New Deal - Relief - FCCHEWWYSINFP Flashcards
Federal Emergency Relief Act
May 1933
- $500 million budget to be divided equally among the states to help provide for unemployed.
- Feds would pay 1$ to every state for every $3 it spent on relief.
- Huge opposition to this, those that refused it were threatened to be denied federal funds.
- e.g Governor of Oregon advocated euthanasia for needy and sick.
- Funds limited, in 1935 it was paying about $25 per month to an average family on relief, whilst the average monthly minimum wage for subsistence was estimated at $100.
Civillian Conservation Corps
March 1933
- Employed young men to work in national forests and parks and public lands.
- $5.5 Billion budget, 250,000 recruits worked on reforestation and served for 9 months initially.
- Paid $30 a month, $25 of which had to be spent to their families.
- Originally set up for 2 years, but extended to 7 years in 1935 when its strength was 500,00 workers.
- Set up 65,100 miles of telephone lines and planted 1.3 billion trees.
- Improved literacy skills
- Was for young white men primarily.
Civil Works Administration
November 1933
- $400 million budget from PWA
Put 4M to work over the harsh winter of 33-34 in public works, however it was dissolved in march when the winter was over.
Home Owners Refinancing Corporation
June 1933
- Offered new mortgages at low rates of interest over a long period of time to to help homeowners.
Emergency Relief Appropriations Act
April 1935
- Aim was to set up new agencies to provide employment through federal works.
$5 Billion allocated budget.
Works Progress Administration
April 1935
Harry Hopkins in Charge
At any one time it had 2 million employees
By 1941, 20% of the workforce had found employment through the WPA
$52 a month wages
Built 1000 airstrips, 8000 schools and 12000 playgrounds
Built the Lincoln tunnel and Fort Knox
Opposition - Martin Dies chairman of HUAC accused the WPA sponsored federal theater of being a communist organization.
Conservatives argued WPA projects weren’t “work”.
Wagner Connery National Labour Relations Act
Act let workers collectively bargain
Employers forbidden to resort to unfair practices such as discrimination against unionists.
National Youth Administration
NYA - employed over 1 million blacks. Encouraged African American participation in government work schemes.
Social Security
Successes
- Gave millions of elderly people pensions
- Employers encouraged to participate through an incentive of 90% tax exemption from payroll tax if they contributed to state unemployment scheme.
Failures
- Inadequate payments, minimum $10 a month, maximum $85 per month.
- Unemployment benefit max $18 a week for 16 weeks only.
- Amounts paid by different states varied. E.G –Massachusetts paid poor children $61 a month, whereas Mississippi only paid $8 a month.
- Health insurance not included due to opposition from the American Medical Association.
- Resentment towards wealthy, as people felt they should have paid more towards the scheme.
Indian Reorganization Act
- Reservations divided into family sized farms of 160 acres.
- 138 million acres in 1887, lost 90 million acres by 1932.
- IRA tried to rectify this by reorganizing tribes into councils with constitutions and have land sales and democracy.
- Natives didn’t understand secret poll booth voting. Democracy was an alien “white” concept.
- Preferred tribal councils.
- Failed to rectify the plight of native Americans.
National Recovery Administration
June 1933
- Oversaw industrial recovery.
Yellow dog clauses outlawed
- Gave rights to workers, who now had a right to join labour unions and participate in collective bargaining.
- 557 industrial codes set up.
- This act was forced upon FDR by congress, he was more interested in reducing unemployment than unions, and feared about violent strikes.
- Codes proved problematic, e.g minimum wage $11 for a 40 hour week.
- Codes favoured large companies, but they rarely implemented them.
- US V Butler
- Supreme Court eventually deemed it unconstitutional in May 1935.
Federal Housing Administration
- Established to offer federal insurance to protect the ability to repay low-interest long term mortgages taken out by those seeking to buy new homes.
- Loans were solely for newly purchased single family homes
- FHA did nothing to help increasingly poverty stricken inner cities.
- 65% of new houses costed over $4000, less than 25% of families could afford this.
- Act benefited white middle class families.
Public Works Administration
June 1933
- Budget: $3.3 Billion
- Was to be spent on public works such as roads dams hospitals and schools.
- Secretary of the interior Harold Ickes criticized for only spending $110 million in the first 5 months.
- Eventually put 100,000’s of people into work.
- Built 13,000 schools and 50,000 miles of roads, built dams in the west in Arizona, and created 4 vast national parks.
