The
1920s |
- The value of farmland falls 30 to 40 percent between 1920 and 1929.
- Organized labor declines throughout the decade.
- The middle class comprises only 15 to 20 percent of the total population.
- Technological unemployment enters the nation's vocabulary;
as many as 200,000 workers a year are replaced by automatic or semi-automatic
machinery.
- At the end of the decade, the richest one percent of the population
own 40 percent of the nation's wealth, while the real income declines
for the bottom 93 percent.
- Productivity rises 43 percent throughout the decade. At the same time,
the income gap widens substantially.
|
| 1929 |
- Only 200 corporations control over half of all American industry.
- About half of all Americans are living below the minimum subsistence
level.
- Herbert Hoover becomes President. Hoover continues Coolidge's policy
of favoring supply-side economics.
- The economy starts to stall: Warehouses fill up as consumer demand
slows down. Production and wholesale prices decline.
- October 24: The stock market begins to slip.
October 29: "Black Tuesday." Losses for the month will total
16 billion US $.
|
| 1930 |
- Democrats gain in Congressional elections, but still do not have a
majority.
- The first bank panic occurs later this year; a run on banks results
in a wave of bankruptcies. As people loose trust in the banks, they
demand to withdraw their deposits.
- The Federal Reserve cuts the prime interest rate from 6 to 4 percent.
Money supply is expanded through buying back U.S. securities. Consequently,
however, the treasury believes in the self-healing powers of the markets.
- The GNP falls 9.4 percent from the year before. The unemployment rate
climbs from 3.2 to 8.7 percent.
|
| 1931 |
- A second banking panic occurs in the spring.
- The GNP falls another 8.5 percent; unemployment rises to 15.9 percent.
|
| 1932 |
- This and the next year are the rock bottom years of the Great Depression.
The GNP falls a record 13.4 percent; unemployment rises to 23.6 percent.
- The Fed makes its first major expansion of the money supply since
February 1930.
- Top tax rate is raised from 25 to 63 percent.
- Congress creates the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.
- Popular opinion considers Hoover's measures too little too late. Franklin
Roosevelt easily defeats Hoover in the fall election. Democrats win
control of Congress.
|
1929
until
1932
|
- Over 13 million Americans have lost their jobs.
- Farm prices have fallen 53 percent.
- International trade has fallen by two-thirds.
- 10,000 banks went bankrupt. That are 40 percent of the 1929 total.
|
|
1933
|
Principle New Deal Measures, 1933
- "Bank Holiday", March 1933
- Federal Emergency Relief Act, March 1933
- Agricultural Adjustment Act, May 1933
- Tennessee Valley Authority, May 1933
- Home Owners' Loan Corporation, June 1933
- National Industrial Relations Act, June 1933
- Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, June 1933
- Civil Works Administration, November 1933
- National Industrial Relations Act, June 1933
|
