The Great Depression was a time of hardship and devastation that people had to live through during the long period from 1929 to 1939.  During the depression many banks closed and, the stock market crashed.  One of the main problems of the depression was that a large amount of the work force did not have jobs.  The work force did not have many jobs causing many people to be very poor, and a lot of the time, homeless.  The widespread unemployment rates, greatly affecting our nation’s way of handling setbacks in employment and economic production  (Taylor). It was the longest and deepest economic setback in America, but it changed the way the economy operates (Thorkelson).  The economic downturn of The Great Depression helped the United States economy stabilize, because Americans and the American government had to rebound and figure out how to break from the cold grip of the depression.