Comparing the Recession to the Great Depression

Part I

Unemployment

At the worst part of the Great Depression the unemployment was much worse then the Recession has gotten. It had gotten up to 24.9% and at the worst part of the Recession it was only at 9.8%. Though the unemployment was much worse during the great Depression, the Recession has hard worse points then the depression. In 1929, at the beginning of the depression, it was only at 3.3%. And at the beginning of the Recession, in 1998, the unemployment was at 4.5%. The Great Depression did have its unemployment rise much faster then the Recession has. In only one year the unemployment in the Great Depression rose from 15.9% to 23.6%. While in the recession it has went up from 5.8% to 9.8%, only 4% rise compared to the 7.7%.
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Part II

Government

The government helped in the Great depression and is helping right now in the Recession. In the Great Depression the Agricultural Adjustment Act, this tried to make the stimulate farming. This had the government pay farms to produce less food. They also had the Works Progress Administration, which created millions of low level jobs for men. In the Recession they have had some programs also, like the Cash for Clunkers, this was made to help the auto industry, when someone came in to buy a new car they could trade in there old one for a 4,500$ towards a new car. There was also the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, this gave rebates to low and middle income tax payers.

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Part III

People

The people in the Great Depression acted a lot alike the people do today in the Recession, on October 29,1929 people flooded the streets on Black Tuesday and on September 15, 2008 a crowd of people stood outside of Lehman Brothers Holding Inc. the day after if filled for type 11 bankruptcy. During the Great Depression there wood food lines were people would stand for hours trying to get food, and now people stand in unemployment lines trying to get jobs. People were getting jobs in the Depression as construction workers because of stimulus projects, same as today.

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Part IV

Conclusion

Though there are many similarities between the Depression and the Recession, I don't think that the two compare together, the Depression was much worse then the Recession. The unemployment rate was much higher and people in America were much more affected. There were similar though in the way that the government handled the the problem, and people reacted the same way. This is how I think that the Depression and the Recession were similar and much different at the same time.