New Deal Dbq

Social security, welfare, and the federal deposit insurance corporation. All major parts of the United States government which stem from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. These were among the many programs used as quick responses for the Great Depression. Whether or not these programs spurred economic growth is up for debate, yet it is certain that they helped inspire the people of the United States to keep pushing forward through the uncertain economic times. Despite numerous acts being struck down by the supreme court at the time, the New Deal put into place numerous programs which helped create the backbone for American hope. Even though the New deal may not have been an amazing economical success overall, it still served a very

important purpose in making sure that Americans did not lose hope in the United States.
To begin, Roosevelt campaigned under the promise that he would bring about this “new deal.” He lived up to this promise, as within the first 100 days of his presidency he sent 15 legislative proposals to congress in order to put together his “alphabet agencies.” Some of these included the agricultural adjustment act, the national industrial recovery act, and many more. Roosevelt went on to pass more relief measures, racking up more and more debt for the country. In this time he put together relief programs such as social security and the emergency relief appropriation act. The acts were put together in order to achieve a few goals. The primary goal of the agencies were to stop the Great Depression, and also to keep Americans from starving. With 25% without a job, people were literally starving. Roosevelt’s programs helped keep those people who could not afford food alive, and also tried to put said people to work. The second goal for the New Deal was to create greater wealth distribution within the country. Before when the government was very uninvolved with business, and the big business owners had most of the wealth in their possession. To combat this, the New Deal tried to promote more wealth distribution. Roosevelt believed that a major cause of the depression was the fact that the lower classes and farmers did not have enough spending power within the United States economy. The final purpose of the New Deal was more politically driven. Roosevelt wanted to make sure that his party maintained control of the government. By boosting part popularity via this New Deal, he wanted to be able to secure both congress and the presidency for the democratic party.
One of the largest questions which is asked regarding the new deal is whether or not it was what brought America out of the depression.

The simple answer is no. America’s economy fluctuated heavily until World War II revitalized the economy. It went up and down for the decade, unlike the European nations whose economies rose progressively back to power. The depression fluctuated between better times and very bad times. Every time the economy would drop Roosevelt would put more money into the economy in order to try and keep it running. Roosevelt even went experienced a small depression in 1937 where numerous workers were laid off. Because Roosevelt kept needing to “prime the pump” for the economy, he actually created a very high deficit for the country. Roosevelt racked up a 3.6 billion deficit in his first year of office. It could even be argued that the policy of the new deal may have even hurt employment in the country. The new deal flooded the system with a large amount of money which caused inflation. This increased the buying prices of items throughout the country. The goal of creating these higher buying prices was to create a higher national income (national income=pricesxquantities). However, it ended up hurting business as the already floundering factories could not bring in enough revenue to hire more workers and combat unemployment. In fact, 1936 had a 17% unemployment rate. While certainly better than 25% unemployment, 17% is in no way a good situation. Therefore, by boosting prices on goods, the United States ended up hurting the unemployed. Also, Roosevelt’s desire for higher wealth distribution was only partially achieved.mos While some money did move to the poorer classes and taxes on the rich did take a larger part of their income, most of it went to spending in order to create public work

programs.