page_title: New Deal
section_title: Relief
hierarchical_section_title: New Deal / Historiography and evaluation of New Deal policies / Relief
caption_attribution_description: English: Farmer protesting the New Deal relief program. Note in the Library of Congress database: Untitled photo, possibly related to: Farm near Rock Island, Illinois
context_page_description: The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. It responded to needs for relief, reform, and recovery from the Great Depression. Major federal programs and agencies included the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Civil Works Administration, the Farm Security Administration, the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and the Social Security Administration. They provided support for farmers, the unemployed, youth and the elderly. The New Deal included new constraints and safeguards on the banking industry and efforts to re-inflate the economy after prices had fallen sharply. New Deal programs included both laws passed by Congress as well as presidential executive orders during the first term of the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
  The programs focused on what historians refer to as the "3 Rs": relief for the unemployed and poor, recovery of the economy back to normal levels, and reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression.
context_section_description: The New Deal expanded the role of the federal government, particularly to help the poor, the unemployed, youth, the elderly and stranded rural communities. The Hoover administration started the system of funding state relief programs, whereby the states hired people on relief. With the CCC in 1933 and the WPA in 1935, the federal government now became involved in directly hiring people on relief in granting direct relief or benefits. Total federal, state and local spending on relief rose from 3.9% of GNP in 1929 to 6.4% in 1932 and 9.7% in 1934—the return of prosperity in 1944 lowered the rate to 4.1%. In 1935–1940, welfare spending accounted for 49% of the federal, state and local government budgets. In his memoirs, Milton Friedman said that the New Deal relief programs were an appropriate response. He and his wife were not on relief, but they were employed by the WPA as statisticians. Friedman said that programs like the CCC and WPA were justified as temporary responses to an emergency. Friedman said that Roosevelt deserved considerable credit for relieving immediate distress and restoring confidence.
caption: Anti-relief protest sign near Davenport, Iowa by Arthur Rothstein, 1940
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