Assessing the Success of Roosevelt's New Deal

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How successful was the New Deal?
In November 1932, F.D. Roosevelt won the Presidential election against Herbert Hoover. Roosevelt’s victory was a landslide win with 22,810,000 votes compared to Hoover’s 15,759,000 votes. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected at the darkest hour of the Great Depression, promising a new deal for the American people.

The New Deal was successful in many ways. Shortly after taking office, Roosevelt explained to the American people that his New Deal program would seek to deliver relief, recovery, and reform - the so-called "3 Rs."
The relief side of the New Deal was the assist in the removal of poverty, provide food for the starving, and intervene to prevent people from losing home/farms. The recovery side was …show more content…

AAA, CCC, TVA etc.) The Alphabet Agencies provided work for millions: unemployment fell from a peak of 14.9 million in 1933 to 10 million four years later. The income of farmers doubled between 1932 and 1939 as a result of the AAA. 2.5 million People were employed in the CCC. Around 200,000 black Americans gained benefits from the CCC and other New Deal Agencies. Many benefited from slum clearance programmes and housing projects. TVA regenerated and bought electricity to a large area with 7 million people benefitting. Many new airports, roads, schools and hospitals were built by the Alphabet Agencies. These benefited American society long …show more content…

For example, the AAA destroyed food when people where hungry and only helped better off farm-owners not farm workers. The CCC was very low paid and was not compulsory. TVA flooded some farm lands also the PWA/WPA provided some jobs which were described as boondoggling. E.g. Balloons to scare away pigeons or sweeping leaves. Right wing critics said it went too far in interfering with people lives, and hated increased taxes and government policies. Whereas, left wing critics said it didn’t do enough for the poor. Roosevelt gave too much power to the federal government and the presidency. The federal government was becoming directly involved in areas which had traditionally been managed by state governments.
For the economy the New Deal only provided short-term solutions and did not solve the underlying economic problems. Also the US economy took longer to recover than that of most European countries. When, in 1937, Roosevelt reduced the New Deal budget, the country went back into

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