President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and Unemployment

The United States encountered many ordeals during the Great Depression (1929-1939). Poverty, unemployment and despair clouded the “American Dream” and intensified the urgency for solutions to address and control the nationwide damage. President Franklin Roosevelt proposed the New Deal to detoxify the nation of its suffering. It can be argued that the New Deal was ineffective due to the inability to end the Great Depression with its short-term solutions and created more problems, however; it was successful in regards to providing direct relief for the needy, economic recovery and some structural reform for the majority of the general public in the severity of the Great Depression.

During this time, “…FDR promised ‘a new deal for the American people’” (Polenberg, 8). FDR quickly realized that in order to win over the citizens of the United States and to fix the crisis they were in, he had to address the two main things that he saw every American wanted during this economical depression. Polenberg informs his readers that FDR saw that the two things every American wanted was “…Work; work with all the moral and spiritual values that go with work. And with work, a reasonable measure of security—security for themselves and for their wives and children” (p.8). Knowing that these were the two main aspects (at the time) that FDR had to place the majority of his attention on, he went to work immediately as “He feared that a resolution was likely if he failed, as Hoover had, to solve the nation’s problems” therefore he begun formation of the first New Deal reforms (Polenberg, 8). These reforms were “…designed not so much to promote reform as to proceed recovery,” (Polenberg, 9) therefore indicating that “…the Roosevelt administration intended to move the country in a dramatically new direction” (Polenberg, 9). Some of the programs that the New Deal initiated were: the NIRA (National Industrial Recovery Act), the NRA (the National Recovery Administration), the AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Act), the WPA (Works Progress Administration), the CWA (Civil Works Administration), and the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) just to name a few (Polenberg, 9-13). Each reform act was aimed at recovering a different but specific area of society. For example, the TVA worked to “…provide cheap electrical power… and… help prevent soil erosion and control floods” (Polenberg, 13) while the AAA “…served as the foundation of New Deal farm policy… balancing agricultural production and consumption so as to avoid surpluses and ensure that

During the 1930’s, the United States of America was captivated by a economical, financial, and social depression as a result of the Stock Market crash in October of 1929. Many people were left with almost no money, no job, and great deal of debt. When elected in 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt took over the White House and implemented his “New Deal” policy that established many different legislations, administrations, and agencies in efforts to bring back American jobs, money, and prosperity.

FDR stopped farmers from suffering showed he is very effective to the problems caused by the Great Depressions and changed the role of the government. The Great Depression especially hurt farmers because farmers lose their lands when they could not pay back their debts to the banks. The farmers needed to migrate to other places to seek for other opportunities. In order to help the farmers to overcome their problems, FDR created the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), which provided immediate relief to farmers by setting prices for agricultural products and paying subsides to farmers for curtailing production of certain crops that were in surplus. However, at the beginning the Supreme Court kept rejected FDR’s New Deal programs which

In the 1920s, the U.S. economy was “roaring,” or so people thought. In reality, the economy balanced on a shaky foundation, and in 1929, the country plunged into the worst economic decline in American history (Danzer 690). Thirteen to fifteen million people were left unemployed by 1933, and half the banks in the nation had failed (The Great). America began to see soup kitchens, bread lines, and masses of homeless people popping up in towns and cities (The Great). Herbert Hoover, the Republican U.S. president from 1928-1932, did not believe in direct relief, and provided little to no support for the needy (The Great). Clearly ready for a change, Americans elected Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt into office in 1932 (The Great). The New Deal, Roosevelt’s plan to “fix” the economy, was created to

Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States, had a plan to get the nation out of the Great Depression. This plan was called the New Deal, and it was different federal programs that helped those who were suffering most from the depression. The Civilian Conservation Corps and The Civil Works Administration were both work relief programs to provide jobs for the millions of unemployed Americans. The New Deal was created to help everyone who needed the help, it wasn’t just for the people and it wasn’t just for businesses. A lot of the programs created helped individuals find jobs and homes

However, FDR and the congress feared that the unemployed would become reliance on the relief payment, so they created different agencies and public works that provided jobs and income to the unemployed. Congress created the Civilian Conservation Corps, which employed young male to work on projects that includes forest preservation, flood control, and the improvement of national parks and wildlife preserves and by 1942 “more than 3 million persons had passed through CCC camps, where they received government wages of $30 per month” (Give 866). One part of the National Industrial Recovery Act, which provided jobs was the Public Works Administration that built hospitals, schools, roads and other different public services. Another agency that was launched that rendered jobs was Civil Work Administration, which recruited people to work on public works that included courthouses, highways and airports. Another program was the Tennessee Valley Authority, which helped build dams to help prevent flooding and deforestation. Tennessee Valley Authority also provided cheap and affordable electricity to those that lived around the Tennessee Valley area. Even though these different programs and agencies successfully in decreased the unemployment rate, they were too costly. The total spending for the first year of this plan cost approximately five hundred million dollars. It was also said that these programs and jobs

When FDR took office in 1933 one fourth of the American population was unemployed and Americans saw the lowest quality of life since the turn of the century. Throughout Roosevelt's campaign, one of the ways the promised to fix the country's struggles was a group of policies later known as recovery. Recovery was intended to put Americans back to work and temporarily fix the economy. One of the many acts classified as recovery was the Agricultural Adjustment Act. The limited what type of crop farmers could produce and how much they could produce. This was enforced by AAA agents deployed by Henry A Wallace(Secretary of Agriculture) who went out to rural communities and enforced the act. The AAA was successful in raising crop prices which in turn raised the living standards of farmers to the highest they’d been since the industrial era.

