How a Different America Responded to the Great Depression

[Hannah Bell]

Were confirmation needed that the American public is in a sour mood, the 2010 midterm elections provided it. As both pre-election and post-election surveys made clear, Americans are not only strongly dissatisfied with the state of the economy and the direction in which the country is headed, but with government efforts to improve them...

This outlook is in interesting contrast with many of the public's views during the Great Depression of the 1930s, not only on economic, political and social issues, but also on the role of government in addressing them...despite their far higher and longer-lasting record of unemployment, Depression-era Americans remained hopeful for the future. About half (50%) expected general business conditions to improve over the next six months, while only 29% expected a worsening. And fully 60% thought that opportunities for getting ahead were better (45%) or at least as good (15%) as in their father's day...

However, the most striking difference between the 1930s and the present day is that, by the standards of today's political parlance, average Americans of the mid-1930s revealed downright "socialistic" tendencies in many of their views about the proper role of government...

















http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1810/public-opinion-great-depression-compared-with-now


And you can see how Americans felt about the Reagan recession here:

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1818/reagan-recession-public-opinion-very-negative

[dkf]

1. They were willing to pay higher taxes too

More benefits equals higher taxes. They got it.

[newfie11]

2. more common sense in those days n/t

[xchrom]

3. recommend

[Selatius]

4. Attitudes towards left wing policies were changed due to much more sophisticated propaganda.

Back in the 1930s, it was common to find people who willingly carried the label "socialist." Today, it's almost a mark of shame. That's the power of conditioning.

[Recursion]

5. There are about 8 decades of history between now and then

and I think those have something to do with how people feel about the term.

[Brickbat]

6. K&R.

[Davis_X_Machina]

7. Immiseration in the Great Depression...

...was probably 2x, maybe 3x the present recession. Present U6 of just under 20% v. U6 of 40%, e.g.

Who's to say you wouldn't find similar responses to similar circumstances today?

[stray cat]

8. World war II also created jobs