The Profound Impact of the Great Depression on American Society

Name Institutional Affiliations Date How the Great Depression Changed the American Society The Great Depression can be described as the harshest adversity Americans faced since the civil war (Robbins and Weidenbaum, 2017). It is a period that lasted for ten years, as it began in 1929 and ended in 1939, but its effects on the global economy remain felt to date. It was indeed the most severe and most prolonged global economic downturn experienced by the industrialized western world, leaving adverse effects on their economies in an excellent manner. It is believed that the Great Depression originated in the United States, making it longer, thus impacting its economy very severely compared to Japan and Latin America. Since the Great Depression was a worldwide economic downturn, it affected all the global economies due to drastic declines in output, acute deflation in almost all countries, and severe unemployment. The United States is the origin of this Great Depression. Therefore, it changed drastically in most aspects of life. Consumer spending and investment dropped, leading to a steep decline in industrial output. Employment declined as failing companies laid-off workers. Unfortunately, by 1933, over 15 million Americans were unemployed, with almost half of the American banks had failed. According to the video Great Depression (part 1), the decline in consumer demand, misguided government polici