well.... to start with the "Recession" Tops The Great Depression. When the stock market crashed in October 1929, it was only the beginning of a long period of economic decline and uncertainty that would last more than a decade. ... In 2011 those few years often where described as the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. But how do the two differ in a quick answer. The difference between the two is that the unemployment rate in "The Great Recession" was less severe than in "The Great Depression"