Did FDR relieve and reform America?

Do Now: How did the New Deal help the people, economy, and

government?

Banking Reforms • Emergency Banking Relief Act of 1933 • Gave power to the president regulate and reopen

banks• Glass-Steagall Banking Reform Act• provided the Federal Deposit Insurance

Corporation• insured individual deposits up to $5000, thereby

eliminating the epidemic of bank failure and restoring faith to banks.

• FDR took the nation off of the gold standard and achieved controlled inflation by ordering Congress to buy gold at increasingly higher prices.

Jobs & Relief • CCC created 3 millions Jobs for young men• Federal Emergency Relief Act gave $3

Billion to the states for direct relief or wages for works projects

• AAA & HOLC refinanced farms and non-farm homes to help them paid mortgages

• CWA provided temporary jobs to tens of thousands of homeless.

• WPA provided employment on “useful” jobs such as buildings, bridges, and roads

Industry & Labor Relief & Reform

• NRA There were maximum hours of labor, minimum wages, and more rights for labor union members, including the right to choose their own representatives in bargaining.

• Merchants who subscribed to it placed posters in their windows

• Supreme Court declared NRA unconstitutional in Schechter Poultry vs. US (Sick Chicken Case)

• Public Works Administration aimed at long-range recovery by spending over $4 billion on some 34,000 projects that included public buildings, highways, and parkways

Relief to Farmers• AAA paid farmers to reduce their crop acreage and

would eliminate price-depressing surpluses.• Destroyed needed food and increased

unemployment• Supreme Court killed it in 1936• Second Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938

continued conservation payments but was accepted by the Supreme Court

• Various programs for the families in the Dust Bowl

Bankers & Big Business

• Federal Securities Act required promoters to transmit to the investor sworn information regarding the soundness of their stocks and bonds

• Securities and Exchange Commission watchdog administrative agency designed to “watch” trading

Tennessee Valley Authority• TVA sought to discover exactly how much

money it took to produce electricity and then keep rates reasonable.

• It constructed dams on the Tennessee River and helped the 2.5 million extremely poor citizens of the area improve their lives and their conditions.

Social Security Act

• Created pension and insurance for the old-aged, the blind, the physically handicapped, delinquent children, and other dependents by taxing employees and employers.

• 1939 45 million people were eligible for benefits

• Republicans like Hoover attack it

Labor

• Wagner Act (aka National Labor Relations Act) of 1935

• Created a powerful board • Right of workers to join unions and to

bargain collectively

FDR’s Supreme Court ?• FDR wanted to add one new justice for every

justice who was over 70. • He claimed that it would bring new blood into the

court and help the older justices with their work• Republicans and Democrats blasted FDR claiming

he just wanted to “pack the court”• Congress passed a court reform bill and full pay

for justices who retire after 70• Supreme Court became friendlier to New Deal

programs• FDR appointed 9 justices during his presidency

because of deaths and retirements

Impact of the New Deal• 1933-1937 1st term still in depression• Unemployment at 15 percent• 1937 FDR began to cut back on spending• 1938 Republican Congressmen began

replacing New Dealers

New Deal or Raw Deal• Raw Deal• Waste, incompetence,

confusion, contradictions and coruption

• Federal government became the larges new business

• National Debt• 1932 $19,487,000,000• 1939 $40, 440,000,000

• Good Deal• Relieved the worse of

the crisis in 1933 • Collapse of American

economy averted• Fairer distribution of

national income achieved

• Citizens able to gain and retain self-respect

What do you think?