American History: The New Deal

Milton Friedman, an esteemed economist, once said that “The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.” The United States during the 1930’s was in tatters. Unemployment was sky-high, there was overproduction and underconsumption simultaneously, people were starving and companies were bankrupt. In a time of uncertainty and trepidation, Franklin D. Roosevelt came up with a plan to boost the American people from the deep abyss that was the Great Depression : the New Deal.

November 1932, proved to be a hopeful time for many Americans, FDR had just been elected and his New Deal promised Relief, Reform and Recovery for

However, many Republicans felt that the New Deal interfered too much in people’s lives and that it gave the government too much power ; they were now directly dictating the daily lives of common people.

However, I believe that the New Deal was positively significant in the course of American history as it helped the United States alleviate itself from the worst effects of the Great Depression ; it paved the way for the return of economic growth, and ultimately stability.

The New Deal vowed to abolish the worst effects of the Great Depression and in many ways, it was

In fact, the argument that the New Deal did nothing to lower the unemployment rate is simply ludicrous. The unemployment rate was about 25% in 1933, which was the height of the Great Depression. By 1937, the number had steadily decreased to 17%. By the war, the official numbers had slid into single digits . Not only did the CCC help the country regain its economic growth, it also improved the social aspects in the country. By 1940, the CCC had planted more than 3.5 billion trees on barren land . In hindsight, the CCC was subject to being that responsible for over half of the public and private reforestation in all of the nation’s history