Compare And Contrast The New Deal And The Great Society

The New Deal and the Great Society

“Do unto others as you would have others do unto you”

- (Matthew 7:12)

Even though Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was introduced about thirty years before the Great Society of Lyndon Johnson both of these progressive initiatives contains very similar characteristics. Most notably, the fundamental goals of the Great Society that amazingly mirror those of the New Deal and notably, the New Deal and the Great Society prove to be alike through their lasting legacies. Johnson’s Great Society resembles the New Deal in its origins, goals, and social and political legacies.

The origins of Johnson’s Great Society directly reflect those of the New Deal in many ways. One common attribute of both of these two programs as they were filled with new progressive ideas aimed to help lower-income American families. Even though the period directly following World War I was considered to be a very conservative time but, many progressive reforms were brought to FDR and eventually were implemented through the New Deal to be used to help the drastic economic

crisis (Lawson 41). One example of progressive reform from the New Deal was the creation of the National Recovery Administration (NRA), which helped labor, industry, and the unemployed all at the same time (Kennedy, Cohen, and Bailey, “New Deal” 781).
One prominent example of a Johnson Great Society progressive reform was the increased funding provided to the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), which was established to help rebuild the infrastructure of forgotten Appalachian regions (Kennedy, Cohen, and Bailey, “Stormy Sixties” 922). Both of these landmark reforms were based on using extensive government intervention to provide for the working and middle class, which can be labeled as a progressive reform tactic.

The New Deal and Great Society also had another mutual similarity in their necessity because of economic hardships. Before the New Deal was established, the Great Depression hit America in 1929 (“New Deal” 1). Franklin D. Roosevelt commented, “… trade and commerce had declined to dangerously low levels; prices for basic commodities were such as to destroy the value of the assets of national institutions such as banks, savings banks, insurance companies, and others” (“Outlining” 1).
The roots of Johnson’s Great Society was in the lack of economic progression after World War II (“Domestic Policy” 1). President John F. Kennedy promised “…‘to get America moving again,’ primarily by stimulating economic growth” (“Domestic Policy” 1). Both of these statements reveal that the economic strife endured before these programs were enacted was a definite incentive for their implementation.
A noticeable reduction or total elimination of poverty was clearly the universal goal for both the New Deal and the Great Society programs. The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) from the New Deal was passed in 1933 to reform industry by inspiring employers to cooperate in an effort to reduce unemployment and increase the wages of their employees (Catapano 2-3).
The Johnson administration’s Economic Opportunity Act was passed in early 1964 at the beginning of the Great Society and was used as a platform to create various other programs, such as the Head Start program and Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) (“Great Society” 148). These two acts were established to aid very low or no-income citizens in an effort to help reduce poverty. The New Deal and the Great Society had the common goal to preserve America’s nature. The New Deal program established the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which was a youth program that worked to enhance the environment by doing jobs like clearing swamps, planting trees, and other conservation efforts (Catapano 1). The Great Society’s Highway Beautification Act was signed in 1965 to fund projects that helped to clean the nation’s highways and clear damage and litter (“Great Society” 149). These legislations both were instrumental in the effort to preserve the American natural environment pristine and untouched all its beauty.

It’s crystal clear that the lasting legacy of LBJ’s Great Society was influenced by the New Deal in multiple ways. Both the New Deal and the Great Society share a common social legacy of making civil rights an important issue in America. During the New Deal, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was passed, which recognized a minimum wage, a forty-hour work week, and abolished child labor (Lawson 44). The Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA) not only gave funding for scholarships, student loans, libraries, and a teacher corp but also mandated that the government stop funding segregated schools (“Domestic Policy” 5). Both of these policies provided much-needed aid in the civil rights effort that was going on at its time.

This effectiveness of these expansions in the powers of the federal government led to an unequaled political legacy for both The New Deal and The Great Society. The Administration Reorganization Act of Roosevelt’s New Deal was able to expand the powers of the executive branch by giving the president expanded authority over various government agencies (Lawson 44). In the same respect Johnson’s Great Society greatly expanded the government’s responsibility and control over health care through the establishment of the new Medicare program, which gave the elderly health insurance that was funded by Social Security taxes, which were established during The New Deal, as well as the new Medicaid program, which provided health insurance for poor and disabled people under the age of sixty-five (Johnson 234).
I was amazed while gathering information for this paper the sheer number of documented similarities between Roosevelt’s New Deal and Johnson’s Great Society. I am confident that through my research, I was able to establish how The Great Society paralleled The New Deal in its origins but, was able to show how the goals of The New Deal were actually in contract to those of LBJ’s Great Society.
In conclusion, I am confident when making the statement that FDR’s New Deal was actually about security and workers ability to be able to disengage from the labor force through such programs as retirement pensions, unemployment compensation, and pensions for the poor.

The Great Society, in contrast, was about opportunity and more labor force participation. The New Deal was implemented to support struggling Americans at a time of dire economic hardship. Lyndon Baines Johnson understood that the 1960’s were much different time than the 1930’s and worked tirelessly to ensure that his plan of a Great Society would, in fact, invest in people at the margins of the labor force at a time of boosted economic

opportunity.
While the New Deal was initially viewed as pessimistic in nature while first reactions to the Great Society was seen as quite optimistic. When President Roosevelt implemented his program it appeared as if he was hoping to somehow create a larger economic pie, but in actuality what he was hoping to do was ensure that all the pieces of the pie no matter what size pie was were more equally distributed (Woods 1)
On the other hand, it appears to me that Johnson’s plan was actually easier to implement because it was being aided by an influx of the postwar prosperity that America was experiencing and by JFK’s preexisting tax cuts. Johnson was more about political and educational empowerment of the poor and disadvantaged so that they could better compete in the labor force. However, Johnson did not wholeheartedly support the idea a government-driven redistribution of the wealth. He was actually in strong opposition to both guaranteed income measures and many existing public works programs, favoring instead programs that were geared at social rehabilitation and affirmative action.
While records indicate that President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal did in fact included more total programs for America at its inception it is actually President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society plan for America that in 2014 celebrated its 50th anniversary that has the greatest number of programs that are still in effect and continuing to help countless American citizens to this very day.