Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Economic Recovery After The Great Depression

After the Great Depression, people all over the United States struggled to gain economic stability and get their lives back to the way they were before the Great Depression. The stock market crashed due to everyone selling their stocks all at once. Farmers couldn’t gain profit for their products because of overproduction, people had lost all their money because of banks closing, and many people were without work. The President during that time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, created the New Deal, with many different programs to assist the people who were negatively affected by the Great Depression. Many people believed that the New Deal did nothing to help the United States recover from the Great Depression, such as M. Santos, who said during the Federal Writers Project Interview, “I do not believe that Roosevelt will solve this crisis, for if he wanted to, as he promised to the American people,he would have solved it”(Santos). The New Deal was beneficial because it provided programs that helped the economy recover, it created reforms to prevent another period of economic struggles, and gave relief to the jobless and all the people affected.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created many programs to help the economy recover after the damage of the Great Depression. One example was the National Recovery Administration. Under this program, codes were created, and companies that followed the codes would have a blue eagle stamped on their products. This helped

businesses and the economy to recover because the government encouraged people to do business with the companies that had the blue eagle on their products. One man, Charles Fusco, who spoke during the Federal Writer’s Project Interview, lived during the time of the Great Depression and talked about how New Deal Programs, such as the NRA, WPA, and Social Security, benefitted him and helped him to get through hard times. He said, “It isn’t so long ago I was working on WPA. Believe me it was a big help,” also saying, “You take the NRA. I think that was very good-it gave everybody a chance” (Fusco, 1938). His opinions show how much New Deal programs helped American citizens. A program that helped people to find jobs was the Public Works Administration, which gave people jobs by hiring people to work on government projects. This program was responsible for the Grand Coulee Dam, many schools, and other government property such as aircraft carriers. Another program, the Adjustment Act, was that the government paid farmers not to grow certain crops in order to prevent overproduction and surpluses. Many argued that the government had no right to intervene in businesses. Such as Herbert Hoover, during his campaign speech in 1928, saying, “I have witnessed not only at home but abroad the many failures of government in business. I have seen it’s tyrannies, its injustices, its destructions of self-government, its undermining of the very instincts which carry our people toward progress”(Hoover, 1928). However, it was necessary in order to help the economy recover from the effects of the Great Depression.
Many people were without jobs during the 1920s and 1930s, so Roosevelt took the initiative to create programs to help the unemployed. One program, the Civilian Conservation Corps, hired single, unemployed, men between 18 and 25 years old, to do jobs such as planting trees, building bridges, working on flood control projects, and developing new parks. This gave young people, suffering from the effects of the Great Depression, jobs, and also helped to conserve natural resources by developing new parks and planting trees. Another program was the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. This government program gave state and federal agencies money, which was then distributed to the unemployed. This helped them to be able to buy food, clothing, and other essential items. The Works Progress Administration, gave jobs in making clothes, and building buildings, which mainly provided jobs to artists, photographers, actors, writers, and composers. Critics of the New Deal argued that these jobs were only temporary and did not help people in the long run. However, people need food in the short term, not the long term, and these jobs helped them afford food when they needed it.
Finally, programs needed to be put in place that would prevent another Depression from occurring. The Truth In Securities Act was established which was designed to end risky buying and selling of stocks. The stock market crash was a result of many people selling their stocks all at once, causing values to drop, and many people to lose their jobs and money. This Act was crucial in order to stop one of the major causes of the Great Depression, risky stock activity. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation insured people’s bank accounts at certain banks. So, if a bank failed and it was insured by this program, the people who had accounts there would be reimbursed, and would not lose any of their money. This would prevent another depression, because if banks closed, people would not fall into poverty. Finally, the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was expanded so that more products had to list their ingredients and medicines had to be strictly tested before they could be put on the market. Also, there are many New Deal programs that are still improving and helping America today, such as The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. It is still helping to insure people’s bank `accounts, so that they won’t lose their money if banks closed suddenly. Another existing program is Social Security, which provides assistance to people with little or no income. According to Larry DeWitt from the Social Securities Bulletin, the number of people receiving the benefits of Social Security has increased over the years, and so has the total amount of money these people are receiving (DeWitt, 2010). According to Larry DeWitt from “The Development of Social Security in America” in Social Security Bulletin, Social Security laws covered “Old-Age Assistance, Federal Old-Age Benefits, Unemployment Insurance, Aid to Dependent Children, Grants to States for Maternal and Child Welfare, Public Health Work, and Aid to the Blind” (DeWitt 2010). Therefore, this program is only getting better, as it helps more and more people. These programs are very important, as they help to protect American citizens, the American economy, and most importantly, prevent another Depression. Many would argue that these programs helped American citizens in the short term, and did not work to improve the economy so that it would last in the long term. However, according to a chart showing rising national debt, WWII was the main cause of national debt rising, and the New Deal in fact slowed the rising of debt, benefitting the economy immensely.
These programs that were established as a part of the New Deal, all have different qualities, however are similar in one important way, they helped to end the Great Depression, and lift many Americans out of poverty.

All these programs, while they had flaws, essentially were a great help to returning the American economy to it’s previous state. So, in conclusion, the New Deal, and all the acts created under it, helped America move out of the treachery of the Great Depression and move onto future

prosperity.