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Civilian Works Administration (CWA), National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), Public Works Administration (PWA), Works Progress Administration (WPA), Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), and other federal initiatives put millions back to work.
Despite hard times, people got help. So did America. Accomplishments were impressive.
They included building or renovating 700,000 miles of roads, 7,800 bridges, 45,000 schools, 2,500 hospitals, 13,000 parks and playgrounds, 1,000 airfields, and other infrastructure projects.
Much of Chicago's lakefront was built. Unemployment dropped from 25% in May 1933 to 11% in 1937. It then spiked when victory was declared too early. War production revived economic growth. Full employment followed. Mirror opposite conditions exist today.
Over three years after the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) declared America's recession over in June 2009, unemployment, based on how calculated in the 1980s, approaches 23%.
Poverty is at Depression levels and rising. Stimulus and job creation programs are absent. Austerity is policy. So is directing America's resources for militarism, wars, banker bailouts, and other corporate handouts.
Growing public needs go begging. Instead of New Deal help, anti-New Dealism is policy. Increasingly people are on their own sink or swim.
On accepting his party's 1932 presidential nomination, Roosevelt pledged "a new deal for the American people" and delivered.
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