Jane Doe
Historically, the United States experienced a dramatic shift in class inequality between the 1930’s to the 1970’s. In the 1930’s the American people faced some of the worst economic times that left a large percentage of the population in severe poverty. The Great Depression changed the landscape of the nation that was once thriving, into a struggling country filled with desperation. It is during this period that those who once were in a higher class fell to a lower class status, which began to level out the variation in class inequality. However, as FDR became President and presented The New Deal, things began to turn around. With the onset of World War II came a boom in the American economy, along with the social support that the federal government had begun to provide the citizens of the nation from FDR’s New Deal.
As the mid 1940’s began and the nation pulled out of The Great Depression and into The Great Recovery, the people of the United States began to experience an abundance of opportunity as a result of jobs that were paying a much higher salary than anything that they had imagined. Even the black citizens who primarily lived in the segregated south began to migrate to the north and the west to obtain jobs that would improve the quality of their lives. The country began to have a dramatic increase in the class status of the citizens from poverty to the middle class. During this period and onward, American economy job opportunity grew at a drastic rate right into the 1970’s, allowing for a closing gap in class inequality that was common in the earlier parts of American history.
The period after the 1930’s right into the 1970’s provided a level “playing field” for the American people regardless of differences that previously limited social mobility. Instead, the growing economy improved class mobility at a level that has not been seen since.
