What impact has New Deal legislation has on federal and state governments?

While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.

Copy Citation

While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.

Select Citation Style

Copy Citation

Share

Share

Share to social media

Facebook Twitter

URL

https://www.britannica.com/event/New-Deal

Give Feedback

External Websites

Feedback

Corrections? Updates? Omissions? Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login).

Feedback Type

Your Feedback Submit Feedback

Thank you for your feedback

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

External Websites

  • Spartacus Educational - New Deal
  • History Learning Site - Farmers And The New Deal
  • United States History for Kids - New Deal
  • The Balance - New Deal Summary, Programs, Policies, and Its Success
  • Khan Academy - The New Deal

Britannica Websites

Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.

  • New Deal - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
  • New Deal - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

Print

print Print

Please select which sections you would like to print:

  • Table Of Contents

Cite

verifiedCite

While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.

Select Citation Style

Copy Citation

Share

Share

Share to social media

Facebook Twitter

URL

https://www.britannica.com/event/New-Deal

Feedback

External Websites

Feedback

Corrections? Updates? Omissions? Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login).

Feedback Type

Your Feedback Submit Feedback

Thank you for your feedback

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

External Websites

  • Spartacus Educational - New Deal
  • History Learning Site - Farmers And The New Deal
  • United States History for Kids - New Deal
  • The Balance - New Deal Summary, Programs, Policies, and Its Success
  • Khan Academy - The New Deal

Britannica Websites

Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.

  • New Deal - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
  • New Deal - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

By The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Article History

Table of Contents

What impact has New Deal legislation has on federal and state governments?

Civilian Conservation Corps

See all media

Date:1933 - 1939...(Show more)Location:United States...(Show more)Context:Great Depression...(Show more)Major Events:Agricultural Adjustment Administration National Recovery Administration Public Works Administration Public Works of Art Project Tennessee Valley Authority...(Show more)Key People:Harry L. Hopkins Charles Evans Hughes Sam Rayburn Franklin D. Roosevelt Harlan Fiske Stone...(Show more)

See all related content →

Top Questions

What was the purpose of the New Deal?

The United States was in the throes of the Great Depression. Banks were in crisis, and nearly a quarter of the workforce was unemployed. Wages and salaries declined significantly, as did production. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal (1933–39) aimed to provide immediate economic relief and to bring about reforms to stabilize the economy.

Great Depression

Learn about this period of steep economic decline.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Read more about Franklin D. Roosevelt and his economic policies.

What were the New Deal programs and what did they do?

  • The Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) brought relief to farmers by paying them to curtail production, reducing surpluses, and raising prices for agricultural products.
  • The Public Works Administration (PWA) reduced unemployment by hiring the unemployed to build new public buildings, roads, bridges, and subways.
  • The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) employed hundreds of thousands of young men in reforestation and flood-control work.
  • The National Recovery Administration (NRA) established codes to eliminate unfair practices, establish minimum wages and maximum hours, and guarantee the right of collective bargaining.
  • The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) brought cheap electricity to people in seven states.
  • The Home Owners’ Refinancing Act provided mortgage relief to the unemployed.
  • The Securities Act of 1933 provided government oversight of stock trading.
  • The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) protected depositors’ bank accounts.
  • Later programs included the Social Security Act, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and the National Labor Relations Act.

What were the most important results of the New Deal?

The New Deal established federal responsibility for the welfare of the U.S. economy and the American people. Despite the importance of this growth of federal responsibility, perhaps the greatest achievement of the New Deal was to restore faith in American democracy at a time when many people believed that the only choice left was between communism and fascism.

United States: The New Deal

Read more about the New Deal and its impact in America.

What New Deal programs remain in effect?

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in banking and Fannie Mae (FNMA) in mortgage lending are among New Deal programs still in operation. Other such programs include the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), the Farm Credit Administration, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The Soil Conservation Service remains as the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Perhaps the most notable New Deal program still in effect is the national old-age pension system created by the Social Security Act (1935).

