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THE SECOND NEW DEAL
 y 1935, the nation had regained some of its confidence and economic
indicators were improved. However, for much of the nation the depression continued to be a
grim reality. Payrolls were still less than half of 1925 levels. Millions of the
unemployed continued their fruitless search for work.
 It became obvious that the depression was going
to be more stubborn than many hoped. In this context, Roosevelt and his inside group of
planners put together a set of programs designed to be more permanent than the prior
emergency measures. Those programs,taken as a group, quickly became known as the Second
New Deal.
Arguably, the most prominent (and in some ways
the most infamous) of the new programs was the Works Progress Administration (WPA), headed
by the social worker Harry Hopkins. The WPA was a work-relief program designed to replace
the FERA. It reflected the strong bias of both FDR and Hopkins that work programs were a
much superior solution to the problems associated with poverty than did welfare.
The WPA eventually employed more than 8 million
Americans. Work was done on a plethora of activities that sometimes consisted of
pseudo-work projects critics referred to as boondoggles. While the WPA built many
fine buildings, stout bridges and even produced notable art, the heavy emphasis on putting
people to work sometimes did result in poorly planned projects.
Throughout the early years of the depression many
in FDR's administration had advocated for a youth program. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt
was especially concerned about the plight of what she termed "America's unwanted
youth". The CCC responded to this group in a small way but there were still millions
of teens out of school, out of work, and out of luck. FDR issued the executive order
creating a works program for these youths in the summer of 1935. The National
Youth Administration (NYA) was headed by a young woman, Aubrey Williams, who was a
protégé of Harry Hopkins and had been a staunch advocate for programs for women and
children.
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he nation was in crisis when FDR became president in 1933. Millions were unemployed. Farms were abandoned, banks were failing, industrial output was a trickle, and most public and private relief programs were out of money. The president wasted little time. In his first 100 days in office, he and the congress passed an unparalleled number of bills designed to do something about the depression.
