PEOPLE WHO PROSPERED [BUSY FEW]
a. Business owners
Although times got worse for small businesses, wealthier businessmen and corporate executives (notably in steel, oil, automobiles construction and housing) were able to reap the rewards of huge profits. By 1930, 100 corporations controlled of the USA’s business interests. In 1924 Henry Ford paid m in tax, his son Edsel $2.2m ... and Jr triple that.
Bankers such as Jnr made lots of money from the credit boom, the stock market boom … and lending money to foreign countries.
Some large farmers prospered, and niche producers such as salad growers and dairy farmers near cities.
b. Upper middle classes
Managers, engineers and professions such as lawyers, accountants, advertisers – i.e. the upper ranks of – were able to shop in department stores or own a motor car.
c. Stock Investors
The stock market seemed to be on a constant bull market, with many investors making significant profits especially in the late 1920s.
d. Young and rich
For the children of the wealthy – such as the and college students – life was full of fun and opportunity.
e. Factory workers
The growth of cities meant that life for skilled workers improved – especially where had been set up. Wages largely rose as business owners came to understand that production improved with happier workers. Working hours decreased by about %, leaving more time for leisure.
Urban workers also benefited from better ; e.g. electricity and new consumer goods such as vacuum cleaners and refrigerators. There were expanded opportunities for entertainment and leisure … IF you had the money.
f. Entertainment and Leisure
A few actors, entertainers, musicians and sports personalities were able to prosper.
g. Women
BBC Bitesize suggests that “many women, benefiting from growing independence after World War One, were able to move into jobs too. This gave them a greater sense of financial ”.

PEOPLE WHO MISSED OUT [FLOP CUTS]
a. Farming
Machinery and overproduction led to rapidly falling prices (wheat prices fell from $183 a bushel in 1920 to in 1929). In 1929 average income in of farmers was only 40% of the national average, and many farmers could not afford their mortgage; in 1924 farmers went bankrupt. Note also that rural areas did not have electricity, so most country-dwellers were excluded from the consumer boom.
b. Low wage earners
e.g. unskilled and casual workers, or the 2 million who were unemployed - could not share in the prosperity. There were great inequalities of wealth; the top 5% of the population earned % of the income, while 60% of Americans earned less than $2000, and 40% were below the line (notably farmers/ Black Americans/ immigrants). Only 3% of semi-skilled workers owned a car.
c. Old Industries
Overproduction of coal (which was being replaced by oil and gas) led to mine closures and falling wages. In 1929 a coal miner's wage was barely a of the national average income. There were also problems in the textiles industry (where 'flapper' fashions were reducing the amount of cloth used to make clothes).
d. Poor Black Americans
black farm workers lost their jobs in the 1920s. Black workers in the towns in the north were the lowest paid; the only work available to them were low-paying, menial jobs. New York's black Harlem district was a severely overcrowded and segregated community, with more than 250,000 citizens crammed into an area 50 blocks long and eight blocks wide. In 1928, there was one hospital bed for every 139 white people, and one for every black people. Life expectancy in 1929 was 59 for white people, 47 for black people.
Native Americans
also lived in extreme poverty, trying to survive on government-controlled reservations.
e. Cartels, trusts and monopolies
These ‘fixed the market’ and tried to keep prices high and wages low.
f. Unemployed
New technology was throwing more and more people out of work; the number of unemployed stood at 2 million throughout 1920s. There was no to act as a safety net. If you were unemployed, you were literally 'on the bread line'.
g. Trade problems
High tariffs were causing other countries to , as well as reducing the purchasing power of those countries, which made it hard for American companies to export their products abroad. Farmers, who relied on exporting wheat, were especially hard-hit by this.
h. Stock Investors
And, finally, there was one group that thought they were doing well, but were actually heading for catastrophe. Wall Street was '. So great was over-confidence that people were even buying shares in imaginary companies. Many were buying shares ‘on margin’ (a person could get a loan of up to 90% to buy shares) expecting to make enough profit to repay the loan when the shares were resold – brokers’ loans almost trebled 1926-9. All this threatened disaster if share prices ever stopped rising.