Economic Policies during the Great Depression:

Human suffering was indeed the most devastating impact of the Great Depression. To say the least, standards of living dropped. During the early 1930s work was scarce, as much as onefourth was jobless. Situations were extremely difficult and even though conditions beginning to improve by the mid-1930s, complete recovery was unable to be achieved until the end of the decade. The Great Depression and the policy response crucially changed the world economy. One of the most obvious changes was the end of the international gold standard. The welfare state and labor unions both expanded considerably during this time. Also during this time, through the Social Security Act of

1935, responding to the times hardships, the U.S. accepted unemployment compensation, old age, as well as survivors insurance. Then union membership more than doubled. Such a tendency was encouraged by acute lack of work and the transition of the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act of 1936 which indeed went on to hearten collective bargaining. Would these changes have eventually occurred in the United States without the Great Depression? Many countries during this time, government regulation of the economy, especially of financial markets, increased substantially. For example, the United States, established the Securities and Exchange Commission of 1934 in order to control new stock matters and stock market trading customs. In the U.S. deposit insurance was established through the ClassSteagall Act of 1933 also prohibiting banks from sponsoring or having relations with securities. Although a largely unanswerable question is whether such a change would have occurred without the Depression, it is extremely obvious that during the Great depression of the 1930s, though this change, it has become unlikely that a decline in

spending will ever be allowed to multiply and spread throughout the world as it did during this time.