Three Major Aspects Of The Great Depression

On the Black Tuesday, the stock market crashed and marked the beginning of the United States’ most severe economic downturn — the Great Depression. During this dark period, millions of people lost their jobs and thousands of families depended on the "bread line" to survive. In contrast to the former President Hoover who did "too little, too late", the newly elected President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, started the New Deal. The New Deal is defined as a government-regulated economy, with experimental projects all designed to help lessen the effects of the depression and to take American economy into a healthier position. The three main aspects that the Great Depression affected drastically were the banking and financial system, the unemployment
In 1933, the unemployment rate reached nearly twenty-five percent, about thirty-one million Americans were out of work. Bread lines and soup kitchens were a common sight in most of the American cities. As Roosevelt’s campaign slogan wrote that "Abolish bread line, vote for Roosevelt", the New Deal moved from successfully solving banking problems to the unemployment issues. Roosevelt invented federal-funded organizations to deal with the unemployment and created enormous tax pressure. For instance, the Civilian Conservation Corps that offered labor job opportunities for inexperienced young men and the Works Progress Administration that paid the workers with reasonable wages, having jobs for both white-collar and blue-collar workers. They were criticized that every dollar that went to create a Federal job had to come from taxpayers through increasing tax rates. The working people had to send a larger portion of their salaries to the Federal government, giving out their opportunities to buy more commodities, meals, or clothes that could create new jobs for factories, restaurants, and garment workers. Moreover, the various kinds of relief projects had little effects. As Chris Trueman noticed, from 1933 to 1939, the unemployment figures had little changes. These programs didn’t boost the whole economy’s growth which could invent thousands of new jobs. They were not permanent solutions and other people who were not included in those programs still kept losing their jobs. As a result, the New Deal only helped partially decreased the unemployment rate. According to Lazzaro Josepha, a financial magazine writer, it was the US’ participating in the World War II that actually turned the unemployment rate down. The normal unemployment rate in the US is five percent, and the New Deal never helped the United States get an unemployment rate lower than fifteen