answersLogoWhite

0

Americans had money and security after World War 2. They had just come out of the depression before the war. The war boosted the economy.

The depression had an 18 percent unemployment rate. It was such a severe depression it affected the entire nation and world. People had to go without many of the basics and they hungered. Millions lost their homes, some lost their families and kids would beg for food and help.

When the economy boomed Americans were happy again, the bleakness of the depression and the war lifted. They were able to get jobs, have money again and buy homes. The GI veterans could go to college and get much better jobs. This raised the level of the middle class. They too could buy homes and cars.

They could buy the new gadget called the television, have radios, several phones in their houses and some families could send their children to private schools. But it was not all spend, spend, spend.

They became great savers. They had lived without so they saved for the future and worked at jobs where they could get a retirement pension. And they retired sufficiently unlike their boomer children.

The economy has been through up and down cycles since the Fifties and we still have buying power but we also have the ability to lose all our money because our economy is not stable as it was in the Fifties.

User Avatar

Wiki User

14y ago

What else can I help you with?

Related Questions

How did consumer installment buying affect the Great Depression?

cats


How does the consumerism of the 1920s help usher in the great depression?

The consumerism of the 1920s, characterized by mass production and the widespread availability of credit, led to excessive spending and overextension of personal finances. Many Americans purchased goods on credit, creating a bubble of consumer debt that was unsustainable. When the stock market crashed in 1929, this debt burden became unmanageable, resulting in reduced consumer spending and a sharp decline in economic activity. The collapse in consumer confidence and spending contributed significantly to the onset of the Great Depression.


What are the effects of depression on public health?

Does it have any negative effects on the health of the consumer? Depression is the second reported cause of disability worldwide, according to the WHO


How did life for rural Americans differ from life for urban Americans?

Rural Americans could not take part in the consumer culture of the new forms of leisure. << NOVANET


What caused consumer prices to rise following war?

The war ended the Great Depression


A severe restriction occurs to the availability of consumer credit throughout the banking and finance system?

Set a limit to consumer.


What is the definition of financial depression?

Financial depression is a severe and prolonged economic downturn characterized by high levels of unemployment, reduced consumer spending, and overall economic hardship.


How did unequal distribution of income affect the Great Depression?

the unequal distribution of income affected the great depression because while the rich got richer the poor become poorer. This gave an unbalanced economy in the united states. 80% of Americans had no savings at all.


What part did the consumer goods play in causing the great depression?

Speculation on consumer goods helped to drive the Great Depression. Holding money became profitable as prices dropped lower and a given amount of money bought ever more goods, exacerbating the drop in demand


How the consumer formus help the consumers?

Consumer forums are venues where consumers share their experiences with products. Potential and new consumers usually mine consumer forums for information on products to ensure that they make informed purchasing decisions. The problem with most consumer forums is that they do not organize feedback from consumers beyond the form of a blog. As a result, it is difficult to quantitatively assess the quality of product or make a decision whether or not to provide with a purchase. Of late a new breed of consumer forums have surfaced on the world wide web that not only lets consumers share their experiences in terms of blogs but also assimilates these verbal experiences quantitatively to publish an overall consumer satisfaction score / grade. www.consumerdaddy.com is one such consumer forum that does a fairly good job categorizing products and classifying their consumer satisfaction feedback into a numerical score that ranges from 0 to 10.


What is a good analogy for the Great Depression?

The recession of 2008 and the Great Depression of the 1930s have similar beginnings. Financial meltdowns caused a reduction in consumer spending which lead to unemployment in great numbers.


What was the major result of consumer overconfidence in the economy in 1920?

many Americans purchased goods on credit