<P> Two economists of the 1920s, Waddill Catchings and William Trufant Foster, popularized a theory that influenced many policy makers, including Herbert Hoover, Henry A. Wallace, Paul Douglas, and Marriner Eccles . It held the economy produced more than it consumed, because the consumers did not have enough income . Thus the unequal distribution of wealth throughout the 1920s caused the Great Depression . </P> <P> According to this view, the root cause of the Great Depression was a global over-investment in heavy industry capacity compared to wages and earnings from independent businesses, such as farms . The proposed solution was for the government to pump money into the consumers' pockets . That is, it must redistribute purchasing power, maintaining the industrial base, and re-inflating prices and wages to force as much of the inflationary increase in purchasing power into consumer spending . The economy was overbuilt, and new factories were not needed . Foster and Catchings recommended federal and state governments to start large construction projects, a program followed by Hoover and Roosevelt . </P> <P> It cannot be emphasized too strongly that the (productivity, output and employment) trends we are describing are long - time trends and were thoroughly evident prior to 1929 . These trends are in nowise the result of the present depression, nor are they the result of the World War . On the contrary, the present depression is a collapse resulting from these long - term trends . </P> <P> The first three decades of the 20th century saw economic output surge with electrification, mass production and motorized farm machinery, and because of the rapid growth in productivity there was a lot of excess production capacity and the work week was being reduced . </P>

When was the great depression at its peak