How did the Great Depression affect social welfare programs in the US?

Answer 1

There are many impacts on American society from the Great Depression and the New Deal.

Some of them are laws that were enacted and still persist today, like the Social Security Act (a mandatory government retirement insurance program), the Fair Labor Standards Act (which established a minimum wage and other labor laws), and the National Labor Relations Act (which gave labor unions more power and ultimately resulted in unions becoming political machines for the Democratic party).

Another result was that it began a period of dominance for the Democratic Party. From the Civil War to the Depression, while the Democrats used segregation "Jim Crow" laws to disenfranchise the blacks and stop them from voting to dominate the south, the Republicans were dominant elsewhere. This resulted in the Republicans winning 15 of 19 presidential elections from Abraham Lincoln to Herbert Hoover. Roosevelt's New Deal policies gave federal money (patronage) to many specific people and groups (unions, farmers, etc.), resulting in them voting for Roosevelt and other Democrats. This was known as the New Deal Coalition and it helped the Democrats win 7 of 9 presidential elections from Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson.

Another impact is the perception of what a government should do in the event of a recession. People commonly believe that government intervention into the economy will help it recover since the New Deal was a huge government plan. But the reality is that the New Deal programs kept the US in depression, as many of the laws restricted business to the point of crippling the economy. One such policy, the National Recovery Administration, allowed industry to be regulated in terms of wages, prices, and many other things. The Supreme Court finally overturned it because a chicken vendor was going to be punished for allowing customers to freely choose any chicken to purchase. The law said that a customer had to stick his hand into a chicken coop and wait for the first chicken to go to his hand, and he had to take that one. The Supreme Court overturned the law by 9-0. Another disastrous policy was the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which paid farmers to not farm on some land and to destroy food so that the prices would remain high and more people starved. The US was importing bacon from Europe while the American farmers were destroying piglets! This too was overturned by the Supreme Court.

It is good for Americans to learn about the mistakes made in the New Deal policies in the hope that these types of policies do not happen again.

Answer 2

many people lost their jobs.