Who said, "It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours."?

It was really something when President Harry Truman first reportedly said. "It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours." The relevance of this quote by Truman is easy to understand if you don't have a job. You then hope and assume that it will only be temporary.

Moreover, if you are the person losing a job, it’s catastrophic. Though it may be easier to find work when the unemployment rate is lower, that does not make the situation less awful. Truman knew and all unemployed people know that they are currently not working but are willing and able to work for pay, currently available to work, and must actively look for work.

Individuals who are actively seeking a job must make the effort to: be in contact with an employer, have job interviews, contact job placement agencies, send out resumes, submit applications, respond to advertisements, or use some other means to actively search for a job.

Now, some critics said that Truman made his quote when he actually knew his neighbors (especially those who were jobless). Currently, people say that they don’t know the world in which they live. Their neighbors are unknown to them. If neighbors are in a recession, they don’t know it. And, it is true that their neighbors will not know if they are in a depression and trying to find a new job.