Great Depression

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shared evenly among all Americans. In 1929 the top 0.1% of Americans controlled 34% of all savings, while 80% of Americans had no savings at all. Automotive industry mogul Henry Ford is one example of the unequal distribution of wealth between the rich and the middle-class. Henry Ford reported a personal income of $14 million in the same year that the average persons income was $750. By present day standards Mr. Ford would be earning over $345 million a year! This lack of distribution of income between the rich and the middle class grew throughout the 1920's. A major reason for this large and growing gap between the rich and the working-class people was the increased manufacturing output throughout the 1920�s. From 1923-1929 the average output per worker increased 32%. During that same period of time average wages for manufacturing jobs increased only 8%. As production costs fell quickly, wages rose slowly, and prices remained constant, the bulk benefit of the increased ...

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to purchase goods such as food, clothes, radios, and cars. These were the poor and middle class. Families with incomes around, or usually less than, $2,500 a year. While the wealthy too purchased consumer goods, a family earning $100,000 could not be expected to eat 40 times more than a family that only earned $2,500 a year. Through the imbalance the U.S. came to rely upon two things in order for the economy to remain on an even level: credit sales, or investment from the rich. One obvious solution to the problem of the vast majority of the population not having enough money to satisfy all their needs was to let those who wanted goods buy products on credit. The concept of buying ...

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