Answer:
I really don't know
Explanation:
Broadly representative measures of public opinion during the first years of the Depression are not available — the Gallup organization did not begin its regular polling operations until 1935. And in its early years of polling, Gallup asked few questions directly comparable with today’s more standardized sets. Moreover, its samples were heavily male, relatively well off and overwhelmingly white. However, a combined data set of Gallup polls for the years 1936 and1937, made available by the Roper Center, provides insight into the significant differences, but also notable similarities, between public opinion then and now.1
Bear in mind that while unemployment had receded from its 1933 peak, estimated at 24.9% by the economist Stanley Lebergott,2 it was still nearly 17% in 1936 and 14% in 1937.3 By contrast, today’s unemployment situation is far less dismal. To be sure, despite substantial job gains in October, unemployment remains stubbornly high relative to the norm of recent decades and the ranks of the long-term unemployed have risen sharply in recent months. But the current 9.8% official government rate, as painful as it is to jobless workers and their families, remains far below the levels that prevailed during most of the 1930s.
