The New Deal

1
The New Deal

• (Jansson Ch 7 8)
• Dana Ryan
• Andrea Bunce
• JoLane Blaylock
• SW 510

2
Era of Denial

• 1929-1933

3

• Despite the Depression, most assumed economic
  growth would resume
• Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) passed,
  with 2 billion for projects and banks that were
  to encourage economic growth
• Hoover felt private service agencies could take
  care of the problems being faced
• Very small group of reformers attempted to expand
  social services
• FDR was not a liberal, but was a moderate who
  supported social services, to an extent
• After 3 Republican presidents, country was ready
  to try a Democrat and FDR won 1932 election by a
  landslide
• FDR was made even more powerful by his wife,
  Eleanor, who was an avid social reformist

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Era of Emergency Reforms 1933-1935
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• Forces that promoted major reforms
• Working class voters who elected FDR
• Horrific human suffering of the 1930s
• Republicans conservatives in complete chaos,
  allowing FDR to push his ideas through
• The legislation programs he enacted transformed
  the country and created the welfare state we now
  know.

6

• Forces that limited Roosevelts initial policy
  initiatives
• Churches, as most were extremely conservative
• Labor leaders who were too preoccupied with their
  own right to organize
• Democratic party that was taken over by corporate
  interests
• Supreme Court rulings that nullified aspects of
  the New Deal
• No fiscal or government institutions to carry out
  reforms
• No radical movement active in the country
• Dissention among his own advisors

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Emergency Relief
8

• 1932 Federal Emergency Relief Administration
  (FERA)
• - provided funds to states for people who
  needed monetary help
• - authorities had right to federalize in
  states who were mired in corruption or
  excessive patronage (was actually done in 6
  states)
• First major welfare program in our history.
• Civilian Works Administration (CWA) part of FERA
• - used FERA monies to create public works
• - gave government new social welfare
  responsibilities

9

• Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) 1933
• Provided conservation work in national state
  parks for young men
• Most popular reform measure of New Deal
• Helped youth and reduced the welfare rolls
• Run by Army Dept of Interior

10

• Works Progress Administration (WPA)
• Developed in 1933
• CWA thought not to have lasting economic
  benefits, so amended into this
• First massive peacetime movement by govt in
  public projects
• Constructed bridges, airports, dams, schools

11
Wagner-Peyser Act

• Passed in 1933
• Federal monies used to fund unemployment offices
• Offices used frequently to recruit people for
  work in CCC, CWA, PWA

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Reform of the Economic System
13

• Federal revenue was not sufficient to cover
  mounting costs of New Deal programs
• FDR under constant pressure to cut social
  spending
• National Industry Recovery Act of 1933 passed to
  convene industry leaders and agree on prices,
  establish common wages for workers, and set
  production quotas intended to stop cycles that
  furthered the Depression also established the
  National Recovery Administration (NRA)
• NRA criticized for creating illegal monopolies
• FDR tried to use NRA to indirectly stop child
  labor and to legitimize union organization
• NRA terminated in 1935 when Supreme Court
  declared it unconstitutional

14

• Agricultural Adjustment Agency (AAA) created to
  stop agricultural depression so that millions of
  farmers wouldnt become bankrupt gathered
  producers of same crops to settle the acreage
  amounts to be grown and paid farmers for not
  planting some of their land.
• AAA created ways to stop tenant farmer abuse by
  landowners, but was unmonitored and ineffective
• Emergency Farm Mortgage Act Farm Relief Act
  were both enacted in 1933 to let govt purchase
  refinance farm mortgages
• National Housing Act of 1934 established the
  Federal Home Administration (FHA), to insure
  mortgages so banks would be willing to refinance
• Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) of 1933 oversaw
  development of dams and power plants region was
  site of vast economic rebirth with minimal costs

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Emergency or Permanent Programs?
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• Overriding question Would Americans
  institutionalize the new social reforms of 1933
  1934 or dismantle them immediately?
• FDR terminated CWA in 1934
• Conservative interests forming coalitions and
  cohesive political consciousness
• FDR hoped that social reforms would ease the
  depression so they could be reduced

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Evolution of the Reluctant Welfare State

• Chapter 7 Analysis

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• 1933 1934 were decisive years of modern welfare
  state
• Taboo social policy ideas were now acceptable
  operational
• Once new policies were in place, there was no way
  to turn back
• Traditional approaches now seemed mean-minded and
  callous to general public

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Toward Ongoing Programs

• 1935-1936

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• Second New Deal new reforms introduced to
  supplement or replace earlier programs
• New reforms intended to decide which ongoing
  welfare functions govt should assume and how they
  relate to organized labor
• Pressure on FDR from reformers and social workers
  continues to escalate
• Unions of unskilled workers also putting enormous
  pressure on FDR
• Workers, liberals, African Americans were
  critical of FDR, but preferred him to the
  increasingly conservative Republicans who were
  growing more stringent about reform since the
  1934 elections

21
End Poverty in America (EPIA) Plan

• Included
• Ongoing federal jobs program
• Massive low-cost housing program
• Insurance programs
• Creation of large manufacturing centers
• Rural programs to help poor farmers gather land
  equipment

22
The Social Security Act 1935

• Foundation of the American welfare state
• Seen by FDR as one piece of legislation that
  encompassed many facets he would be unable to
  pass otherwise
• Contained 2 social insurance programs, 3 relief
  programs, and many other smaller programs
• Regressive tax system that placed stiffer taxes
  on low-income workers than on the more wealthy
• Broadened in 1939 to include family members of
  the worker
• Excluded those not involved in taxed employment

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Aid to Dependent Children (ADC)

• Some social workers wanted to grant relief only
  to children they decided lived in suitable
  homes.
• Southerners kept benefits low to ensure African
  American women children continued to work in
  the fields
• Restricted assistance to families with a single
  parent or those whom the welfare grants were only
  for children and not the parent

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Social Security, continued

• ADC, Old-Age Assistance (OAA) and Aid to the
  Blind (AB) were the first permanent and major
  federal relief programs.
• Many people of that time might have reconsidered
  these programs had they known how they would
  grow.
• FDR thought of including national health care,
  but was afraid of the trouble the American
  Medical Association might cause.

