Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA)

 

Government agency established to coordinate the relief effort during the early years of the Great Depression.

After his inauguration as president, Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated a shift in government involvement to end the Great Depression. He encouraged Congress to establish the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) in 1933. The agency, headed by Harry Hopkins, sought to provide relief for the unemployed masses through direct aid. After two years, the president and Hopkins agreed that a name change was necessary—that direct aid was not the most effective allocation of resources because it eliminated the motivation of workers, who wanted work rather than direct assistance. On May 6,1935, Roosevelt issued an executive order renaming FERA, calling it instead the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and began providing jobs on public works projects instead of simply giving direct aid to unemployed people. The WPA became known as the Works Projects Administration on July 1,1939.

FERA funds and the funds of its successor agencies were used for the white-collar and construction projects of the Civil Works Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps as well as the WPA. During the Great Depression, the agency provided work for unemployed artists, writers, and teachers, as well as construction workers who helped build or repair airports, schools, playgrounds, bridges, and other infrastructure during the 1930s.

From 1935 on, Roosevelt focused on employment as a means of ending the Great Depression. The agency existed until 1943, when unemployment rates fell after the onset of World War II.

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