Bad programs of the new deal

Crush between the unions and the employers -The Roosevelt respected and sympathized with the employees which gave unions more power to demand higher pays. This introduced a crush between the employers and the unions. It took so long to solve unemployment -The New deal took about 5 years to significantly reduce unemployment.

No significant results -People thought that the only way to deal with the Great Depression was the end of WWII so, thought that this was a wastage of money. Discrimination — many Americans thought that the New Deal discriminated against African Americans, women, and immigrants. This was evident because many jobs created were aimed at helping white men and especially Americans.

This is actually the reason why they thought its socialism. What this means is that many people thought that the Government is doing something wrong by interfering with the economy. I came looking for an objective and balanced summary of the pros and cons of the New Deal. This generally is not. The pros are majority matter of fact and cons have majority qualifiers. Could have been a good straight forward assessment being more valuable to the reader. Other sites proved more helpful.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

Notify me of new posts by email. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. The WPA also gave work to artists, writers, theater directors and musicians. In July , the National Labor Relations Act , also known as the Wagner Act, created the National Labor Relations Board to supervise union elections and prevent businesses from treating their workers unfairly. In August, FDR signed the Social Security Act of , which guaranteed pensions to millions of Americans, set up a system of unemployment insurance and stipulated that the federal government would help care for dependent children and the disabled.

This FDR had come a long way from his earlier repudiation of class-based politics and was promising a much more aggressive fight against the people who were profiting from the Depression-era troubles of ordinary Americans. He won the election by a landslide. Still, the Great Depression dragged on. Workers grew more militant: In December , for example, the United Auto Workers strike at a GM plant in Flint, Michigan lasted for 44 days and spread to some , autoworkers in 35 cities.

By , to the dismay of most corporate leaders, some 8 million workers had joined unions and were loudly demanding their rights. Meanwhile, the New Deal itself confronted one political setback after another. Arguing that they represented an unconstitutional extension of federal authority, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court had already invalidated reform initiatives like the National Recovery Administration and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration.

That same year, the economy slipped back into a recession when the government reduced its stimulus spending. Despite this seeming vindication of New Deal policies, increasing anti-Roosevelt sentiment made it difficult for him to enact any new programs. The war effort stimulated American industry and, as a result, effectively ended the Great Depression. They created a brand-new, if tenuous, political coalition that included white working people, African Americans and left-wing intellectuals.

More women entered the workforce as Roosevelt expanded the number of secretarial roles in government. These groups rarely shared the same interests—at least, they rarely thought they did— but they did share a powerful belief that an interventionist government was good for their families, the economy and the nation.

Their coalition has splintered over time, but many of the New Deal programs that bound them together—Social Security, unemployment insurance and federal agricultural subsidies, for instance—are still with us today.

Start your free trial today. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world, lasting from to The Agricultural Adjustment Act cut back farm production and devastated black tenant farmers who needed work.

The National Labor Relations Act gave unions monopoly bargaining power in workplaces and led to violent strikes and compulsory unionization of mass production industries. What about the good supposedly done by New Deal spending programs? This is a classic case of the seen versus the unseen — we can see the jobs created by New Deal spending, but we cannot see jobs destroyed by New Deal taxing.

Americans needed bargains, but FDR hammered consumers — and millions had little money. Its dams flooded an estimated , acres, an area about the size of Rhode Island, and TVA agents dispossessed thousands of people.