Recession or Depression -- Are We Really Better Off Than in the 1930s? - New America Media

Recession or Depression -- Are We Really Better Off Than in the 1930s? - New America Media

Some call this moment the Great Recession. As the hardship has lingered, others
have begun calling it the Little Depression. But equating the hard times of the
1930s with the hard times of today is mostly overblown rhetoric. Or is
it?

On the surface, the comparisons are obvious: a period of great wealth
and exuberance, followed by a stock market crash. After the crash, widespread
economic pain. Millions of people out of work, thousands of homes lost. Families
going hungry.

But much has changed. There is social security,
unemployment insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, none of which existed when the
Depression hit. Breadlines and shantytowns, emblems of the Depression, are
nowhere to be seen. Today, though, there is great hardship out of view. Behind
closed doors, apartments and shelters are overcrowded, and cupboards are
bare.

In interviews with dozens of people who lived through the Great
Depression, both similarities and differences between the eras emerge.