[211][212]

GNP and unemployment rates
See also: Great Depression in the United States § Roosevelt's New Deal

Unemployment rates[i]

Year
Lebergott
Darby

1929
3.2
3.2

1932
23.6
22.9

1933
24.9
20.6

1934
21.7
16.0

1935
20.1
14.2

1936
16.9
9.9

1937
14.3
9.1

1938
19.0
12.5

1939
17.2
11.3

1940
14.6
9.5

Government spending increased from 8.0% of the gross national product (GNP) under Hoover in 1932 to 10.2% in 1936. The national debt as a percentage of the GNP had more than doubled under Hoover from 16% to 40% of the GNP in early 1933. It held steady at close to 40% as late as fall 1941, then grew rapidly during the war.[214] The GNP was 34% higher in 1936 than in 1932 and 58% higher in 1940 on the eve of war. That is, the economy grew 58% from 1932 to 1940 in eight years of peacetime, and then grew 56% from 1940 to 1945 in five years of wartime.[214] Unemployment fell dramatically during Roosevelt's first term. It increased in 1938 ("a depression within a depression") but continually declined after 1938.