Addition To The Great Depression

I should have added this during my original articles, but better late than never. In order to add some balance, it should be noted that not everyone suffered terrible job loss or financial hardship during the Depression. We do need to remember, that while unemployment was far above what would have been considered normal, more people had jobs than were unemployed. Further, the ranks of the unemployed tended to be "revolving," just to use a term; that is, many who lost jobs at some given point, found other jobs eventually, although perhaps at lower wages, but while they were finding new work, others were losing their jobs. The situation at various points during the Depression was, however, that more folks were losing jobs, than finding jobs, thus the unemployment rate kept increasing for quite some time. Of course, the reciprocal of that was also true, as there were times when more people found jobs than lost jobs.

If a person or household had savings, or if a person was able to maintain a decent job during those times, they actually could have lived a pretty decent lifestyle, since prices fell faster, in most cases, than did wages; that is, some people actually GAINED purchasing power. As noted in one of the articles, I doubt many people wanted the Depression to continue in order for some to experience this benefit.

WORD HISTORY:
Save-This goes back to Indo European "sol(h)," which had the notion of "whole, keep together, keep well, keep sound." This gave Latin "salvus," which meant "safe, healthy, sound." This then gave Latin the verb "salvare," with the meaning "to make (something) safe from harm, to save." Old French, a Latin-based language, inherited the word as "sauver." English borrowed the word from French in the late 1100s as "saven," but initially with the religious sense "save a person's soul from sin." The meaning gradually broadened to "save, rescue."