Johnson & Johnson Helps Employees During the Great Depression, 1938

Image courtesy: Johnson & Johnson Archives

Johnson & Johnson distributes a five percent annual bonus to employees during the recession of 1937-1938, a 13-month economic downturn during the Great Depression. The company had also given bonuses in June and December of 1936. The bonuses were designed to help employees and their families during the hard economic times of the Depression, an expression of CEO Robert Wood Johnson II’s philosophy about the responsibilities of business.