Depression of the 1930s The economic depression that beset the United States and other countries in the 1930s was unique in its magnitude and its consequences. At the depth of the depression, in 1933, one American worker in every four was out of a job. In other countries unemployment ranged between 15 percent and 25 percent of the labor force. The great industrial slump continued throughout the 1930s, shaking the foundations of Western capitalism and the society based upon it. Economic Aspects President Calvin COOLIDGE had said during the long prosperity of the 1920s that "The business of America is business." Despite the seemin