Roosevelt and the New Deal
By: Lydia C.
The New Deal is what brought the United States out of the Great Depression. In the 'first hundred days' after Roosevelt took office, he enacted many reform and recovery measures as part of the New Deal. He meant for the New Deal, "to deliver relief to the unemployed and those in danger of losing farms and homes, recovery to agriculture and business, and reform..."1 In essence, the New Deal was expanded government. One of the many reform and recovery measures was to stimulate the economy by creating jobs. Roosevelt created several different organizations devoted to forming jobs which would in turn help the economy by putting money in the hands of the consumer and affecting supply and demand. The more money people have, the more they will spend. Roosevelt was able to lower unemployment to 17.2% by the end of the 1930's.2 His other reform and recovery measures were to help to reopen viable banks and regulate banking, legalize and tax beer and wine, decrease crop surpluses by subsidizing farmers who voluntarily cut back on production, build dams and power plants in the Tennessee Valley in order to generate and sell the power produced, and to stiffen government regulation of the securities business. The New Deal also brought the Social Security Act that we still have in place today. Opponents of the New Deal were the rich, the conservatives and numerous businessmen who didn't like that with all the reform and recovery measures Roosevelt was spending and raising the federal deficit.
References:
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1851.html
http://www.studyworld.com/Franklin_D_Roosevelt's_New_Deal.htm
