The New Deal

In the 1930's, The United States suffered from The Great Depression. It was probably the worst depression The United States has ever known, but some say that the economy today is as worse as it was back then. Many people lost their jobs, homes, and many other personal possessions due to the stock market crash and the banks running out of money. One out of every four workers had no job and many families could not afford food to feed themselves and their children. As well-known as The Great Depression was, The New Deal, a system of reform programs created to solve the many problems made by The Great Depression, is not as well-known as it should be. It took place from 1933-1939 and its goal was for relief, recovery, and reform. The New Deal consisted of helping the victims of the depression, guaranteed minimum living standards, federal action to stimulate industrial recovery, and to make sure another economic crisis would never happen again. Many different agencies were made in 1933 under The National Recovery Act which regulated wages, working conditions, credit terms, and prices. The National Industry Recovery Act, another New Deal built libraries, schools, roads, and aircraft carriers for the navy. It also spent six billion dollars which made building contractors hire 650,000 workers. In all, The National Industry Recovery Act spent eleven billion dollars to give eight million people jobs. The next act was called The Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 and it controlled the minimum wage and maximum-hours policy. But, it only made the economy worse and some people started to turn against The New Deal.

Some people may argue that The New Deal was a waste of money and proved to be ineffective in helping The Great Depression. Others argue that without The New Deal, the economy would have never been able to bounce back, at least not at the time that it did. There is proof that Roosevelt's New Deal actually made the economy worse. It tripled taxes and made it more expensive for people to be hired for jobs. Since many people were in search for jobs and the employers did not have enough money to hire them, this left millions of people without employment. President Roosevelt ordered many banks to be split up and it was extremely difficult to produce food and for people to buy it because the prices were at an extreme. If the purpose of The New Deal was to lower prices and help create jobs for workers, then why do so many people argue that it just made things worse? In today's society, the economy is much like The Great Depression. It seems as though the government is not spending any money to make the situation any better. Since society today is much the same as in the 1930's, if a "new deal" was made by President Obama would it help or hurt the economy? The government is spending loads of money on unnecessary things, like the war in Iraq when they could be spending it on relief programs to help the economy. But if they spent money to help the economy, it is difficult to tell if there would be a repeat of effects like The New Deal had. Without The New Deal ever being made, The Great Depression would have ended anyways due to World War II. WWII is the most probable cause of the end of The Great Depression. American factories produced war goods and sold them to many different nations, and many Americans joined the military, therefore ending The Great Depression. After WWII was over, many nations perished and The United States has stayed on top ever since. 617