Unemployment Rate In The 1930s

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In the year 2012, studies showed that “approximately 6.24 million people in the United States were unemployed” (“Who are the Unemployed?”), but the unemployment rate is still increasing. The effects of unemployment today are steadily rising, therefore draining the health of the economy nation wide. Welfare programs, minimum wage, and a lack of education lead to unemployment and therefore negatively affect the United States.
Unemployment rates during the 1930s dramatically spiked due to a well known economic event that changed United States history, and the rates never returned back to a steady rate. It was the stock-market crash of October 1929 that signaled the slide into the pit. “At first it seemed to be only another depression--they would …show more content…

Not to long after, “FDR created the first large-scale national welfare system in response to the Great Depression (1929–39), when the percentage of the labor force that was unemployed reached as high as 25 percent” (“Welfare Policy”). Poor people apply to welfare programs, which aid them if they do not have a job or enough income to support their families which reduces poverty, homelessness, unemployment, and hunger. “Yet, welfare programs have caused laziness among people because there is still a generous government safety net in place for the unemployed, including federal programs that extend jobless benefits for up to 99 weeks. And now, there is growing anecdotal evidence that people who might be able to get jobs are choosing to live on the dole rather than work” (Newman). With so many people living on welfare programs, jobs are not receiving workers, there are more homeless people, and a ridiculous amount of federal money in place to support these programs. The most serious of the many effects of unemployment is the effect on the economy. “Higher unemployment will cause a fall in tax revenue because there is less people paying income tax. Also the government will have to spend more on unemployment and related benefits” (Pettinger). With a fall in tax revenue, the nation’s income as a whole is reduced, which decreases the amount of money in circulation, increasing the United State’s federal debt. Also, government pays for the welfare programs, so if there are more unemployed people, that means more money from government to support those