President FDR’s New Deal Essay -- The New Deal Franklin Delano Rooseve

The 1930’s were one of the most difficult times in American history. It was the time of the Great Depression. Millions of Americans suffered hardships as the economy was in a free fall. Many Americans were unemployed and lost almost everything they had owned. In 1932, America realized it was time for a change, and elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a landslide vote. Roosevelt promised to help end the depression and with his New Deal. The New Deal was Roosevelt’s plan to end the Great Depression. Through increased government spending, FDR enacted numerous public works programs in an effort to simulate the economy. The New Deal’s â€Å"alphabet soup† (this was the nickname for the numerous programs FDR enacted) was FDR’s plan to people out of the depression. The New Deal affected different industries and groups of Americans in unique ways and helped save the nation. One of the groups hardest hit by the Great Depression were the farmers. Due to overproduction and under consumption after World War I and during the 1920’s, the prices of crops fell dramatically. Because of the low prices, Farmers’ incomes fell. The farmer was in a crisis as the Great Depression hit. The farmers were crucial to the American economy and FDR and the New Deal intended to help them. In the first one hundred days of the New Deal, Roosevelt attempted to help the farmers by establishing the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA). The AAA was intended to help restore purchasing power of farmers. It restored the price takeoff that helped farmers make all that money during the war. Its’ main plan was to reduce the size of crops by paying farmers to plow their crops under. This, in theory, would shoot the price of the crops. There were a few problems with the AAA though. It seemed as cruel because the government was destroying crops that could be used to feed all the starving people. The AAA also didn’t do much to help tenant farmers and sharecroppers. This was because the money that the government was paying the owners of the farm to plow the fields under was never shared with the tenant farmers and sharecroppers. Even though the farmer owners were told to give some of the money to the people who worked their land they never did. The New Deal also set up other agencies to help farmers. FDR set up the Farm Resettlement Administration, the Rural Electrification Administ... ...al aid for the elderly, but it was not meant to be the main source of retirement. It also provided unemployment insurance, aid for persons who were blind or crippled, and aid to dependent children. Roosevelt would pay for this act with a tax on corporations and rich people. This act gave the people comfort because they now believed that the government would help them financially when they needed it. It also gave unions more initiative to strike because the government has security for them. FDR’s New Deal gave American hope during a time when there was little optimism. It gave Americans jobs; it put food on the table, and started to restored confidence in the economy. FDR’s New Deal might not have ended the Great Depression, but it left a legacy. A legacy that you can see in the unions, in the numerous public works projects, in the big government we have today, in the acts like Social Security, and most importantly in the people whose lives it changed forever. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1) Encarta ® Concise Encyclopedia Article. (http://encarta.msn.com) 2) Encyclopedia.com (http://www.encyclopedia.com) 3) Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal (http://www.geocities.com)