Great Depression vs. Great Recession

The Great Depression and the Great Recession, two similar economic downfalls, were actually quite different. They had different causes, the Great Depression being caused by the economy not being diverse enough and causing everything else to fall because of a chain reaction. However, the Great Recession was caused by banks making too much money through loans which pushed up house prices and increased debt. Also, the Great Depression was generally more severe in each area than the Great Recession was, except home foreclosures. The Depression had 9,000 banks in total fail throughout the 30’s, while the Recession had 492 bank failures from 2005-2013. In addition, unemployment during the Depression reached a peak of 25%, with up to 15 million Americans lose their jobs. But during the Recession, the peak unemployment rate was 8.5%, and 8.4 million jobs were lost. Lastly, the rate of home foreclosures in the Depression exceeded 1%, but during the Recession 3.5% of homes were in the national foreclosure inventory, and there were more than 4 million completed foreclosures. So, while the Great Depression was more severe in the aspects of unemployment and bank failures, the Great Recession was more severe with home foreclosures.