Reddit mentions of Building New Deal Liberalism: The Political Economy of Public Works, 1933-1956

The period from 1933 to 1937 remains the fastest period of peacetime growth in American history. GDP growth averaged approximately 10% per year. You can see the full range of data here. Additionally, Roosevelt's monetary policy was probably more successful than his fiscal stimulus. First, the bank holiday restored the confidence of American savers and investors more so than probably any other action. Banks were closed on March 9, 1933 and began to reopen only after thorough auditing. When the banks opened on March 12, depositors, despite the suspension of gold convertibility, began putting their money back in the banks. Within a week, $1 billion had been put back into the banking system that had fled during the runs on banks prior to Roosevelt's inauguration. On March 15, the New York Stock Exchanged opened for the first time in 10 days and the Dow jumped 15%, which was the largest single day movement in its history. By the end of the month of March, 2/3 of all banks were reopened and $1.5 billion had returned to the banks.

The second major act of monetary policy was the suspension of the gold standard. That action was overwhelmingly supported by financial and consumer markets. On the day the change was announced, the NYSE jumped 15%. Within three months, wholesale prices had risen 45%. This lowered the real cost of borrowing significantly and investment began to flow into the private sector--orders for heavy machinery rose 100%--and into consumer markets--auto sales doubled. Overall industrial production rose 50%. By early 1937, overall industrial production had returned to its 1929 peak. Unemployment, moreover, had been halved from 25% nationally in 1933 (with certain cities and demographic groups even worse off--75% of black women in Detroit were unemployed) to about 12%-14% in early 1937 (Unemployment statistics prior to 1940 are always best guesses as the Bureau of Labor Statistics didn't collect them until then).

In 1937, FDR faced a growing conservative coalition in Congress and had his own misgivings about spending and reduced relief funding which caused a minor recession. Unemployment jumped to around 17%. GDP fell slightly in 1938, but was above its 1937 levels in 1939. Had this small recession not happened, the US may have left the Depression before military spending for WWII began to pick up. As it is, the combination of war production and the draft is what wiped out unemployment by 1942. So the New Deal didn't end the Depression, but it most certainly did not make things worse and was responsible for helping millions of people. There's a reason why FDR was elected four times and the Democrats only lost control of Congress once between 1930 and 1952.

This isn't to say that the fiscal stimulus was entirely unsuccessful or wasn't important though. Indeed, the New Deal basically created the infrastructure that the modern United States thrived on in the post-War period. The political philosophy of public works was crowned by the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System, which was a direct outgrowth of the New Deal state.

Between 1933 and 1935, the Roosevelt administration spent the equivalent of $1.83 TRILLION on just two public works programs, employing about 15.5 million people directly (not counting indirect employment estimates) over the course of 1933 to 1943. I recently read a really great book which put all of the relevant statistics for the two major New Deal "stimulus packages" (they didn't use that term at the time) into a really well researched history of New Deal public works: Building New Deal Liberalism: The Political Economy of Public Works, 1933-1956, by Jason Scott Smith. This is about as concise a summary of what the New Deal built as you can get.

• From 1933 to 1939, the federal spending on construction rose 1650% over the previous four years (1925-1929).
  
  
• The Public Works Administration was created in Title II of the National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933. It had an initial appropriation of $3.3 billion- equivalent to 165% of federal revenue in 1933 or 5.9% of GDP.
  
  
• US GDP in 1933 was $56.4 billion. With U.S. GDP currently around $14.5 trillion, the 2010 equivalent of a PWA would involve a stimulus package of about $857 billion composed only of direct outlays, no tax cuts or tax incentives.
  
  
• To put that $857 billion in perspective, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided $275 billion for federal contracts, grants, and loans.
  
  
• The PWA completed projects in 3,068 of 3,071 counties in the United States and funded the beginning of other major parts of the New Deal like the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Civilian Conservation Corps.
  
  
• The PWA was responsible for a myriad of major hydroelectric projects in addition to the TVA. On the non-federal level, PWA funds built or modernized the Hetch Hetchy and Imperial hydroelectric projects in California, the Santee-Cooper project in South Carolina, the Grand River Dam in Oklahoma, the Lower Colorado River Authority. At the federal level, the PWA was responsible for the Shasta Dam, the Fort Peck Damn, the Bonneville Dam, the Grand Coulee Dam, and finishing the Hoover Dam.
  
  
• By July 1936, the PWA had built or modernized one or more schools in 47% of all counties. The PWA completed 7,488 school.
  
  
• From 1933 to 1940, the PWA was responsible for 80% of all sewer construction in the United States, completing 1,527 projects. The PWA was also responsible for 37% of all new waterworks in 1934, 50% in 1935, 77% in 1936, and 37% in 1937 for a total of 2,419 projects.
  
  
• Over the same period of time the PWA built 822 hospitals, asylums, and sanitariums.
  
  
• The PWA also built or modernized 388 bridges or viaducts. Among those built by the PWA was the Triborough Bridge in NYC. The PWA also built NYC's Lincoln Tunnel and the Williamsburg Houses.
  
  
• The PWA completed 4,287 public buildings projects, including 295 courthouses and 342 airports.
  
  
• Other notable PWA projects include the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown and Fort Knox.
  
  
• By March, 1939, the PWA had completed 34,448 projects on the federal, state, county, and municipal levels.
  
  
• Total PWA employment was about 7 million over the course of 1934 to 1939, averaging 1.17 million per year.
  
  Now all of this is very impressive. And here's where I tell you that it was the smaller of the two major New Deal construction programs.
  
  
• Congress passed the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act in 1935 and FDR created the Works Progress Administration to administer the funds.
  
  
• The initial appropriation for the WPA was $4.88 billion- equivalent to 135% of federal revenue in 1935 or 6.7% of GDP (keep in mind that GDP grew approximately 30% from 1933 to 1935).
  
  
• The 2011 equivalent of a WPA appropriation would be approximately $973 billion in direct outlays.
  
  
• The WPA built 78,000 new bridges and viaducts and modernized 46,000 others. The WPA also built 1,000 new tunnels.
  
  
• The WPA built 6,000 brand new schools, constructed additions at 2,170 others, and modernized 31,000 more.
  
  
• The WPA was also responsible for building 1,000 public libraries and 225 public hospitals.
  
  
• The WPA also built 9,300 auditoriums and gymnasiums and improved 5,800 others.
  
  
• WPA projects also included 226 new hospitals and 156 improved ones.
  
  
• Office space was also expanded as WPA workers built 6,400 office buildings.
  
  
• Other buildings included 7,000 dormitories, 6,000 warehouses, 900 armories, and 2,700 firehouses.
  
  
• The WPA built a total of 40,000 new public buildings and imporived 85,000 others.
  
  
• The WPA funded several subsidiary organizations like the National Youth Administration, the Federal Art Project, and the Federal Writers Project, Federal Music Project, and Federal Theater Project.
  
  
• WPA workers built 67,000 miles of city streets and 24,000 miles of sidewalk and 25,000 miles of curb.
  
  
• Additionally, the WPA built 572,000 miles of rural roads. Of this, 57,000 miles were paved with concrete or macadam.
  
  
• Between 1935 and 1943, the WPA employed 8.5 million people directly, reaching a peak of approximately 3.3 million in 1938.