Important legislation Flashcards
What was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC, March 1933)?
Intention: Intended to put young men to work at conservation projects
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was a major part of FDR’s New Deal that supplied manual labor jobs related to the conservation and development of natural resources in rural lands owned by federal, state, and local governments. The CCC was designed to supply jobs for young men and to relieve families who had difficulty finding jobs during the Great Depression
“Of all the New Deal programs for work relief, the Civilian Conservation Corps gained the most lasting public approval […] Roosevelt was a strong partisan because CCC met his ideal of drawing defeated city-dwellers back into fruitful contact with the land”.
What was the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC, 1933)?
Lends money to farmers in AAA schemes on security of their crops.
Allows farmers to hold crops off market until prices rose.
These are ‘non-recourse’ loans, which means that farmers repay them only if the price levels for their crop(s) go above stipulated (fastsatte) levels; otherwise, the loans become grants. (grants = a sum of money given by a government or other organization for a particular purpose)
What was the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA, May 1933)?
Intention: Intended to restore fair prices for farm goods
Also created the Agricultural Adjustment Administration.
The “real” American is a farmer. Agriculture is the key stone in American prosperity. Cities, industries are at best dependent upon the farmer and at worse no real benefit to the country at all.
“The AAA during the First New Deal paid farmers for reducing acreage under cultivation, raising the necessary funds through a tax on food processors. A Supreme Court ruling in 1936 found the law unconstitutional, but Congress continued the policy of limiting agricultural production with the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act, under which the government paid farmers for reducing acreage devoted to soil-depleting crops. When this measure failed to limit production of cotton and other commodities to the extent desired, a new Agricultural Adjustment Act was enacted in 1938 which authorized the imposition of production quotas”.
AAA’s acreage reduction was intended to cut output and thus shift the supply vs. demand balance; that would in turn, the theory went, lead to higher commodity prices: the plan was undermined by land-owners (a) taking the least fertile land out of production, and (b) removing tenants but then planting crops on the land they had occupied;
What were the achievements and shortcomings of the AAA?
Achievements:
- most farmers (75-95%) signed contracts and then observed the crop reduction programs
- output reductions were achieved; price levels clearly rose but only slowly: net farm income doubled between 1932 and 1939
Criticisms:
- Lack of enforcement of the AAA – farm labourers were fired even though the contract stated that the land owner should not reduce the number of his tenants
- It was actually not compulsory – but maybe a local pressure
- “Already low income” – it was costing them more to produce that what they could sell the crops for
- The farmers undermined the AAA, the amount of acreage that was cut was less than what the government wanted. The benefits were therefore smaller than what they could have been.
- The amount of money that farmers were paid for taking land out of production had to be greater than what the farmers could earn for keeping the land.
- The people at the top of the hierarchy were running the AAA. The small farmers did not have a lot to say – decisions were made on their behalf.
- Because the big farmers were writing the contracts, they decided that the small farmers needed to decrease their acreage much more than themselves.
What was the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA, May 1933)?
Intention: Intended to provide flood control (with dams) and cheap electricity for the people of the South
The TVA is the New Deal’s most extensive exercise in state-led planning for industrial, agricultural and social development across many states; its initiatives include:
* Dam construction and flood control (the Tennessee river often flooded in spring)
* Electricity generation and sale (the dams were used to produce electricity)
* Grants for rural community power distribution and consumer applicance purchases foster a viable rural market for private utilities
* Agricultural rehabilitation and development
* Model town construction: Norris AL (Alabama)
* Infrastructure (roads, services) provision
* Attracting investment, new industries and jobs
For the people who were impacted by the TVA there was an astonishing transformation
What was the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) / Wagner Act (July 1935)?
An important Federal law for labor which gave workers the right to organize without interference from employers or the state, and obliged employers to recognize and bargain with unions over working conditions, and then to sign legally-binding contracts specifying the agreements reached.
“The Wagner Act (the National Labor Relations Act) responded to the militancy that had taken hold among workers during the New Deal years. The measure created the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to protect the right of workers to bargain collectively, and it spurred an immense growth of labor unions”.
Majority rule: The union that won a majority of votes would have to be recognized by the employer as the bargaining agent for all workers.
It’s difficult to explain why Roosevelt did not quickly back the Wagner Act, since he was generally seen as a pragmatic politician. This might be because he was cautious because of an upcoming election. FDR announced his support in May when it was passed by the Senate, and the House was prepared to follow suit.
What was the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) / National Recovery Act (NRA) (June 1933)?
Intention: to restore and stabilize the industrial economy and pay better wages to workers
The NIRA promised workers better wages and protection of the right to form labor unions. “The basic program of the NRA was simple. The government would allow business and industry to “stabilize” prices, that is, fix them, through “codes of fair competition.” In return, workers would get higher wages and their right to organize and bargain collectively would be recognized”.
The Blue Eagle: The NRA adopted the “Blue Eagle” as the symbol of cooperation. Theoretically, businessmen who failed to abide by the NRA program would be shorn of the right to display the Blue Eagle and shamed by buyers and consumers into compliance.
