Great%20Depression%20

1
Great Depression Part II
2
Impact of the Great Depression Increased Govt
Powers

• End of a laissez faire approach
• Increase in government participation in the
  economic life of the nation
• Increased federal powers, action and agencies in
  the U.S.

3
Impact of the Great Depression Social Reform

• Unemployment insurance
• Social security
• Minimum wage
• Restrictions on child labor
• Set a maximum number of hours of labor (so that
  more people could be hired)
• Labor was given the right to organize, bargain
  collectively, and antiunion contracts were not
  allowed

4
Impact of the Great Depression Agricultural
Reform

• Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA)
• Was to establish parity prices for basic
  commodities. Parity was the price set for a
  product that gave it the same value as between
  the years 1909 to 1914
• The AAA would also eliminate surpluses by paying
  growers to reduce their crops

5
Impact of the Great Depression Fiscal Reform

• Glass-Steagall Banking Reform Act of 1933
• Created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
  (FDIC), which insured individual deposits up to
  5,000
• Took the nation off the gold standard (everything
  was to be paid be for by paper money from now on)

6
Impact of the Great Depression Job Creation

• Hoover Dam
• Constructed from 1930-1936
• Created a huge man-made lake for purposes of
  irrigation, flood control, and electric power

7
Impact of the Great Depression Job Creation
Through Alphabet Agencies

• Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
• Provided employment for 3 million youths who
  mightve turned to crime
• They were employed in reforestation,
  firefighting, flood control, and swamp drainage
• Works Progress Administration (WPA)
• Objective was employment on useful projects
• Spent about 11 billion on thousands of public
  buildings, bridges, and hard-surfaced roads

8
Impact of the Great Depression Housing Reform

• Federal Housing Administration (FHA)
• Building industry was stimulated by small loans
  to people who owned houses, to improve their
  house or for completing new ones
• U.S. Housing Authority (USHA)
• Designed to lend money to States or communities
  for low-cost construction
• 650,000 units were completed
• Slums shrank for the first time
• Predecessors of Housing and Urban Development
  (HUD)

9
How Successful Was the Trickle-Down Policy Under
Hoover?

• Hoover decided to assist the hard-pressed
  railroads and banks in the hope that if financial
  health were restored at the top of the economic
  pyramid, unemployment would be relieved at the
  bottom on a trickle-down basis
• Proved that non-government interference wouldnt
  help the economy. Most presidents before Hoover
  had a policy of sweating it out when it came to
  economic woes

10
How Successful Were Public Works Project Under
Hoover?

• Got 2.25 billion for public works projects from
  Congress
• His efforts, when he intervened in the economy,
  probably prevented a more serious collapse than
  what happened
• His expenditures for relief were revolutionary
  for that day and paved the way for FDRs New Deal
• However, they werent enough to improve the
  economy

11
How Successful Was the New Deal Under FDR?

• Advocates of the New Deal
• Some liked that Roosevelt was trying to do
  something about the situation
• Admitted some waste, but said that relief was the
  primary objective
• New Deal relieved the worst of the crisis in 1933
• Roosevelt accepted the principle that the
  government was morally bound to help the welfare
  of the people by managing the economy
• The total collapse of Americas economic system
  was averted Roosevelt saved the free enterprise
  system

12
How Successful Was the New Deal Under FDR?

• Advocates of the New Deal
• Unemployment went from 25 in 1933 to 15 in 1936
• A fairer distribution of the national income to
  the workers, farmers, and poor was achieved
• Citizens were given the opportunity to regain and
  retain their self-respect
• The socialist tendencies of the New Deal were
  overblown and actually helped big businesses
• Roosevelt preserved democracy and prevented
  revolution when some countries were going down
  the road of dictatorships

13
How Successful Was the New Deal?

• Critics of the New Deal
• Some of the work that was being done was
  wasteful it was just to give people jobs
• Employed people who were not suited for the jobs
• Creating a lot of programs and employing people
  doesnt necessarily mean that theres progress
• The bureaucracy was growing the federal
  government employed hundreds of thousands. The
  State governments, on the other hand, were
  becoming weaker

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How Successful Was the New Deal?

• Critics of the New Deal
• National debt
• 1932 - 19.5 billion
• 1939 - 40.5 billion
• Americans were becoming less self-reliant and
  more reliant on government handouts
• Too much planned economy and socialism
• Roosevelt was trying to run a dictatorship
• Better results couldve been achieved if more
  deficit spending wouldve occurred Roosevelt
  was merely applying bandaids
• The New Deal didnt cure the depression WWII
  cured it

15
WWII Ended the Great Depression

• Billions of dollars in military orders (100
  billion in 1942 alone)
• Higher taxes paid for 41 of the war
• War bonds government savings bonds that
  financed the war. Brought in about 156 billion.
  Propaganda posters pushed the bond drive

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WWII Ended the Great Depression

• War Production Board
• Set up in January 1942 to direct the conversion
  of peacetime industries to those that made war
  goods
• Typewriter plants were converted to machine guns
• Car factories were converted to bombers
• It assigned priorities for transportation and
  access to raw materials
• Gasoline was rationed
• Rubber was rationed (national speed limit)
• Office of Price Administration (OPA)
• Purpose was to prevent shortages from sending up
  prices, which would cause inflation. It set
  prices and could also distribute rationed items,
  such as cars

17
WWII Ended the Great Depression

• Farmers
• Although the soldiers drained food from farms,
  heavy new investment in agricultural machinery
  and improved fertilizes made up the difference
• In 1944 and 1945, farmers brought in a record
  billion bushels of wheat

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WWII Ended the Great Depression

• Armed Services
• Unemployment decreased as men were drafted
• Enlisted 15 million men and 216,000 women (for
  noncombat duties)
• WAACs (army), WAVES (navy), and SPARS (Coast
  Guard)