Abstract

Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal was the largest peace-time expansion in the federal government's role in the economy in American history. It was initiated after four years of economic devastation. By the beginning of 1933 unemployment rates had risen to nearly 25 percent of the labor force and annual real GDP had fallen to 30 percent of the 1929 level. Within the next six years, government spending as a share of GDP rose by nearly 5 percent.