The immediate impact on the United States in fact proved to be much greater that anyone expected. Industrial production fell 5 percent in October and another 5 percent in November. Unemployment, which during the summer of 1929 had hovered at around 1.5 million, 3 percent of the workforce, shot up to close to 3 million by the spring of 1930. The country had become so emotionally invested in the vagaries of Wall Street that the psychological impact of the collapse turned out to be profound, particularly in consumer demand for expensive goods:
