Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt had different ways of dealing with the Great Depression. For the first two years of the Great Depression, President Hoover took very little action to deal with the depression. He believed in a laissez-faire philosophy. This philosophy meant the government would play a very limited role in dealing with the economy. The inaction of the government made things worse when the depression began. When Hoover tried to take action in his last year of his presidency, it was too little, too late.

When President Roosevelt took office, he immediately launched a series of programs to ease the effects of the Great Depression. There were 15 major programs in his first 100 days in office. These programs helped put some people back to work, helped to regulate the banking industry and the stock market and helped farmers who were struggling. While these programs didn’t end the Great Depression, they did help to reduce unemployment somewhat and ease the suffering of some of the people. Plus, President Roosevelt launched some major programs that we still have today. One of these is the creation of the Social Security system.

The inaction of Hoover made things worse while the actions of Roosevelt helped ease the hardships many people faced as a result of the Great Depression.