FDR’s Alphabet Soup

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During the summer of 1933, job recovery was still a major part of ending the Great Depression. The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) and the National Recovery Administration (NRA) was the largest piece of industrial recovery and regulations during the time period. FDR stated, “Its object is to put industry and business workers into employment and increase their purchasing power through increased wages.” It did abundantly more than that. It also ended child labor, sweat shops, and lowered weekly wages in the mining industry. It set a “code of fair competition” in place that fixed prices, wages and established production quotas. In March 1934, the NRA created a set of industrial codes for all industries. In total there were more than 500 codes. They were created on an industry-by-industry basis governing wages, prices and business practices.
Eventually the codes started to backfire in the businesses. They were described as burdensome; they limited production, and conflicted with each other. The NRA also started to discourage unions rather than just leaving the choice to unionize up to the employee. In 1935, Schechter Poultry Corp v. US declared the NIRA unconstitutional two weeks prior to the expiration date of the administration. On September 24, Hugh Johnson, the director for the NRA, submitted his letter of resignation. What originally was the, “Linchpin of FDR’s recovery program,” was no longer two years after its creation.
Along with employment recovery, FDR continued to focus on farming relief and recovery. On June 16, 1933, the Emergency Farm Mortgage Act was signed in the hope that it would save farms for those behind on their loans. The overall goal was to defer their loans and offer emergency financing to qualif...

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