Great Depression Holds Lesson for Our Time
Photograph by Lewis Hines, West Virginia 1937. The Great Depression, sparked by a devastating collapse in stocks followed by 25 percent unemployment, remains the deepest recession in U.S. history. A new study laying out the long-term negative impacts to Americans born during that time might be consequential for today’s youngest citizens – teenagers born during the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009 and toddlers born in the midst of the steep COVID downturn in 2020. The researchers found that the stresses and financial strains on parents from the Depression’s extraordinarily high unemployment over a protracted period of time did long-term damage to the health and careers of their children that persisted late into their lives. In a separate but related paper, they also found that people exposed to the Depression in utero experienced an acceleration in the aging process after age 75. “The shock of the Great Depression was massive…
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