Large-scale industrial unemployment was a new and unwelcome phenomenon in the 1930s. In addition to surveying official statistics, this chapter describes the experience of being unemployed in Europe and England, revealing psychological as well as economic consequences of long-term unemployment. The incidence of unemployment within countries and between European countries is detailed. Rising underemployment characterized the mostly agricultural countries in Asia and Latin America. The chapter also covers the behavior of the real wage and the many policies undertaken to alleviate workers' distress. Keynes reformulated economic theory. This theory justified new policies to sustain aggregate demand. Most governments resorted to job-creation policies. The Nazis were particularly successful. In the US, the New Deal raised wages instead of ending unemployment.
Keywords: unemployment, psychological costs, real wages, Keynes, Weimar labor policies, deficit spending, Nazi labor policies, New Deal, under-employment, unemployment benefits