True, but during the Great Depression, other than those who lost their farms due to early "bad choices", farmers didn't go hungry, and had a place to live out of the weather. They might have had to burn corn cobs(when the cob pile wasn't frozen) or even cow chips, but they got by. Folks in the cities didn't fare as well. My mother's family was the one burning corn cobs. My father's mother had it rougher, but she had brothers who were farmers, and had a land of her own that one of them farmed. She, my Dad, my Aunt and my Uncle didn't starve, but she did other peoples laundry and cleaned other people's houses to get by, and there weren't many folks in her part of town that needed and could afford those services, so she had to take the street car across town to where the "big houses" were. My Dad did too, to shovel the walks of the people who lived in those big houses. He also pen raised quail and pheasants for a little extra cash, and also bantam chickens for fun, and for eggs. The culls became chicken soup.
Even if our standard of living fell 5X we would not reduced to a position where subsistence farming would be a net improvement.
Just for the record, I don’t expect American’s standard of living to fall anymore than 3X.