Great Depression vs Great Recession by Athena & Persia

Both the Great Depression and Great Recession impacted many American lives. The population that lived through both crises suffered from many of the same effects, but at different magnitudes. The crashing of the Stock Market affected the Depression and Recession. Many jobs were lost. Unemployment went up to 25% during the Depression and 10.8% during the Recession. Another outcome of both were the suicide rates. For the Depression it went up to 18.9% and during the Recession it went up to 4.8%.During this era, self-worth was widely defined by how much money they made through their occupations. This serves for the reasoning behind the mass amount of suicides committed during this crisis.Although they suffered the same losses, the generation that lived through the Great Depression suffered the most. Home foreclosure rates were off the charts during the recession at 80%.The seeds of the Great Recession were planted when the government in the 1990s began pushing homeownership, even for uncreditworthy people, with a vengeance. Mortgage-backed securities built on dubious mortgage loans became “toxic” when the housing market took a downturn, and many American banks verged on collapse. The government’s urgent desire to bail out various banks and corporations created uncertainty and instability, and this may have widened the recession.