Posted on 03/09/2012 6:01:02 AM PST by xzins
Yes. According to the U.S. Census, unemployment was 9.66% in 1941. This makes sense being that we were ramping up industrial output in support of Lend-Lease. When you look at the unemployment numbers from the start of FDR’s presidency you clan acually see the flaws in the New Deal that liberals lament for even today.
At first unemployment went down some until the end of 1937, then the economy began to tank again and unemployment took a sharp rise. It is only with the begining of industrialized efforts to support the European war effort that these numbers started to trend back down again.
Unemployment during the 30’s after 1933 varied between 15% and 25% for the most part.
Isn’t there a base number of jobs that need to be created each month just to keep even (population plus those graduating school and entering market)?
I’d thought I heard somewhere that it needs to be 250k per month???
Yep. It had dipped to 14.18 by 37 only to shoot up to 18.91 the next year. You see a trend down in 39, 40, and 41, (17.05, 14.45, and 9.66) but this was more due to production increases as we began exporting to nations preparing for and finally fighting the Nazis. It wasn’t a New Deal program that started this trend. Also, these are U.S. Census statistics that show the U3 number like what gets reported today. This leaves out people who have stopped looking for jobs or have exausted all unemployment benefits. The U6 number which does look at these are much higher.
In the case of FDR, it was at its peak in 1933 when he took office (same year the U3 was over 25) and was around 37%. The trend showing that the New Deal was starting to collapse (1937-1938) has the U6 increasing from about 21% to 28%. Pretty big shift for a single year in peacetime.
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