The greatest depression in the United States was a sudden social and economic shock for the whole country. It gave rise to a whole new level of poverty, crime, unemployment and other similar derivatives of social tension. The state and society turned out to be extremely unprepared for such a comprehensive crisis in view of the fact that the preceding period since 1923 was an extremely successful stage of rapid economic growth and prosperity.
Causes of the Great Depression of 1929-1933
This rapid and seemingly cloudless growth began to slow down already in 1929. In August, the main production indicators began to decline throughout the United States. But then the ongoing economic slowdown did not receive significant attention. It is believed that the greatest depression in all the years of the US’s existence began with the stock market crash on October 24 of that year. On this day, the stocks of all stock exchanges began to fall catastrophically: first in the domestic and then in the foreign market. This day was called by Americans “Black Thursday”. In the reasons for these events, economists later identified a number of cumulative reasons: among them, excessive production of goods - overproduction and surplus, as a result; investments in some industries beyond the need (the emergence of the so-called soap bubble); a sharp increase in population, which led to a shortage of money supply.
Difficult years
The Great Depression of 1929-1933 covered all spheres of public and state life, it brought a catastrophic decline to the state economy.
Heavy industry, construction, agriculture and a number of other manufacturing sectors were almost completely stopped. The widespread decline in production results and decline was also accompanied by mass layoffs, which at the height of the crisis reached tens of thousands every week. In 1932, a quarter of able-bodied citizens across the country lost their jobs. The greatest depression, of course, was accompanied by a fall in social guarantees of the state. A decrease in demand for farmers' products led to the mass ruin of this category: by 1932, there were already more than a million ruined farms.
New course
Herbert Hoover’s government was unable to cope with the overwhelming decline in the economy, production, and social standards. In 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president, proposing a package 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 noticeable strengthening of the state role in production and the economy. The government announced support for farms, measures to stabilize the financial system, providing social guarantees to workers, financing the agricultural industry, some antitrust actions to reinvigorate competition and accelerate the economy, tighten banks' government loans, as a result of which only the most viable remained afloat . The greatest depression in the history of the country gradually began to decline. However, its consequences reminded of itself until the outbreak of World War II.