New Deal Dbq

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The new deal was a moderate success because it stimulated jobs, improved the unemployment rate, eased mortgage debts, and provided food to needy children, but it discriminated against and provided less of a relief for many African Americans. At the peak of the Great Depression in 1932, 22.5% percent of Americans were unemployed, leaving many people without the necessary means to provide for basic needs (Smiley). But after Roosevelt took office in 1933, he implemented the New Deal in hopes to stimulate the economy and give the American people more purchasing power. Therefore, in 1933, the New Deal gave “employment to one-quarter of a million unemployed” (Roosevelt) and with this increase in employment opportunities, it also decreased the unemployment …show more content…

Roosevelt reassured the American people during his “Fireside Chat” that he was going to “greatly ease the mortgage distress among the farmers and the homeowners of the nation, by easing the burden of debt.” Therefore, The Home Owners Loan Act of 1933 was part of the New Deal to replace short-term mortgages with high-interest rates to long-term mortgages with lower interest rates to offer relief to many struggling American families. The New Deal not only helped many adults with the many financial crises, but it also provided food for many underfed children. The Works Progress Administration’s school lunch program provided 80,000,000 well-balanced meals to 10,000 schools to help feed many children in American as well as giving them motivation to go to school (Woodward). The new deal helped many adults and children, but it discriminated against and offered little relief to many African American. This was because it “not only offered whites the first crack at jobs, but authorized separate and lower pay scales for blacks” (Mintz and McNeil). The Social Security Act also excluded many traditional African American jobs, and Federal Housing Authority refused loans to African Americans who tried to buy in white neighborhoods. The AAA also subsequently pushed over 100,000 African Americans off their sharecropper land in 1933 and 1934 and leaving many

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