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How Significant Was The New Deal Essay

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How Significant Was The New Deal Essay
How significant the New Deal was depends on the definition of significance. Since significance is how important something is or how big of an impact it has I will be looking at how big of an impact it had on different aspects of the American society, how efficient it was and if there are any long lasting effects.

In October 24th 1929 the collapse of the stock market left the USA in financial ruins, which would have a devastating and long-term effect on the economy. Hundreds of banks failed due to the collapse and more than 90,000 businesses closed, making millions of people redundant. The wages for those still privileged enough to have a job also decreased severely as the value of money fell due to the drop of demand for goods. Hourly wages
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Many republicans thought that the agencies would increase people’s reliance on the government, or that these invaded people’s lives and made the government too powerful. Furthermore, these policies were considered to be short term solutions and that jobs created by the agencies were not sustainable- “after all, there were only so many trees you could plant and lakes in which to stock fish” (1)
Cartoons of the time reflected the growing concern for FDR’s agencies. There were many schemes, each involving numerous agencies, which led to an inefficient running of government and doubling the national debt in only two terms. This can be seen in the cartoon (figure 1) from1933 called Priming the pump, where the leaking water represents the hard earn taxes being wasted despite the efforts of the tax payers to fill the well. This cartoon helps show how many of the richer classes represented by the tired white businessman in a suit, criticised FDR for setting policies that saw them pay higher taxes, and so felt that FDR had betrayed his class. Because this Cartoon would have been published in an American newspaper at the time it demonstrates how big of an impact the New Deal would have been on American

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