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Among the more unusual ephemera created by the 1970s, right up there with pet rocks, is the WIN buttons that were briefly popular around 1974 when optimists imagined that inflation might be a temporary phenomenon that a bit of national will power could defeat.
Whip Inflation Now (WIN) was a 1974 attempt by the administration of President Gerald Ford to encourage Americans to work together to combat inflation. The idea was that if people saved more and spent less – and if the government, in attempt to rollback years of deficit spending, raised taxes to help pay down debt – maybe inflation would come down.
Supporters of the program were encouraged to wear WIN buttons – some more elaborate than others.
A 1974 article from the Attleboro Sun Chronicle newspaper took the measure of local support for the temporary tax measure proposed as part of WIN and found, unsurprisingly, that those with higher incomes were least upset by the new levy, but those already having trouble making ends meet due to inflation took a dimmer view of the Ford initiative.
Of course, not only was the effort too little and too late to tame the self-created American fiscal disaster but at the same time, the country – newly dependent on imported oil – faced the simultaneous “Arab Oil Embargo” as punishment for American support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Independent of inflationary trends the embargo roughly doubled the price of gasoline and home heating oil bringing the overall inflation rate12.3 percent.
Reportedly, skeptics wore the buttons upside down, explaining that "NIM" stood for "No Immediate Miracles," "Nonstop Inflation Merry-go-round," or "Need Immediate Money." Unsurprisingly, a 2006 Washington Post article called the WIN program “one of the biggest government public relations blunders ever.”