Deemed unconstitutional in May 1935, as it was found that it infringed the separation of powers under the United States Constitution.
What were the achievements and shortcomings of the NRA?
Accomplishments: The NRA did not directly abolish child labour, but rather indirectly as it was no longer profitable to use children rather than adults because of the minimum wage. Therefore, the minimum wage indirectly abolished child labour. So, if the NRA did anything, it was to significantly cut down on child labour.
Shortcomings:
- Wages dit not rise significantly and not a lot was done to uphold collective bargaining. This resulted in many strikes in 1934.
- Enforcement of the NRA was lax (therefore lack of punishment)
- Resistance by business leaders, resentment by unions and consumers, lack of state enforcement capacity, failure to bring recovery and (finally) Supreme Court annulment
What was the Public Works Administration (PWA, June 1933)?
Job creation scheme, lead by Harold L. Ickes.
Established by Title II of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA). It built large-scale public works such as dams, bridges, hospitals, and schools to supply employment, stabilize buying power, and help revive the economy. The PWA headquarters planned projects, which were built by private construction companies hiring workers on the open market. Unlike the WPA, it did not hire the unemployed directly.
The PWA was much less controversial than its rival agency, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), headed by Harry Hopkins, which focused on smaller projects and hired unemployed unskilled workers.
What was the Civil Works Administration (CWA, November 1933 - March 1934)
Job creation scheme with Harry Hopkins in charge.
A project created under the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). A short-lived job creation program established by the New Deal to rapidly create mostly manual-labor jobs (construction jobs, mainly improving or constructing buildings and bridges) for millions of unemployed workers. The jobs were merely temporary, for the duration of the hard winter of 1933–34. Gave jobs to four million people.
What was the Resettlement Administration (RA) / Farm Security Administration (FSA) (May 1935)?
Relief payments for rural unemployed; rural relocation and low-interest loans for poor farmers.
Set up via the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act (which set up the Works Progress Administration). Headed by Rexford Tugwell, the RA provides funding to relocate destitute (poor) farmers from sub-marginal land (land not very good for farming), organize rural cooperatives, and build green belt towns.
The Rehabilitation Administration (RA) and the Farm Security Administration (which absorbed the RA in September 1937) were designed specifically to deal with the rural poor – and sought to do so. However, both agencies were underfunded, lacked friends in Congress and only scratched the surface of rural poverty.
What was the Works Progress Administration (WPA, May 1935)
Job creation scheme, headed by Harry Hopkins (a trusted deputy to FDR). The WPA was set up via the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act.
The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads. It was set up on May 6, 1935, by presidential order, as a key part of the Second New Deal.
It was more controlversial than the PWA, because it focused on smaller projects and hired unemployed unskilled workers.
One of the most famous projects: Federal Project Number One (1935), also referred to as Federal One, is the collective name for a group of projects under the WPA.
These are Federal Project Number One:
- Federal Writers’ Project
- Federal Art Project
- Federal Music Project
- Federal Theatre Project –> astonishingly innovative, reaches out to schools, teaches, gets the public involved, targets people who have never seen a place before, does its best to take theatre to the public
- Historical Records Survey (originally part of the Federal Writers’ Project)
What was the Social Security Act (SSA, August 1935)?
This act was important for social welfare and established a system of old-age pensions and unemployment insurance that endures to this day. People pay into social security by a tax on their payroll.
By the 1930s, the United States was the only modern industrial country without any national system of social security.
The legislation enables:
(a) unemployment insurance financed by a 3% payroll tax levied on employers; those states who already had (or who set up) a scheme were reimbursed 90% of the payroll tax by the Federal Government;
(b) a Federally-funded (but state-administered) old age assistance and insurance (pensions) system, with the insurance financed via a 3% payroll tax on employers and employees; and
(c) Federal grants-in-aid to states to provide ‘categorical assistance’: aid for dependent children (ADC, aimed at single mothers) and to the disabled (see Lawson 129-31).
The Act established a Federal Social Security Board to set up the system and administer pensions. By the end of the 1930s pensions (which were earnings-related but accessible to all at age 65) ranged between $10 and $85 per month; payments of up to $15 per week covered up to 16 weeks of unemployment. ADC payments ranged from $8 per month to $60 per month (in both cases wealthier states typically paid more, poor ones paid less). Certain categories of employee (agricultural workers, domestic servants, small business employees) were excluded from pensions and unemployment insurance coverage; married women were also disadvantaged. The unemployment and pensions insurance elements of the law were upheld by the US Supreme Court (Steward Machine Co. vs. Davis and Helvering et. al. vs. Davis) in 1937 (see Lawson 129-31).
What was the Federal Theatre Project (August 1935)?
One of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Gave employment to actors and free performances to the people. Created not as a cultural activity but as a relief measure to employ artists, writers, directors, and theater workers.
What was the Federal Arts Project (August 1935)?
One of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Through this project, the unemployed artists adorned public offices and other public structures with murals, paintings, and statuary, generally on American themes and subjects. It was created not as a cultural activity, but as a relief measure to employ artists and artisans to create murals, easel paintings, sculpture, graphic art, posters, photography, theatre scenic design, and arts and crafts.
