My father worked as a cop in the city of Detroit...Very few people know that citys made their own money. It was called Script. He was paid in script and stores took the script and went to city hall (or where ever it was) and gave money to the business man in return for the script...Not all stores took script, but most did...we always had food on the table, so did most of the neighbors. Script paid for food not beer, cigarettes etc. In other words, it paid to feed you....many farmers raised their own food and were not as hard hit as some others...my mother canned all summer for feeding us in the winter....
I am sure there was lots of propaganda from the government, my in-laws did fine also....the lazy never do well. But you did help your neighbor if needed...Hard times makes hard people and we needed hard people for the war that came and ended the depression...