{"id":15,"date":"2025-04-29T15:52:03","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T19:52:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/people.bsu.edu\/econbriefs\/?p=15"},"modified":"2025-05-23T09:52:24","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T13:52:24","slug":"its-unlikely-were-heading-for-another-great-depression-by-dr-cecil-bohanon-and-dr-john-horowitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.bsu.edu\/econbriefs\/2025\/04\/29\/its-unlikely-were-heading-for-another-great-depression-by-dr-cecil-bohanon-and-dr-john-horowitz\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s unlikely we\u2019re heading for another Great Depression &#8211; by Dr. Cecil Bohanon and Dr. John Horowitz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Originally written on 10\/4\/2022<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">A recent Rasmussen poll asked a representative sample of adult voters: \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rasmussenreports.com\/public_content\/business\/stock_market\/57_see_depression_ahead\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">Over the next few years, how likely is it that the United States will enter a 1930s-like Depression<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\">?\u201d\u00a0 To our surprise, 57% indicated they thought it was very or somewhat likely, while 32% thought it was not very likely or not at all likely. The response was uniform across gender and race: Males split 58% likely and 33% not likely; Females 56% likely and 29% not likely; Whites 57% likely and 31% not likely; Blacks 55% likely and 32% not likely. Young people between the ages of 18-39 were more pessimistic (59% likely and 26% not likely) than people over 65 (40% likely and 50% unlikely). Similar to most issues today, there was a sharp partisan divide, with self-identified Republicans splitting 72% likely and 21% unlikely. Self-identified Democrats split 47% likely and 41% unlikely.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:480}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Why are we surprised? The length and severity of the 1930s Depression are unmatched both before and since. During the Great Depression real price-adjusted Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell every year, for <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/fred.stlouisfed.org\/series\/GDPCA\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">four years, from 1929 to 1933 and by a cumulative 26.3%<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\">. In contrast, post-1950 economic downturns have typically lasted for one year or less and entailed less than a 1% decline in real GDP. Even the severe downturns of 2009 and 2020 generated real GDP declines of under 3%. The length and severity of rising <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/fred.stlouisfed.org\/graph\/?g=jS03\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">unemployment rate<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> in the 1930s Depression are also unmatched. The unemployment rate rose each year from 3.5% in 1929 to a record 25.59% in May 1933. In no post-1950 downturn did the annual unemployment rate exceed 10% except in 1982 when it was 10.2%.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:480}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Of course, few alive today personally remember the 1930s, so some of the pessimism may be that we don\u2019t remember how difficult the 1930s were. On the other hand, in the last few years, we have had some of the greatest political turmoil since the Civil War, a once-in-a-century worldwide pandemic, a land war that risks turning nuclear, inflation at a record 40-year high, real federal government debt at the highest level since World War 2, and a cratering stock market. These concerns are likely contributing to the pessimistic outlook.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:480}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">As economists, we think that while current efforts to tame inflation may well generate a recession, it is extremely unlikely that this will morph into anything like the Great Depression. At least, we hope not, but we could be wrong.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:480}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Originally written on 10\/4\/2022 A recent Rasmussen poll asked a representative sample of adult voters: \u201cOver the next few years, how likely is it that the United States will enter a 1930s-like Depression?\u201d\u00a0 To our surprise, 57% indicated they thought it was very or somewhat likely, while 32% thought it was not very likely or [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[38,44,41,5,42,36,7,43,39,33,37,40,45,6,35,34],"class_list":["post-15","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inflation","tag-age","tag-debt","tag-democrat","tag-depression","tag-gdp","tag-gender","tag-inflation","tag-pandemic","tag-partisan","tag-poll","tag-race","tag-republican","tag-stock-market","tag-unemployment","tag-united-states","tag-voter"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>It\u2019s unlikely we\u2019re heading for another Great Depression - by Dr. Cecil Bohanon and Dr. John Horowitz - Econ Briefs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/people.bsu.edu\/econbriefs\/2025\/04\/29\/its-unlikely-were-heading-for-another-great-depression-by-dr-cecil-bohanon-and-dr-john-horowitz\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"It\u2019s unlikely we\u2019re heading for another Great Depression - by Dr. Cecil Bohanon and Dr. John Horowitz - Econ Briefs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Originally written on 10\/4\/2022 A recent Rasmussen poll asked a representative sample of adult voters: \u201cOver the next few years, how likely is it that the United States will enter a 1930s-like Depression?\u201d\u00a0 To our surprise, 57% indicated they thought it was very or somewhat likely, while 32% thought it was not very likely or [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/people.bsu.edu\/econbriefs\/2025\/04\/29\/its-unlikely-were-heading-for-another-great-depression-by-dr-cecil-bohanon-and-dr-john-horowitz\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Econ Briefs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-04-29T19:52:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-05-23T13:52:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"christianhartselle\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"christianhartselle\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/people.bsu.edu\\\/econbriefs\\\/2025\\\/04\\\/29\\\/its-unlikely-were-heading-for-another-great-depression-by-dr-cecil-bohanon-and-dr-john-horowitz\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/people.bsu.edu\\\/econbriefs\\\/2025\\\/04\\\/29\\\/its-unlikely-were-heading-for-another-great-depression-by-dr-cecil-bohanon-and-dr-john-horowitz\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"christianhartselle\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/people.bsu.edu\\\/econbriefs\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/53f4e0b981fd42f34cbb306b9ad62622\"},\"headline\":\"It\u2019s unlikely we\u2019re heading for another Great Depression &#8211; 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