The New Deal Then and Now

Alan Brinkley suggests that the New Deal is “emerging as an instructive model” for today’s economic and financial crises. Brinkley then questions if the New Deal is a useful model for today’s problems. The first hundred days of the New Deal have taught President Obama important lessons in the Obama learns through Roosevelt that an important contribution to solving the crisis is to “exude confidence and optimism” into the people. Roosevelt had to act quickly to combat the wave of bank failures that threatened to shut down the financial system. Roosevelt achieved this by proclaiming a bank holiday and signing the Emergency Banking Act, which allowed inspectors to evaluate banks. Roosevelt gained the people’s attentions through the establishment of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which guaranteed the citizens that their bank deposits would not be lost. Shoring up the banks was one of the most important achievements of the New Deal. The New Deal and FDR also responded to the average of 25% unemployment rate. Congress created various programs to combat the unemployment, such as the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the Civil Works Administration, and the Works Progress Administration. Since the Depression was still on-going in 1935, FDR launched the “second New Deal”, which was a period of activism more productive than the first hundred days. It produced the Social Security Act, which was important to provide pensions for older Americans, the Wagner Act, which gave unions the right to bargain collectively with employers, and the Fair Labor Standards Act, which minimum wage and a 40 hour work week for labor. The extent of Roosevelt’s intervention in the American economy awed the entire world. However, the New Deal did not do much to end the Depression because of the result of actions the New Deal took and the things that the New Deal did not do. An example of this is the National Recovery Administration, whose goal was the exact opposite of what the