The displacement of the American work force and farming communities caused families to split up or to migrate from their homes in search of work. Although farmers technically were not counted among the unemployed, drastic drops in farm commodity prices resulted in farmers losing their lands and homes to foreclosure. How high was unemployment during the Great Depression?Īt the height of the Depression in 1933, 24.9% of the total work force or 12,830,000 people was unemployed. The resulting lower incomes meant the further inability of the people to spend or to save their way out of the crisis, thus perpetuating the economic slowdown in a seemingly never-ending cycle. Factories were shut down, farms and homes were lost to foreclosure, mills and mines were abandoned, and people went hungry. Reduced prices and reduced output resulted in lower incomes in wages, rents, dividends, and profits throughout the economy. By the time that FDR was inaugurated president on March 4, 1933, the banking system had collapsed, nearly 25% of the labor force was unemployed, and prices and productivity had fallen to 1/3 of their 1929 levels. The causes of the Great Depression were many and varied, but the impact was visible across the country. The "Great Depression " was a severe, world -wide economic disintegration symbolized in the United States by the stock market crash on "Black Thursday", Octo.
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