Answer: The Great Depression of 1929 devastated the U.S. economy. A third of all banks failed. 1 Unemployment rose to 25%, and homelessness increased. 2 Housing prices plummeted 67%, international trade collapsed by 65%, and deflation soared above 10%.
At the end of the war, millions of people were dead and millions more homeless, the European economy had collapsed, and much of the European industrial infrastructure had been destroyed. The Soviet Union, too, had been heavily affected.
