The New Deal was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s program to deal with the effects of the Great Depression. While it didn’t get us out of the Great Depression, it did help alleviate the harsh effects it had on many Americans. It also created some programs that we still have today. Thus, it is fair to say the New Deal was fairly successful.

When President Roosevelt took office, our financial system was in ruins, and nearly 25% of our people were unemployed. President Roosevelt took steps to strengthen the banking system and to increase the confidence our people had in it. The Emergency Banking Relief Act closed all banks until the federal government could inspect them. Then, only the strongest banks were allowed to reopen. President Roosevelt also told the American people they needed to have confidence in our banks as a result of the actions the government took. President Roosevelt also helped the Glass-Steagall Act become law. This law prevented commercial banks from investing in the stock market. It also created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which provided insurance for savings accounts. We still have the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation today. The Securities Act required companies to provide truthful information to investors. It also created the Security and Exchange Commission to regulate the stock market and to prevent fraud. We still have this agency today.

There were several job programs created to get people back to work. The Civilian Conservation Corps provided jobs for young men who worked on conservation projects in the West. The Public Works Administration provided money to hire workers to work on construction projects such as roads, bridges, and schools. The Civil Works Administration did the same thing. As a result of these programs, unemployment dropped as more people were working.

The Social Security program was created by the New Deal. The program provided a pension to those people who were at least 65 years old. It also provided aid to the unemployed and helped those who were disabled. This program is very important today. Many people depend on this program as part of their retirement income.

The New Deal was created to deal with the effects of the Great Depression. It also tried to provide safeguards to prevent another Great Depression from occurring. While unemployment wasn’t reduced to a normal level by the New Deal, it did get people back to work and provided some safeguards to prevent another Great Depression from occurring. We have not had another Great Depression. We have programs from the New Deal that impact us today. Thus, it can be said that the New Deal was generally a success.

Was Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal a success or failure?

Whether the New Deal was a success or a failure is largely a subjective opinion and will often be heavily based on an individual's personal political views. As objectively as possible, here's a by the points break down.

FDR had three primary goals when he proposed and implemented the New Deal: relief, recovery, and reform.

The New Deal sought to offer relief to the unemployment and related issues that stemmed from the stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression. With unemployment topping 25% at one point, in combination with a famine that reduced crop amounts in the mid-west by up to 60%, many families were broke and on the verge of starving. The New Deal offered food programs as well as created agencies to give unemployed workers jobs through the Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration. In this way, the New Deal was very successful in the short term however most of the jobs were temporary and true unemployment turn around would not come about until the manufacturing ramp up that coincided with the United States' entry into WWII.

As for recovery, this category can more easily be classified as failure in that the New Deal failed to end the Great Depression. The stock market remained down and economic recovery related to gross national product and exports remained low until the start of WWII. While more people were working, investor confidence and bank loans for new businesses remained exceptionally down.

The New Deal can be more heavily classified as a success when it comes to reform. The economic and banking reforms that were pushed through Congress as part of the New Deal, such as securities regulations and modifications to the gold standard, combined with the economic boom that arose from the success in WWII led to what is often known as the "Golden Age of American Capitalism" in the 1950's and 1960's.

Was the New Deal successful?

The answer to this is, to some extent, a matter of opinion or of how you define success.  The New Deal did not end the Great Depression. If this is the definition of success, it did not succeed.  However, we can at least argue that the New Deal kept the Great Depression from getting even worse. If that is the definition of success, it did succeed.

The New Deal was not able to end Great Depression.  After President Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected and implemented the New Deal, the economy did improve.  It grew at a rather rapid pace, although that is no too surprising given how low it had sunk by 1933.  However, in 1937, another recession hit and the US economy slowed again.  The economy did not get back to full strength until the US started to gear up for WWII.

This brief history shows us why it is hard to say whether the New Deal succeeded.  One the one hand, we can say that it succeeded because the economy grew after the New Deal started. Things got better and, even after the recession of 1937, never got to be nearly as bad as they were in 1933. On the other hand, the New Deal did not (at least in the time before WWII started) get the economy back on track. We can say that the New Deal failed because the US economy did not return to full strength until WWII began in Europe.