Depression Then and Now

Homeless Americans

Hoovervilles. (Seattle ca. 1930)

Tent Cities in America (Sacramento, 2009). The difference between then and now is that today police forcibly disperse such gatherings of the homeless. They give a bad civic image.

Poverty

Then - "I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.... The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." ~ Franklin Roosevelt, 1937
Nipomo, California 1936. One of a famous series of photos by Dorothea Lange.

Now - One in seven Americans lived in poverty last year. Ten poverty statistics not to ignore. Children in a Fort Worth homeless shelter, 2009.

Unemployment

The American Legion Employment Bureau, Los Angeles ca. 1930.

Indiana hires armed security guards for 36 unemployment offices around the state. Grand Rapids, Michigan unemployment office, 2009.

Racism in America

Leland, Mississippi, 1937

Anti-mosque protest, New York City 2010

The current economic depression began in the year 2000 when the dotcom bubble burst. Each subsequent event - 9/11, the housing bubble of 2006, the financial crisis of 2007, the 2008 stock market panic, the employment crash, the ongoing banking crisis - have been a series of dominoes falling. Historians will look back at this as a single event encompassing multiple decades.

References
A photo essay on the Great Depression
The Great Depression, Causes and Cures
What a Modern Depression Looks Like