How were the different programs proposed through Roosevelt´s New Deal tackle the problems created by the Great Depression?

The Great Depression of 1929 was a worldwide depression that lasted around ten years; the years that the depression lasted vary by country. In the United States after three decades of prosperity on October 29, 1929 or “Black Tuesday” as what it came to be known, the stock market crashed, stock prices collapsed, panic struck Wall Street, people tried to sell their stocks, but there were no buyers, millions of investors were now bankrupt, factories close and millions lost their jobs, this cause that over the next years consumer spending and investment drooped, unemployment rose to it heights rates and by 1933 some 15 million Americans  were unemployed, it sure was one of the hardest situation in American history, not only economically, but also socially and politically.  

Americans needed a great leader with conviction, a visionary with great strategy that would rescued America from the darkest storm, and this man was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he was elected President in November 1932. Roosevelt measures contained a highly interventionist and regulator state. In his first hundred days, he proposed programs to help bring recovery to the economy. He asked congress to end prohibition, so that Americans could buy alcohol once again, this decision busted Americans spending and also created jobs, he also pushed the increase of public spending, and with the Tennessee Valley Authority Act the government build dams along the Tennessee River to prevent flooding and to create cheaper electricity, this created thousands of jobs. He also passed the National recovery Act, the Agricultural Adjustment Act and the Home Owner’s Loan Act, all of this acts tried to control prices, protect the workers, create jobs, subsidize farmers and regulate banks and loans.

But eventually a social crisis appeared, people that lost their house, their job and their whole stability didn’t believe that the United States could overturn the situation, in the rural areas hit by dust storms farmers emigrated to the city only to find cities in chaos, every day people would make lines for hours just to received a meal or a subsidize so they could feed their families, many had to leaved their home because they couldn’t pay their mortgages therefore they had to lived in tends, fortunately FDR wasn’t ready to give up.

 In the second hundred days of the New Deal Roosevelt launched a second, more aggressive series of programs to deal with the bad shape of the economy, the Work Progress Administration, the National Labor Relation Act and one of the most important program still in vigor today the Social Security Act, which guaranteed pensions and employment insurance.

With all this programs created by the Roosevelt administration several of the consequences of the Great Depression were tackle, unemployment decreased, and factories machinery started to run again, the confidence of the American people rose once more, and by 1937 FDR thought that the depression was over and slowly cut government spending, but the depression was not over until the US entered the war in Europe and the pacific, and the American factories were put into max production.

Roosevelt New Deal gave America hope, when many thought everything was over, the relief programs and the regulations through the New Deal created millions of jobs, made American trust again the banks and the market. Possibly if it wasn’t for the Roosevelt and his New Deal, America would have never been ready to enter the Second World War.

Bibliografía

Hillstrom, K. (2008). The Great Depression and the New Deal. Michigan : illustrada.