Unemployment and Economic and Social Welfare in the 1930s

The depression of 1929–32 resulted in much higher unemployment than previously. In 1929, the average number of insured persons out of work had been 1,216,000. At the trough of the depression in 1932, the average in Britain was 2,745,000. Thereafter there was a steady decline, reaching a low point of 1,484,0in 1937, before the short recession of 1937–38. The decade ended with the figure at 1,514,000 in 1939. ¹