The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) provided an excellent example of the compassion Roosevelt felt for the young unemployed. It was designed to tackle the problem unemployment between the ages of 18 and 25. Throughout the country camps were set up and organised by the army. The men were set to work on a range of projects aiming to improve and conserve the environment. The period of time usually spent on a CCC project was six months with $30 a month pay. But $22 of it went back to the families of the men to help them survive the depression. Between 1933 and 1941 over 3 million men had served in the CCC.
Of all the groups that suffered from the depression, the farmers were hit the hardest. By 1933, average farm incomes, which in 1929 were $13,938, had plummeted to $7,107. Also in the same year one farmer in every 20 had been evicted from his land for not keeping up mortgage repayments. Because of this the Agricultural Adjustment Agency (AAA) had been set up to raise commodity prices to the pre 1914 level by reducing the size of production of farm crops. If the produce taken to market was smaller then eventually prices would go up due to demand. Also the AAA encouraged many farmers to plough their crop back into the ground and receive generous amounts of compensation for doing so. They also helped to modernise farming techniques, which would help conserve and protect the soil and in cases of extreme hardship offered to help with mortgages.
The Public Works Administration (PWA) was set up to have a long lasting effect on the nation rather than just giving relief. The main aim was to create work for skilled workers ensuring there was a value for money. Between 1933 and 1939 it built 70% of the nations schools and 35% of its hospitals; constructed four big river dams; constructed 50 airports and provided electricity to the railway from Washington to New York
To help the millions of unemployed the Works Progress Administration (WPA, later renamed the Works Project Administration) was set up. It became the country’s biggest employer giving the work to an average of 2 million people each year. There were other projects under the name such as the Federal Writers Project that encouraged writers, artists, actors and photographers. The idea of the WPA was to create employment opportunities, which would give workers money, which meant they had money to spend. By spending this money, the demand for goods from factories would increase, which then in turn would create more jobs.
Amongst many employers in the United States, there was a strong determination to stop trade unions and their activities. The situation was so bad that, in some places, workers found talking together were fired. When employees joint together to bargain against their employers, the employers often used courts to stop them; this meant that workers struggled to improve their pay and conditions. Even throughout the years of prosperity when industrial profits rose by 72% those of the industrial workers only rose by 8%, so that by 1929, 5% of the population with the highest income received about a third of all personal income. The National Recovery Administration (NRA) led by Frances Perkins, the first woman in American history to hold a cabinet position, was set up to improve working conditions, hours, wage levels; production limits and trade union rights.. It was set up under the NIRA which passed laws which: abolished child labour, established a minimum wage of 40 cents an hour, gave workers the right to organise trade unions take part in collective bargaining.
The National Labour Relations act also known as the Wagner act to whom all the credit goes to was set up to improve the law on trade unions set up by the NRA. Although workers had the right to set up trade but employers were free to dismiss them because they had done so. This gave them the right to join unions and have the legal protection from their employers. It also let them elect their own leaders rather than the employers choosing one for them.
The Resettlement Act was set up to help small share holders and tenant farmers who had not been helped by the AAA it offered loans to make it possible to resettle on productive land or buy back their own land. It moved over 500.000 families to better quality land and housing. It also built camps to provide decent living conditions and work to migrant workers.
The Social Security Act provided state pensions for the elderly and widows. It also allowed a joint federal-state system to provide benefits for the sick and the disabled. But most importantly it set up a scheme for unemployment insurance, this meant employers and workers made a small contribution to a special fund each week. If workers became unemployed and could not find work they received a small fund.
The new deal didn’t manage to help everyone; many people didn’t get relief from the programme. One group of people it didn’t completely benefit were the black Americans. Although received help from many of the programmes, segregation was still strong. This was continued in the new deal when blacks Americans were put into segregated CCC camps and when the town of Norris was built in the Tennessee valley, blacks were not allowed to live in it. Also black people still found it hard to get work, jobs were usually given to whites and the jobs that blacks did get were often menial. A 1940 census showed that compared to the 1 in 3 whites having a desk job only 1 in 20 blacks had a desk job. Roosevelt failed to put across civil rights laws, particularly anti-lynching laws because he felt he needed the support of the democratic congressmen in the south.
The deals didn’t do that much for women either, many programmes were based around construction and manual labour, traditionally the work of men. Only about 8000 women were included in the CCC programme and their wages were normally half that of men or the same work. The new deal had done nothing about the housing shortage caused by the depression; the government had introduced a very limited programme of house building, which was inadequate to meet the need of houses. This was mainly a problem against the black Americans because they were the people who weren’t allowed to live in higher class housing and were forced to live in the slums. Some of the alphabet agencies were criticised of doing more bad then good. The NIRA, for example was criticised for attempting to enforce industrial legislations, rather than encouraging negotiated systems within individual organisations.
The deals were quite successful in solving the problems of the depression, it was the first time a government had got involved in the business of the country and it had succeeded. He had achieved this all because he set up affirm base to work on. The first few acts he put forward were all to put the people trust back into the economy and into him. Then he started solving the problems that were around, the most important problem he achieved was tackling unemployment. By providing people with money and jobs he was able to put money into the economy, with money being spent on products, the demand in factories would increase, providing more jobs and more money. There were also agencies set up to provide relief to those he hadn’t yet reach in the form of blankets, soup kitchens and other relief. He also set up schemes that would benefit for America in the long term whilst providing skilled workers with millions of jobs. He also considerably helped with farm labour, he set up agencies to help farmers pay for mortgages, buy their own land back, modernise their farming techniques and given them compensation for turning their crop into conservation land. This was a huge advantage for them because farmers were statistically the worst hit. There were acts covering the old, unemployed, sick and ill but there were few acts that helped against discrimination. Women although some were awarded high-figure positions were hardly helped by anything. They still faced discrimination whereby they were paid half that of men for wages, they were less likely as well to get the job because they were not considered fit for it. Black Americans still faced segregation in every way possible from transport to housing.
Overall I believe that the new deals were a success and that they did help solve the problems caused by the depression. Many people believed at the time Roosevelt was taking money from the rich and spending it on nothing, whereas he was doing it for prosperity of the country.