What were the effects of the Great Depression on the unskilled and poorly educated (in America) in the 1930s?

It was a disaster.Throughout the twenties farms had been mechanized and that left farm labour unemployed. As long as manufacturing was growing then they were able to get factory jobs. Factories were mechanizing too, so they faced unemployment there as well. Because there were fewer jobs than people the employers dropped the wages. They could do this in spite of rising profits and rapidly increasing production. Actually they could do it because of rapidly increasing production. They just did not need as many people. They had people working for less than it cost to live.

Unfortunately they forgot that somebody has to buy their product and the workers could not buy anything. Stock piled up. Manufacturing plants shut, nobody could afford farm products so the farmers went broke meaning they were trying to find jobs that were disappearing and could not buy manufactured goods either. Companies manufacturing suddenly had no income meaning no profit so they went bankrupt, their stocks became less valuable. Everybody invested in them tried to sell their stocks creating a sudden glut of stocks so those became of no value. Everybody wanted to sell and only the rich would buy at extremely low prices. The banks were collapsing too because most of them were invested in farms and industries that were suddenly worthless. People who had a lot of money prospered very well though by assembling their assets at this time.

Nobody could figure out a way to get the money circulating again though, and this lasted basically until the start of WWII in 1939 when the factories opened again for war production and excess labour was used up in the armies of the world war.

The point is that increased production and efficiency did not create wealth generally like economics fundamentalists like to claim but created economic hardship because the wealth simply concentrated towards the already rich. If they had distributed the wealth better then the money would have continued to circulate, trade would have continued and the depression never would have happened. It was like what happens near the end of a Monopoly game.

You could say that Ford's assembly line caused the deppression in a way (but it was not just Ford, it was all of the *Fords* beside him mechanizing and letting workers go too)

Disaster with a capital D. As the rich and educated suffered in their businesses, they had to cut back on the number of employees they kept. The unskilled who had been able to work as factory workers, maintenance people, or household help for the rich, were completely out of work.

The farm workers suffered due to the terrible droughts and dust storms in the heartland. Even those who owned their own land suffered greatly. Many left their land and headed for California, where the weather was more moderate. There was so many, they clogged the roads, hopped on trains as hobos, lived in shanty towns along the railroad easements. Living like homeless people now live, but with better reason, for the most part. See the very old movie "Grapes of Wrath" for a pretty accurate picture of the suffering that people in that era experienced.

Same effects that we have now!

The percentage of people living in America that are on welfare or social security checks or food stamps, are almost all unskilled and poorly educated.

They blame their plight on racial bigotry, or racial profiling but they are the ones to blame since they are given the same chances as everyone else.

Free Public School, free Lunches at those schools, but refuse to work hard to finish school and become a integral part of society.

The biggest problem is that the Democrats are handing them more and more money so that they can vote for the Democrats so the Democrats can vote themselves in for a raise and the Republicans are now trying to do the same thing and it will be the downfall of this great nation to become a welfare nation.

If everyone is on welfare, who is going to work to pay taxes so these people can live the life they chose to live?

Sorry don`t have a website but look up some documentaries on the subject. Maybe try PBS.

My grandparent told me alot about the depression.

Unskilled men would do alot of traveling.

In the south they would hop on trains to look for work. They used to say "chasin a job".

good luck fascinating time hope not to ever see it

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