Beginning in 1929, in unison with the stock market the American economy would dwindle for a decade resulting in the Great Depression. As consumer spending and stock investments lessened, businesses were forced to dismiss employees, rendering a large section of the American population unemployed, starving, homeless, desperate and humiliated. Republican President Herbert Hoover would maintain that the federal government was not responsible for job creation, or widespread relief for citizens as conditions worsened. His refusal to act would ultimately cost him the election of 1932 in a landslide favorable to his opponent, democratic candidate, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and his promise of a “New Deal”. FDR would work with Congress to develop a series of domestic relief solutions shortly after his inauguration. His actions in favor of federal intervention slowly paved the road to recovery with his attention focused on national welfare. The New Deal concocted by the Roosevelt administration encompassed The Social Security Act (SSA) and was the United States (US) first attempt at a national welfare program. This sudden breach of economy by the federal government is scrutinized in the following to further understand this relationship

At the peak of the Great Depression in 1932 the unemployment rate stood at 25 percent and the Dow Jones Average sunk to a mere 34, indicating severe economic distress.1 Millions of individuals were starving on the streets and billions of dollars were lost in the stock market. When Franklin Roosevelt released the New Deal in 1933, a plan to provide relief, reform, and recovery to the distressed country, Americans were in dire need of relief. Recognizing that something had to be done quickly, President FDR implemented a series of programs to immediately mitigate the effects of the Depression. By focusing on programs to aid business and labor, farmers, housing and homeowners, banks and the stock market, and the youth of America, FDR attempted to provide the immediate relief from the Great Depression that America so desperately needed. Although some of the programs in the New Deal were more successful than others, they succeeded as a whole in providing the short-term relief that America needed to survive the Great Depression.

The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in the history of industrialized world. People wouldn’t pay back their loans, thus the banks went bankrupt. This happened to over 100 banks and millions of dollars were lost. All of these events lead up to the Stock Market Crash of 1929. The leader of the country during this unfortunate time was Herbert Hoover who did absolutely nothing to support his people, thinking that it wasn’t his place to do so. Americans were furious when they heard about this but they couldn’t do anything to convince the government to help them. Throughout the years, the economic industry in America had gotten worse. From 1929 to 1933, unemployment rates increased by over 10 million and Americans struggled to survive. It wasn’t until America elected a new president, Franklin Roosevelt who created the New Deal in 1935, where the economy was recovering. The New Deal was a group of U.S government programs of the 1930s.

After the Wall Street stock-market crash of 1929, the United States plunged into the most prolonged economic collapse in the history of modern industrial world- a depression that continued in one form or another for a full decade. It was a traumatic expression for individual Americans who faced unemployment, the loss of land and other property, and in some cases homelessness and starvation. In response to the calamity of the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt developed an economic program known as the New Deal after taking office in 1933. It had helped stop the disastrous downward spiral, and there had been a limited, if erratic, recovery some areas. But in fact, many of the basic issues, such as

The Great Depression is a terrible part of America’s history that caused many to experience pain and suffering. There were three major long-term causes of the Great Depression, and one of them was farming. After World War I, farmers who made a lot of money by producing all of Europe’s food continued to produce food at the same rate. However, not as much food was needed, and its overproduction let to a massive decrease in its prices. Farmers tried to earn their money by growing even more food to make up for the drops in prices, but found that it made prices drop even more. Another factor of the Great Depression was consumer spending. Since companies saw that a lot of people were buying their products, they raised their prices,

Great Depression America was a mix of people, morals, values and intentions. When faced with a time that the traditional capitalist values had betrayed them, the divisions between radical government supporters and those against stood clear. Upon Franklin D Roosevelt's inauguration in March of 1933 he immediately enacted his promised New Deal, a set of programs and acts designed to provide relief to the people, recovery for the failing economic systems and provide proper reform for the flawed system. Roosevelt was a more radical leader, especially in comparison to his predecessor Hoover, but the programs he attempted to put into action across America sometimes were restricted by the views of the people. The New Deal’s attempted reformation of

With the Tennessee Valley Authority he managed to help create a wide source of jobs and cheap electricity for the thousands, possibly millions, of people in the Tennessee Valley area and helped with the burden of almost living in a past era with no power and no money. The Agricultural Adjustment Act helped many of the farmers who were hit the hardest with the crash and allowed them to make enough money to keep up with their debts and let them stay afloat in the hysteria. Finally with the Social Security Act everyone became covered under a very thin lined insurance so if they became injured on the job and when they age enough to retire, so they can still have income. This is as to why FDR was one of the United States most successful presidents in one of the worst times in the country's