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Labor and Public Works Legislation
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Wagner Act of 1936

• NRA declared unconstitutional in 1935
• Partly responsible for drastic increase in union
  membership
• Employers required to officially recognize union
  bargaining agents, could not fire nor intimidate
  organizers, and could not claim that the company
  union suffered when workers held elections

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Emergency Relief Appropriation Act 1935

• Work program consolidating existing federal jobs
  programs
• Socially useful projects designated for areas in
  relation to welfare roll numbers for the region

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Works Progress Administration (WPA)

• Dominated FDRs public works strategy
• Major player in disaster relief work
• Utilized the local, state federal staff of
  FERA, which was phased out after Social Security
  Act was passed

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National Youth Administration (NYA)

• Advocated by Eleanor Roosevelt
• College aid for poor students
• Aid for high school students
• Public jobs in recreation centers municipal
  services
• Camps for rural youth to teach trade skills

30
Era of Stalemate

• 1937-1941

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• After FDRs reelection in 1936, people asking
  where New Deal to go next
• He slashed funding for many New Deal programs to
  reduce federal deficits
• Middle-class voters begin to suspect him of
  socialism
• Conservative coalition now openly questioning his
  policies
• Supreme Court and political defeats in 1936
  1937 tarnished his public image

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Policies During Era of Stalemate
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Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938

• Gains made under NRA were erased when Supreme
  Court declared it unconstitutional
• FLSA rectified these gaps in policy
• Established minimum wages
• Established maximum hours

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Wagner-Steagall Housing Act of 1937

• Established US Housing Authority to offer
  low-interest loans for public housing

35
Reorganization Act of 1939

• Created sub-cabinet Federal Security Agency (FSA)
  Federal Works Agency
• FSA Contained CCC, NYA, Public Health Service, US
  Employment Service, Social Security Board
• Federal Works Agency contained WPA PWA

36
Attempts to make CCC permanent program failed in
both 1937 1939Also defeated was attempt to
create sister acts of TVA in seven other river
basins
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Out groups the New Deal

• How did the New Deal help them?

38
African Americans

• FDR refused to support legislation making
  lynching federal crime
• Wouldnt support elimination of the poll taxes of
  the South
• No legislation to counter housing market
  segregation
• FDR felt they were discriminated against because
  they were poor, not because of race therefore,
  New Deal programs helped them as they helped all
  other poor people
• Quotas were not used because they were seen as
  reverse discrimination tactics
• CCC was segregated

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Women

• Eleanor Roosevelt was voracious womens advocate
• No women in CWA
• 15 of WPA recruits were women
• Wagner Act helped to organize women
• More job security than men in Depression because
  their work was sex-segregated
• NRA labor codes established the gender wage gap
• Since Social Security benefits were based on wage
  levels and job history, women had small benefit
  packages

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Latinos

• Farm workers werent covered under Wagner Act,
  where bulk of Latinos were employed
• No Social Security or unemployment benefits
• Bracero program instituted w/Mexico in 1942
  number of Mexicans allowed in US to work, which
  helped ease Mexican unemployment and US labor
  shortages on farms
• Segregated communities
• Los Angeles police known for conducting regular
  mass roundups and incarcerations

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Asian Americans

• Immigration Act of 1924 limited annual number of
  immigrants from specified areas
• First-generation was denied citizenship since
  they were not Caucasian, and then denied access
  to relief programs of Depression because they
  were not citizens
• Despite confidential reports before after Pearl
  Harbor that they were not a threat, FDR signed
  Executive Order 9066 which was the basis for
  internment camps
• EO 9066 camps are seen by many Asian Americans
  as primary example of the impact of racism on US
  social policy
• Ban on Chinese immigration finally lifted in 1943

42
Evolution of reluctant welfare stateChapter 8
Analysis

• New Deal striking departure from traditional
  American policies in two ways
• FDR created a national welfare state that
  overrode local programs
• He created social programs rather than
  maintaining a regulatory strategy
• FDR CREATED REFORMS IN A SOCIETY WHERE NO
  NATIONAL SOCIAL PROGRAMS HAD EXISTED AND IN SPITE
  OF ENORMOUS SOCIAL, LEGAL POLITICAL OPPOSITION.

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• What political, cultural, economic, or other
  factors seem to make policy makers deny some
  problems while taking others seriously?
• Would major social programs such as the New Deal
  have been created federally if the Great
  Depression had never occurred?
• What ethical criticisms would FDR have
  encountered had he not developed national
  programs in the Great Depression?
• Were a truly liberal party to exist in the US,
  would it be successful in getting keeping power
  with our winner-take-all system of elections?