The Greatest Depression in the History of the United States

The greatest depression in the US was a sudden social and economic shock for the whole country. It gave rise to a completely new level of poverty, crime, unemployment and other similar derivatives from social tension. To such a comprehensive crisis, the state and society were extremely unprepared because the previous period since 1923 was an extremely prosperous stage of rapid economic growth and prosperity.

The causes of the Great Depression of 1929-1933

This rapid and seemingly cloudless growth began to slow down already in 1929. In August, throughout the United States, the main production indicators began to decline gradually. But then the economic slowdown that began did not receive any significant attention. It is believed that the greatest depression for all the years of the United States began with the stock market crash on October 24 of the same year. On this day, shares of all stock exchanges began to fall catastrophically: first on the domestic, and then on the foreign market. This day was called by the Americans afterwards "Black Thursday". In the causes of these events, economists later identified a number of aggregate causes: among them excessive production of goods - overproduction and surplus, as a consequence; Investment in some industries beyond the need (the emergence of the so-called soap bubble); A sharp increase in the number of people, which led to a shortage of money.

Difficult years

The Great Depression of 1929-1933. Covered all spheres of public and state life, it brought a catastrophic drop to the economy of the state. Heavy industry, construction, agriculture and a number of other industrial sectors were almost completely stopped. The general decline in production results and decline was accompanied by massive layoffs, which reached tens of thousands in each week in the midst of the crisis. In 1932, a quarter of able-bodied citizens throughout the country lost their jobs. The greatest depression, of course, was accompanied by a fall in the social guarantees of the state. The decline in demand for farm products led to a massive ruin of this category: by 1932 there were already more than a million ruined farms.

New Deal

The government of Herbert Hoover has never been able to cope with a comprehensive decline in the economy, production and social standards. In 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president, who proposed a set of measures to Overcoming the crisis. In essence, Roosevelt's New Deal policy envisaged a series of measures that were associated with a certain departure from the positions of liberalism and a tangible strengthening of the state role in production and the economy. The government announced support for farms, measures to stabilize the financial system, provision of social guarantees to workers, financing of the agricultural sector, some antitrust actions, for the sake of revitalizing competition and dispersing the economy, tightening of the procedure for obtaining state loans by banks, as a result of which only the most viable remained afloat . The greatest depression in the history of the country has gradually declined. However, its consequences reminded of themselves right up to the beginning of the Second World War.