Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) took the oath of office in the midst of the worst economic recession in the history of the United States. The Great Depression was the consequence of many troubles riddled in the economic system. Many would be quick to pin the recession on the Stock Market Crash of 1929, but there were so many subtle problems in the economy that the Stock Market Crash was only the tipping point that sent the country into a seemingly endless downfall. By 1932, the Great Depression was in its worst year yet, and in March of 1933, when Roosevelt was inaugurated, one quarter of America’s workforce was unemployed and two million were left homeless. FDR’s plan to solve the economic struggles of the nation was called the New Deal and would first help the country restore its health with programs geared towards big business, such as the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and the National Industrial Recovery Act, and then rebuild with a plethora of new government sponsored programs for the common people of America, like Social Security and the Wagner Act, which would put Americans back to work.
For the first two years of his lengthy residency in the White House, Roosevelt felt that big business must be set on the right track again in order to start rebuilding the tumultuous country he headed. The first two years of the New Deal brought reform to the Stock Market with the SEC, or Securities Exchange Commission, which would help regulate the market that so many were using volatilely to make hundreds of thousands of dollars. Unlike the later years of the New Deal, Roosevelt passed bills to restore some of the 9,000 banks that had closed during the recession with the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and the National Industrial Recovery Act. These two acts allowed business’ to set price, wage, and production codes and gave business’ – banks especially – federal loans. Roosevelt also worked with farmers to avoid the massive drop in crop prices that had befallen them previous to this point in history. FDR’s commission paid farmers to plant less in order to raise crop prices. This program, the Agricultural Adjustment Act, was one of the very few that was aimed at the common man, unlike the later two years of the New Deal, which FDR geared towards the general public, and not big business.
Starting with the addition of Social Security in 1935, FDR’s New Deal took its aim at the general public’s well being in America. Social Security guaranteed workers a pension and unemployment insurance to the workers, and still