Consequences of the New Deal by President Roosevelt - Essay Example

Between 1933 and 1936, the Roosevelt administration employed a sequence of economic programs called the New Deal. These programs were President Roosevelt reaction to the Great Depression. It focused on recovery, reforms and relief. The relief was for the poor and the unemployed; Recovery was of the economy to recover to ordinary levels; and Reform of the financial system not to recur another depression (Henretta, Brody, Fernlund and Benjamin p187).The New Deal caused political repositioning in the United States.

It made the Democratic Party a majority with its foundation on liberal ideas, empowered ethnic minorities and labor unions, big city machines and the white south. Meanwhile, the Republicans were either contrasting the whole New Deal as an adversary of growth and commerce or accepting part of it, undertaking to make it better. Historians have distinguished between a “First New Deal” in 1933 and a “Second New Deal” between 1934 and 1936. The “First New Deal” was apprehensive with sectors which demanded urgent economic recoveries like banking, industry and farming.

Other programs aided migrant workers and occupant farmers. The other significant legislation of the New Deal is the Fair Labor Standards Act (1938). It set the maximum hours and minimum wages for most groups of the workforce (Henretta, Brody, Fernlund and Benjamin p233).The Social Security Act was a key milestone relative to the New Deal programs. Finally, the national government took an active role in the welfare of its citizens (Henretta, Brody, Fernlund and Benjamin p314).