The New Deal Years

When Franklin D. Roosevelt became president of the United States in 1933, the countrys economic system was paralyzed. One fourth of U.S. workers were unemployed, production of goods and services was down by half, and corporate profits were off by two thirds. Roosevelt made Americas economic prob-lems the focal poin .for both .domestic and foreign policies.The policies of his New Deal centered in two areas: unemployment and banking reform.

Solving the unemployment problem proved very difficult. Roosevelt proposed, and Congress passed, a series of acts dubbed the alphabet acts because everyone referred to them by their initials. The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), for example, brought labor, management, and consumers together to set prices and wages and to regulate output. The New Deal policies of Roosevelt seemed to work; but 20 percent of the work force, or almost 9 million Americans, was still unemployed in 1939.