There is a widely held belief among economists and other social scientists that the 1930s were the “defining moment” in the development of the American politico-economic system (Bordo et al. 1998). When we look at major structural-demographic variables, however, the decade of the 1930s does not appear to be a turning point. Structural-demographic trends that were established during the Progressive Era continued through the 1930s, although some of them accelerated (Figure 7.1 and Table 7.1). Most notably, all the wellbeing variables went through trend reversals before the Great
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