What was the Great Depression?

Why this is the answer

USCIS keeps the definition to six words: the longest economic recession in modern history. The Federal Reserve's history site describes it in nearly the same terms, as the longest and deepest downturn in the history of the United States and of the modern industrial economy. It lasted more than a decade. The slump began in 1929, when the boom of the 1920s ended, and the country did not get back to full output and employment until World War II. Along the way, the stock market crashed in 1929. Waves of bank panics followed in 1930 and 1931. In March 1933 the commercial banking system collapsed, and President Franklin Roosevelt declared a national banking holiday. Across the country banks and businesses closed, many people could not find work, and many people lost their homes and their money. The USCIS study guide calls it the worst time for the U.S. economy in American history. Industrial production plunged and unemployment soared. Roosevelt, who was elected during the Depression, answered with the New Deal, programs meant to create jobs and give workers benefits and financial security. Under his leadership the Social Security Administration was established in 1935, and the Social Security Act of August 14, 1935, set up old-age benefits for workers and unemployment insurance. Those facts tie this question to the next two on the list, which ask when the Depression started and who was President during it and World War II. In the interview, the risk is describing an event instead of a period. The stock market crash of 1929 is the answer USCIS gives for when it started, but the Depression itself was the long, hard decade that followed. Learn the official wording first. If you also understand it well enough to say it in your own words, as the worst and longest economic crisis the country has lived through, the six words will be easier to recall under pressure.