US Presidency
1933

The whole picture, however the average of the whole territory from coast to coast the average of the whole population of 120,000,000 people shows to any person willing to look, facts and action of which you and I can be proud. In the early spring of this year there were actually and proportionately more people out of work in this country than in any other nation in the world. Fair estimates showed 12 or 13 millions unemployed last March. Among those there were, of course, several millions who could be classed as normally unemployed people who worked occasionally when they felt like it, and others who preferred not to work at all. It seems, therefore, fair to say that there were about 10 millions of our citizens who earnestly, and in many cases hungrily, were seeking work and could not get it. Of these, in the short space of a few months, I am convinced that at least 4 millions have been given employment or, saying it another way, 40 percent of those seeking work have found it.