The New Deal Success or Failure?

1. The New DealSuccess or Failure?

2. Causes of the Great Depression • Monetary and Banking policies of the Federal Reserve • Farm surplus • World War I debt • United States tariff policy • Expansion of credit to consumers • Market speculation and stock crash • Industrial over production • Monopolistic pricing • Automation • European and world economies • The policies and philosophies of the Republican presidents during the 1920’s

3. Voluntary association Individualism Encouraged trade associations Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929 Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) National Business Survey Conference Bonus Army March Do and Try anything approach Bank holiday Relief, recovery, reform ABC legislation Prime the pump Wooed the business community Increase taxes on wealthy “Brain Trust” Hoover vs. FDR

4. Obstacles to the New Deal • Localism • Absence of federal government machinery and a dependence on volunteerism • Perception: production control at the time of hunger and drought • Townsend, Long, and Coughlin

5. Long – term Reform of the New Deal • Financial • Labor reforms • Welfare State • Public Service • Social Security

6. Improvement in Infrastructure • Work of the WPA • TVA • Home ownership: establish a basis for home owning democracy • Investment in schools and universities • Banking and role of the Federal Reserve

7. Failure of the ‘Third New Deal’ • FDR fails to unseat conservative Democrats in the South in the 1938 election • Nothing was done for rural poverty especially in the South • No health insurance • No low cost housing • No extended Social Security • No ‘greening’ of urban America • Lack of a continued Progressive Party movement

8. Minorities in the New Deal Native Americans: • Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 • 50 % of the population left for defense jobs • Appropriations to the Indian Bureau declined by $3.6M from 1932 to 1945 • In 1928, 55% of the population’s per capita income was below $200 per year • From the 1880’s until 1934 lost close to 2/3 of their land

9. Mexicans: ·       Communist attempt to organize into a labor union ·       Pushed out of work by “Okies” ·       Lived in urban areas called barrios ·       Expelled in large numbers by immigration officials ·       Migratory and illegal Women: ·       More substantial role in government and politics than ever before ·       Placed economic assistance and welfare reform above civil rights ·       Provided the ABC legislation with their expertise in social work and welfare reform ·       Eleanor Roosevelt and Frances Perkins

10. Blacks: ·Shift to Democratic Party began in 1934 mid-term elections ·25% unemployment rate in the cities ·Appointed to low level federal jobs ·The most assistance received up to this time came from state governments ·Anti-Lynching Bill received no support from FDR ·3M were tenant farmers and were highly discriminated against in the South ·Executive Order 8802 ·Mary Bethune and A. Philip Randolph

11. New Deal Statistics • 35% of the population received direct assistance from the government • Less than 5% of the population paid income tax before 1941 • Largest group of rural poor were the Southern sharecroppers and tenant farmers • The majority of Native Americans were destitute and landless • Largest growth in union membership in the 1930’s • Cotton the only crop ploughed up by AAA demands • Piglets the only livestock slaughtered by the AAA demands • TVA and REA provided rural America with 90% electricity • WPA only provided jobs to approximately one – third of those who needed work • By 1937 all states had approved unemployment compensation • By 1939 all states provided old age assistance programs

12. Unemployment during the New Deal