Who did not benefit from the economic boom

Poverty in the countryside
1. Many of America's rural areas saw increasing levels of poverty in the 1920s. By the early 1930s, farmers were only earning a third of their income in 1920. There were several reasons for this
2. After the first world war, there was less demand in Europe for American imports.
3. Some countries taxed US products, making them expensive and difficult to sell to customers overseas.
4. The use of high-tech farming machinery produced more food to sell. Prices fell and famers became poorer as a result.
5. Some farmers had borrowed money from the banks to buy the latest machinery and now they could not repay the loans. As a result, many famers were forced to sell their farms to raise money or they were evicted from the land.
6. Around 600,000 farmers lost their farms in 1924 alone. The farm workers also lost their jobs.
African American workers
1. Most African Americans lived in the southern states, such as Mississippi and South Carolina. They were hit hard in the 1920s
2. Many worked on farms as labourers or were sharecroppers who rented small areas of farm land from a landowner
3. As the farming industry suffered in general, African American farmers and sharecroppers were hit particularly hard, because they were already desperately poor.
4. Many moved to cities to work but could often only find low-paid jobs.
American Indians
1. Life was also very hard for most of the original inhabitants of the country, the American Indians.
2. Large amounts of their land had been seized by mining companies and much of their tradition way of life had been lost.
3. Many American Indians had been forced to move to reservations. Often, the soil there was so poor that it was impossible to grow crops properly.
4. Most American Indians lived in extreme poverty, were poorly educated and had a lower life expectancy than other ethnic groups in US society.
Problems in traditional industries
1. Some industries that were once prosperous were overtaken by new rival industries.
2. Coal miners suffered, because coal mines closed. Other forms of fuel (oil, gas and electricity) were increasingly used to heat homes and cook food.
3. Cotton and wool factory workers suffered - there was less demand for their products because of the popularity of new man-made fibres such as rayon, and fashion for shorter dresses, which required less material. The price of cotton and woolien cloth fell and many factories shut down.
The 1920s was not a time of economic prosperity for all Americans. Millions of people remained poor, particularly those in rural areas or who worked in older, more traditional industries.
1. America was a place where wealth was spread very unequally. The richest 5 per cent earned 33 per cent of all money.
2. There were an estimated 15,000 US millionaires in 1927. In contrast, 6 million families - 42 per cent in total - had an income of less than $1000 a year, which meant they could not buy basic necessities such as decent food and good quality housing.
3. Many large industrial firms were able to keep their profits high by paying low wages to their unskilled workers.

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Who did not benefit from the economic boom

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