Excerpt from the state of the union address, 1944 (excerpt ii)
franklin d. roosevelt

2increased food costs, for example, will bring new demands for wage increases from all war workers which will in turn raise all prices of all things including those things, which the farmers themselves have to buy. increased wages or prices will each in turn produce the same results. they all have a particularly disastrous result on all fixed income groups.

3and i hope you will remember that all of us in this government represent the fixed-income group just as much as we represent business owners, workers, and farmers. this group of fixed-income people includes teachers, clergy, policemen, firemen, widows and minors on fixed incomes, wives and dependents of our soldiers and sailors, and old-age pensioners. they and their families add up to one-quarter of our 130,000,000 people. they have few or no high-pressure representatives at the capitol. in a period of gross inflation they would be the worst sufferers.

as it is used in section 3, the word gross is best defined as

a)
extreme.

b)
disgusting.

c)
wrongdoing.

d)
without tax.