Valentina Tarabal

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History Bruno Cazzuli

How significant was the new deal for the lives of the
poor people?
The New Deal was a series of economic programmes set up by President
Franklin D Roosevelt in the USA between 1933 and 1937 in order to get the
country out of The Depression. These programmes were so as to Recover,
Relief and Reform the country. It was divided in the First new deal (1933-35)
and the second new deal (1935-37). Poverty was massive during the 1930s:
15 million unemployed and 1 million urban Americans homeless living on
Hoover villes by 1929 and increasing. The New Deal gave great help to
poor people with its measures and agencies. Still, it harmed millions of
them, so, it was significant to a certain extent; it was as good as it was not.
The New Deal had a positive impact on the lives of the poor, especially due
to the agencies and Acts it offered. First, Roosevelt could finally abolish the
Prohibition Law he was so against with. As a result, this created thousands
of varied jobs and developed industries for that matter done with the Beer
Act.
Latterly, there were presented a series of agencies to solve the most needed
issues, including poverty. Through these, the Deal prevent farmers from
losing their farms and civilians from losing their homes and be able to pay
rent and mortgages. In addition, unemployed received jobs like for example:
the Civilian Conservation Corps gave 3 million young men temporary work
for them to become skilled to gain jobs afterward and send an income ($25)
to their families while they work on the countryside. Also, other 4 million
people the winter of 1933-34 got jobs such as building roads, airports and
improving schools or simple ones like sweeping leaves or giving free shows.
Besides, other agency -Public Work Administration- gave 600.000 jobs to
create public work of real and lasting value. $7 billion were spent employing
skilled men to build dams, bridges, sewage systems and houses.
What is more, $500 million was to help homeless, penniless and on brink of
starvation. Most of the money was used to increase the number of soup
kitchens, provide clothing, schools and employment schemes. On the
industries, on the other hand, there was a possibility of implementing Codes
that were for fair practice to improve industrial relations. This meant, fair
working conditions, fair prices and fair profit so the three groups were
satisfied, plus, workers could join trade unions without being fired. Workers
hours were limited, minimum wages were set and child labour was abolish
so as a consequence the employees were motivated and treated fairer
without threat of becoming unemployed due to the action of defending their
own rights done by the National Recovery Administration. Besides, on the
Tennessee Valley area there was poverty of farmers to solve. An agency
called the Tennessee Valley Authority gave jobs for thousands of
construction workers, made the land prosperous for the farmers to work on
and provide cheap electricity to the farmers and domestic consumers.

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Likewise, more people came (including industries) and tourist areas were
born.
With the Second New Deal, some agencies of the first one were considered
unconstitutional and others just too complex so in 1935-37 Roosevelt
wanted to make things easier and created new agencies and acts. By these,
less privileged social groups were protected with pensions and
unemployment insurance (poor Americans now prepared if another crisis
came); 2 million people received jobs per year as of 1935 and there were a
large variety of labour including photography, acting and painting. In
addition, the ones not helped by the Agricultural Adjustment Administration,
the new Resettlement Administration agency made over 500.000 families
move to better quality land and housing and the replacing agency Farms
Security Administration gave loans for them to buy farms and built camps
for them to live in better conditions and the migrant workers to work.
However, the New Deal harmed millions of poor people. The AAA left
sharecroppers jobless and tenants landless, plus, hundreds of farm workers
were left unemployed due to the new machinery. The Codes from the NRA
generated strikes and by 1934 the number of workers on strike was bigger
than the agency could afford: chaos and huge industrial disagreements that
affected production. Furthermore, the 4 million that got jobs from the CWA,
as it was temporary, after the year passed, they lost those jobs and became
unemployed once again. Not even did those 4 million became jobless but
the unskilled workers also were unemployed due to the PWA that left them
aside.
Moreover, the schemes given by the government during the Second New
Deal, in 1937 when the government started to spend less money on them,
production fell again and a second wave of depression hit the country: once
again facing poverty because the country was not prepared yet as it was
thought. Also, Poor black sharecroppers, who didnt own property in the
Tennessee Valley and their renting land was affected by the floods, got no
compensation; and despite the RA, and then the FSA, the suffering of poor
farm workers remained grim in the 1930s.
On top of that, mounting evidence makes clear that poor people were
principal victims of the New Deal. Its programs were financed by tripling
federal taxes; the most important source of New Deals revenue was excise
taxes levied on everyday things which meant that it was substantially
financed by the middle class and poor people. Even to listen to the fireside
chats (FDR weekly radio broadcast) people had to pay FDR excise taxes for a
radio and electricity. A Treasury Department report acknowledged that
excise taxes often fell disproportionately on the less affluent. New Deal
taxes were major job destroyers during the 1930s, prolonging
unemployment that averaged 17%. What about the good supposedly done
by New Deal spending programs? These didnt increase the number of jobs
in the economy, because the money spent on New Deal projects came from
taxpayers who consequently had less money to spend on food, coats, cars,
books and other things that would have stimulated the economy. Whats
worst is that spending programs channelled money AWAY from the South,

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the poorest region in the United States and National Industrial Recovery Act
forced consumers to pay above-market prices for goods and services, and
the Agricultural Adjustment Act forced Americans to pay more for food.
The New Deal gave great help to poor people with its measures and
agencies but yet it harmed millions of them, so the significance was on one
hand positive but on the other hand was negative. The intentions are not
the same as the actions and its consequences. FDR might not have intended
to harm millions of poor people, but thats what happened. Poverty
decreased during its presidency but it was still way too high and the source
of finance of the New Deal did not benefit the poor ones.