In response, the Roosevelt administration immediately launched what seemed at the time to be a wonderful program of direct relief. In the first two years, the New Deal was concerned mainly with relief. The government helped the poor and jobless by setting up shelters and soup kitchens to feed the millions of unemployed. After those first two years the focus shifted towards recovery. Several agencies were created to take on the task of recovery. With such programs as the CCC (employing single males from the ages of 17-28 to do community labor like road building), the FERA (used $250 million to aid the unemployed, elderly, and sick), the AAA (paid farmers to grow less), the NIRA (set up price controls), the WPA (creating as many job as possible), and others, Franklin Roosevelt became one of the most successful leader this country has ever had. Programs like welfare and social security, which still exist today, come from the New Deal. "The Social Security Act of 1935 created America's first national system of old-age pensions, though one that was based on regressive taxation and left out too many at the bottom of the economic pyramid, and it initiated a federal-state program of unemployment insurance."-(Leuchtenburg 253).
Economy was changing, but also was the government in many different ways. Businesses that complied with the codes were exempted from antitrust laws, and workers were given the right to organize unions and bargain collectively. After that victory, the government set up long-range goals. These goals aimed for permanent recovery, and reform of current abuses. In order to boost the economy, power was readily and radically centralized, and the government introduced the policies of cost plus, resource allocation, wage & price controls, and prohibition of strikes. Cost plus and resource allocation gave the government much power to control industries. Wage and price controls were another method of the government to boost industry.