Which was the more important cause of the depression – the low incomes of most Americans, or the Wall Street Crash?

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Which was the more important cause of the depression - the low incomes of most Americans, or the Wall Street Crash?

The depression lasted from 1929 to 1932; it meant that the U.S economy plummeted, meaning that the lives of U.S. citizens were also adversely affected. Due to the depression unemployment increased drastically, there was up to 80% unemployed in some towns, by 1932 there were 12 million unemployed people in the U.S. Parks became full of homeless and unemployed people, as people lost their life savings due to bank failures, shanty towns (Hoovervilles) built up everywhere. Farmers lost everything as transporting animals to market cost more than the animals themselves; drought and over farming turned millions of acres of farmland into a dustbowl. There was mass migration to the cities.

In order to understand exactly why all this happened we need to look at the causes of the depression. The low incomes of most American's was a very important cause of the depression. 42% of America's population were living under the poverty, one large group was farmers, this meant that they did not contribute to the economic boom of the 1920's, because they could not afford to buy the consumer good's such as washing machines etc. that the U.S. markets were rapidly churning up. This meant that there was a lack of market to sell these good s to, therefore meaning overproduction because the people that could afford to buy these goods, had already brought them. The surplus goods could not be sold overseas because, after years of American tariffs Europe had put up its own tariffs, to protect its industries. So people in Europe could not afford to but American goods. This meant that the problem of overproduction could not be solved.
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This problem of overproduction, which had been caused by low incomes, then lead to a decline in business profits because nobody was buying the goods. Poor business meant that the value of the business dropped, therefore there was a decline in share prices. This caused speculators to fuel a panic as share values slowly slid downwards, they feared that they would not be able to get back the value of their loans. Banks had lent money to speculators in order to buy shares. Speculators were people looking for short term profits, they borrowed money to buy shares, then ...

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