Factory jobs disappeared. Inflation skyrocketed. Unemployment rose to alarming levels and the hungry lined up to receive food. It was not the Great Depression, but the recession of 1981-1982, widely considered the worst in the country since the depression. Those difficult times during the presidency of Ronald Reagan is a dark milestone of how far things can go.
The frustrated workers escaped to call belt of the sun to find employment. In Michigan, which led the country in unemployment, the newspapers offered to the unemployed of the automotive sector free classified ads. The mortgages had interests higher than 10 percent. When the recession of 1982 ended, the unemployment rate was 10.8 percent.
