The Great Depression was a severe economic depression that affected the whole world, but especially America in the 1930s.

During early 1920 the government put in place certain economic policies. The rich period of America created the roaring 20s where Americans lived luxuriously and constant spending and buying. The economic policies created easy ways for people to loans from banks causing banks to lend more than they have, but the banks were always paid back because of the great amounts of spending causing wealth to circulate easily, until one fateful day. That day was in the year 1929 when the investors became nervous and started to hesitate in the stock market causing the stock market to crash causing an economic chain reaction. The loss of money caused more people to lose their jobs, eventually causing the whole nation to be poorer. There are other factors including chain reactions that contributed to the Great depression.

The great depression affected the whole world in different proportions, America and Germany were affected more severely.

The great depression officially ended around 1933, but really ended at the beginning of WW2 because of the new jobs that were created by the war.

The Great Depression’s effects on America

The greatest and most profound impact of the great depression was poverty. 25% of the American population was jobless constantly trying to find a job; or trying to stay in a job without being fired. Because of the loss of jobs, many Americans became homeless, not able to pay for mortgages and rent.

One of the effects of the great depression was that crime went up. Because of the desperate poverty-stricken times, people took desperate measures causing more violence/crime.

Because of the upsurge of criminal activity, the police reacted by becoming more powerful and organized, even creating a new police agency called the FBI.

The government made a movement to end the great depression called the New Deal in which the government started many work projects to create jobs, also creating more government agencies for protecting people financially like the social security program essentially making America into a welfare state.

Those are some of the effects and changes the great depression made on America.