to treat a systemic economic disease with a psychological band-aid. While it’s a fun piece of trivia now, the reality of those years was a grind for millions of families. Understanding that history helps us see through the noise the next time a politician tries to sell a simple solution to a very, very complicated problem.