The New Deal Programs

            The Great Depression was caused by a number of things such as the stock market crash of 1929, bank failures and drought conditions. Roosevelt tried to combat the Great Depression through the New Deal. The New Deal legislation was created to address the 3R's: relief, recovery, and reform. Relief in the form of creating new jobs for unemployed Americans. Recovery in the form of recovering the industry from economic collapse. Lastly reform as long term measures to prevent another economic collapse.
             Long term reform measures from first new deal were enacted in 1934. Legislation established the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which policed activity on Wall Street. It was used to regulate the commerce in stocks, bonds, and other securities. With the first new deal there were legislative acts that were used to address various problems with the economy. First to address the high unemployment rate. In 1933 the federal government enacted The Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA), which established various employment programs to get unemployed Americans back to work. The FERA gave loans to states to operate the relief programs. The Civil Works Administration (CWA) was one of the job creation programs. Over a two year span, from 1933, the CWA employed four million Americans. The jobs were mostly construction, improving or constructing buildings, highways, schools and bridges. Another relief program was The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Franklin D. Roosevelt's favorite New Deal Program. It operated from 1933 to 1940, and employed two million five hundred thousand Americans. A vast majority of those employed by the CCC were young single men between the ages of eighteen to twenty five. They would earn around one dollar a day. .
             When it came to agriculture there were several programs that were enacted to assist farmers. The main piece of legislation to assist farmers was through The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA).