Although an estimated 40% of the U.S population did not face any hardship during the Great Depression, others had to deal with real issues. First of all, there was a decrease in marriages and divorces. The reason for this drop was due to the marriage/divorce fees which people could not afford. There was also over 1.5 million cases of husbands leaving their families because they were too hard to support. There was also a reported 25% unemployment rate.
There were also positive effects. Some of these positive effects include the rise of employed women. Before this, it was considered that the men in the family should be the breadwinners and support their families, but due to the lack of jobs for men, there was a rise in women seeking work.
To add on to some of those facts, the Great Depression was so bad financially for some people they just had to end it all. Stress on the average person was probably at an all time high because many people literally had nothing. Business declined drastically since no one had excess money to make unnecessary purchases which put out most businesses. It was essentially a ripple effect where the average day person stopped buying which effected the upper middle class and that ended up effected the 1% just not as hard since they were financially well off already.
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