Roosevelt's "New Deal"

The America in the 1930s was drastically different from the luxurious 1920s. The stock market had crashed to an all time low, unemployment was the highest the country had ever seen, and all American citizens were affected by it in some way or another. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal was effective in addressing the issues of The Great Depression in the sense that it provided immediate relief to US citizens by lowering unemployment, increasing trust in the banks, getting Americans out of debt, and preventing future economic crisis from taking place through reform. Despite these efforts The New Deal failed to end the depression. In order for America to get out of this economic

Thesis: The various programs created by FDR’s New Deal helped bring the United States out of The Great Depression.

Reform and reconstruction were represented by new regulations and monetary policies, it stressed the importance of change to make understanding principles of, “justice and fairness by those in whom leadership was placed,” and to correct conditions in the economy. (Bolden, 48). Other goals that the New Deal was set to accomplish were: helping the banking industry recover from its failure after the stock market crashed, lowering the unemployment rate from a record high of twenty five percent in 1932, and to restore the hope and confidence of the public. (Appleby, Roosevelt’s New Deal went about all of these in a similar means, but it was condemned and criticized by many for some of the programs that were installed.

Many of the New Deal’s relief programs were revolutionary; the federal government was now responsible for relieving the problems of society previously left to individuals, states, and local governments. Work relief programs, such as the popular Civilian Conservation Corps, which offered unemployed Americans a chance to earn wages while working to conserve natural resources, and the Works Progress Administration, which gave unemployed Americans

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs were a weak response for severe consequences that resulted from the Great Depression, and other conflicts that were occurring in the 1930’s. Although the New Deal programs positively revamped the political system and helped unemployed citizens get jobs, it challenged the order of the Executive Branch of the Federal government, gave false hope to the unemployed, and crushed the spirits of people of color and immigrants with its discriminatory views.

Americans, during the 1930s, clearly needed help. Too many were unemployed, struggling, starving, and/or homeless. One of the biggest legacies of the New Deal is that it combated unemployment with jobs in infrastructure. Many agencies and programs were set up to help increase America’s infrastructure and provide many needy people with jobs. One of those organizations was the Works Progress Administration. Incredibly, the WPA employed an average of 2.1 million people annually for a total of almost 8 million people. It had become largest New Deal program and required almost 11 billion dollars to fund it (Friedrich). The WPA was made with one goal in mind: to get people back to work so they can get money in their pockets to survive. The WPA built highways, airfields, public buildings, and did rural rehabilitation such as planting trees. In total, it had built around 110,000 public buildings, 600 airports, 500,000 miles of roads, and 100,000 bridges (“New Deal”). Like the WPA, the Civilian Conservation Corps, had been created to provide jobs, but it was mainly for younger Americans. This program had employed and put 3

Though the New Deal succeeded in helping people, it largely failed in helping the economy. The National Recovery Administration interfered with the natural workings of the market by setting prices and wages, and fostered cartels rather than supporting small businesses. These cartels set wages above the market rate, which makes labor more expensive and depresses employment. High prices and a high cost of labor also means that the unemployed are both less likely to be hired and also forced to confront a higher cost of living. These measures, when combined with Roosevelt’s other new labor laws like the Fair Labor Standards Act and Wagner Act, were instrumental in supporting his program’s relief efforts and helping the workers, but they didn’t work towards supporting the business community. After Roosevelt reduced federal spending on some jobs-creation projects and increased taxes in 1937, the economy entered another recession and unemployment rose again, demonstrating that the employment created by his New Deal

The next step in FDRs New Deal is recovery. The objective of the National Recovery Administration was to create codes for businesses to follow. These codes would then help to provide minimum wages for employees, restrict the number of hours worked to prevent over time and set prices and production levels. The goal was to fix the American economy by limiting competition, rising power purchased by the consumer and hiring unemployed workers back to work for them once more. By mid-1933, the new agency achieved the voluntary acceptance by nearly 600 industries of new codes. The new codes covered nearly 30 million workers. One problem was that the chief administrator was chosen because of his well-known service in the WIB during World War I. Sadly,

“The New Deal the domestic program of the administration of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt between 1933 and 1939, which took action to bring about immediate economic relief as well as reforms in industry, agriculture, finance, waterpower, labor, and housing, vastly increasing the scope of the federal government’s activities.” (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, "New Deal", 2015) A large majority of the programs created by the New Deal were to help the people. The Great Depression resulted in a large number of unemployed people. There was many families on the verge of losing their homes. “The National Recovery Administration (NRA) was granted authority to help shape industrial codes governing trade practices, wages, hours, child labor,

As of March 1933, 13,000,000 Americans were unemployed. During Roosevelt 's first one hundred days in office he proposed and Congress enacted a new program to help recover businesses and agriculture (White House). This program known as the New Deal Program would also bring relief to the unemployed and Americans in danger of losing their houses and farms. This new program formed organizations such as the AAA which gave farmers a new voice, and taught new farming techniques to better the outcome of their crops and save the minerals in their land (Living History). Seeing that Roosevelt was going to help a diverse group of Americans from farmers to business men get back on their feet, Americans began to trust and cooperate with the ideas that Roosevelt was introducing.

The new deal provided helping programs such as the Social securities act, WPA, and the federal Emergency Relief Act to lower unemployment and to help those who couldn't

In 1932, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office, the citizens of the United States had possessed sufficient time to realize that they could no longer be proud, but they must take anything they could get. Therefore, the programs set up by FDR’s New Deal program were perfect for the country at the time. These programs helped the people directly, providing relief, recovery, and reform. FDR based his plans on the philosophy of Keynesian economics, where the government spends money to make money. The government gave money and jobs to those in need, who in turn, had money to spend in the marketplace. The demand for products increased, and businesses were able to hire more workers and produce more products, as well as pay more money in taxes. FDR’s plans worked because they gave money not to those who would take advantage of the government, but to those who would use it in the way the government intended it to be used. During FDR’s first term in office alone, the unemployment rate dropped 4%. Because of FDR’s success in bringing the country out of the Depression, I give him an A.

They write, “In response to the massive unemployment of the 1930’s, Roosevelt’s New Deal in 1933 introduced the first federal relief programs targeted at the poor and unemployed… he anticipated that the work relief jobs would boost consumer spending and thus increase demand for labor, which would then raise private employment and earnings.” (Neuman, Fishback, Kanton, pg 4) This quotes illustrates that programs such as these relief jobs, would not only be able to get the people back to work, but also get the economy up and running again.

Sure, there we’re relief programs aimed towards helping America, but none quite like the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). Mr. Harry Hopkins of FERA set out the “revitalize many deteriorating relief programs”. He did just that. FERA sent out five million dollars to local, depleted relief programs in its first two hours alone (“Franklin D. Roosevelt” 1). In some cases, mortgages had to be refinanced in order to be saved; the Home Owners Loan Corporation was created to help with this issue (“Franklin D. Roosevelt” 3).

When people think of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, they see a President that inherited a horrible economy and turned it around through his popular New Deal. He also led us through a World War. However, when different perspectives are taken into account, Roosevelt’s New Deal wasn’t the economic restorer that it is thought to be. The New Deal actually hindered the United States’ recovery. The New Deal prolonged the Great Depression because the New Deal inhibited the private sector, it drove up prices, and it caused higher spending and did not fix unemployment.