In September 1929, just over 1.5 million people were out of work; by February of the following year, the number had tripled. The economy was not fatally ill, President Hoover said; Americans had simply lost their confidence. “All the evidences indicate that the worst effects of the crash on unemployment will have passed during the next sixty days,” Hoover said on March 3, 1930. By the end of that year, eight million people were out of work.
