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Essay on The New Deal against Helping Poor
America's "Great Depression" began with the dramatic crash of the stock market on "Black Thursday", October 24, 1929 when 16 million shares of stock were quickly sold by panicking investors who had lost faith in the American economy. At the height of the Depression in 1933, nearly 25% of the Nation's total work force, 12,830,000 people, were unemployed. Wage income for workers who were lucky enough to have kept their jobs fell almost 43% between 1929 and 1933. It was the worst economic disaster in American history. The Depression hung on until 1941, when America's involvement in the Second World War resulted in the drafting of young men into military service, and the creation of millions of jobs in defense and war industries.
The Great Depression lasted over a decade. Hundreds of thousands of Americans lost their jobs. Businesses failed and banks collapsed. By 1933, the United States was in the throes of a depression. Over 25 percent of the workforce was unemployed. Over 40 percent of the population was living in poverty. The country’s wealth had gone from 89 billion in 1929 to 40 billion in 1933. After the stock market crash, production fell by nearly 50 percent from the business cycle peak in August 1929 to the trough in March 1933. One of the most punishing features of the depression had been the drastic fall in agricultural prices, together with other primary products.
In 1932, the American people wanted a change and they elected a new leader. The people elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt as president in the election of 1932, and he immediately began to make changes. President Roosevelt’s New Deal had three aims: recovery from the depression, relief for its victims, and reform of the economic system. Much of the legislation reflected all three of these purposes....