Read more below: 7 Alphabet Soup Agencies that Stuck Around

Fannie Mae

Read more about Fannie Mae, the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA).

Federal Housing Administration (FHA)

Learn about this agency, designed to facilitate home financing and improve housing standards.

Federal Communications Commission

Learn about this independent agency.

social security

Read more about the history and development of social security programs.

New Deal, domestic program of the administration of U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) between 1933 and 1939, which took action to bring about immediate economic relief as well as reforms in industry, agriculture, finance, waterpower, labour, and housing, vastly increasing the scope of the federal government’s activities. The term was taken from Roosevelt’s speech accepting the Democratic nomination for the presidency on July 2, 1932. Reacting to the ineffectiveness of the administration of Pres. Herbert Hoover in meeting the ravages of the Great Depression, American voters the following November overwhelmingly voted in favour of the Democratic promise of a “new deal” for the “forgotten man.” Opposed to the traditional American political philosophy of laissez-faire, the New Deal generally embraced the concept of a government-regulated economy aimed at achieving a balance between conflicting economic interests.

The Hundred Days

What impact has New Deal legislation has on federal and state governments?

Learn how FDR changed the U.S. with the New Deal

See all videos for this article

Much of the New Deal legislation was enacted within the first three months of Roosevelt’s presidency (March 9–June 16, 1933), which became known as the Hundred Days. The new administration’s first objective was to alleviate the suffering of the nation’s huge number of unemployed workers. Such agencies as the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) were established to dispense emergency and short-term governmental aid and to provide temporary jobs, employment on construction projects, and youth work in the national forests. The WPA gave some 8.5 million people jobs. Its construction projects produced more than 650,000 miles of roads, 125,000 public buildings, 75,000 bridges, and 8,000 parks. Also under its aegis were the Federal Art Project, Federal Writers’ Project, and Federal Theatre Project. The CCC provided national conservation work primarily for young unmarried men. Projects included planting trees, building flood barriers, fighting forest fires, and maintaining forest roads and trails.

Before 1935 the New Deal focused on revitalizing the country’s stricken business and agricultural communities. To revive industrial activity, the National Recovery Administration (NRA) was granted authority to help shape industrial codes governing trade practices, wages, hours, child labour, and collective bargaining. The New Deal also tried to regulate the nation’s financial hierarchy in order to avoid a repetition of the stock market crash of 1929 and the massive bank failures that followed. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) granted government insurance for bank deposits in member banks of the Federal Reserve System, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was established in 1934 to restore investor confidence in the stock market by ending the misleading sales practices and stock manipulations that had led to the stock market crash. The farm program was centred in the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), which attempted to raise prices by controlling the production of staple crops through cash subsidies to farmers. In addition, the arm of the federal government reached into the area of electric power, establishing in 1933 the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which was to cover a seven-state area and supply cheap electricity, prevent floods, improve navigation, and produce nitrates.

What impact has New Deal legislation had on federal and state governments quizlet?

What impact has New Deal legislation had on federal and state governments? New Deal legislation has served to make the federal government stronger, give it a role as a broker state, and responsible for maintaining a social security net for its citizens.

What effect did the New Deal legislation have on the government?

The new deal expanded governments role in our economy, by giving it the power to regulate previously unregulated areas of commerce. Those primarily being banking, agriculture and housing. Along with it was the creation of new programs like social security and welfare aid for the poor.

How did the new deal affect the relationship between the states and the federal government?

In dealing with the depression, the New Deal gradually reshaped federalism into a system that became known as “cooperative federalism.” Cooperative federalism is the broad sharing of public finance, public programs, public administration, regulation, and politics between the national, state, and local levels of ...

How did the New Deal expand the federal government's authority and responsibilities?

In 1935, the New Deal shifted its attention to labor and urban groups. The Wagner Act increased the authority of the federal government in industrial relations and gave further organizing power to labor unions under the execution of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).