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Government Intervention In The Gilded Age

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The “Background” section of this article gives a lot of insight to how the middle class was formed and the economic problems that arose throughout the 18th and 19th century, and are still arising today. This section is divided into four smaller segments that each give insight to the middle class and economic issues in a specific time frame. These sections are titled “Early Middle Class,” “Government Intervention,” “Economic Boom,” and “The Reversal.” The “Early Middle Class” section focuses on the time frame between the late 1800s and early 1900s where the Gilded Age, Progressive Movement, and the Roaring Twenties took place. The period between 1870 and 1917 is marked as the Gilded Age. This was where industrialists were corrupt and built large fortunes from monopolizing the steel, oil, and shipping industries. Because of the Gilded Age the wealthy top one percent of the population earned more than forty percent of the national income, leaving the middle class practically nonexistent. The excesses from the Gilded Age gave rise to the Progressive Movement of 1900-1920. The progressives fought against the big-business domination of the economy and the power of industrial monopolies. The …show more content…

When former president Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1933, he initiated laws and programs known as the New Deal. The New Deal was designed to help solve the unemployment and poverty that resulted from the Great Depression. The New Deal included a Social Security System, and the Works Progress Administration-which helped provide jobs to the unemployed. After World War II the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, or the GI Bill of Rights, was established. It was designed to create a more financially stable middle class by providing tuition to college or trade schools, and low-cost home mortgages to 78% of

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