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If you had the chance to be the Roosevelt of our time what jobs would you provide?

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M0nica Fri 26-Jun-26 18:15:39

I wouldn't. Things are very different now. People would not be willing to be rounded up into labour gangs and sent out to some remote part of the country to build roads, power plant etc. Apart from anything else these schemes are immensely complicated these days and reuires properly ualified engineers.

Also do you know anything about the conditions, the corruption and deaths that came out of these schemes?

I believe Bechtel still has active legal sanctions stopping anyone revealing exactly what happened on their projects. I hope we would never introduce into this country a scheme like Roosevelt's New Deal.

WE also do not have vast swathes of the country in need of rural electricity thousands of miles of basic dirt track.

Work camps were set up in this country between the two world wars. Here is an interesting link downloads.bbc.co.uk/rmhttp/radio4/making-history/able-bodies.pdf

This would not work now, times and attitudes have changed.

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DaisyAnneReturns Fri 26-Jun-26 13:46:45

Franklin D. Roosevelt provided jobs primarily through the New Deal, a series of programs launched during the Great Depression. Rather than relying only on private businesses to hire workers, the federal government directly funded employment and public projects. Some of the main ways he created jobs were:

Public Works Administration (PWA): Paid private contractors to build large infrastructure projects such as schools, hospitals, bridges, dams, and highways. These projects created construction and manufacturing jobs.
Works Progress Administration (WPA): One of the largest job programs, it directly employed millions of unemployed Americans to build roads, parks, airports, sidewalks, schools, and public buildings. It also hired artists, musicians, writers, and actors for cultural projects.
Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC): Employed young men to work on conservation projects, including planting billions of trees, building trails, preventing soil erosion, and improving national and state parks.
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA): Created jobs by building dams, hydroelectric power plants, and flood-control systems across the Tennessee Valley, while also bringing electricity to rural communities.
Rural Electrification and other infrastructure programs: Funded projects that expanded electrical service, improved roads, and modernized public facilities, creating additional employment.

These programs had two main goals:

Give unemployed people immediate income through paid work.
Leave behind infrastructure that would support long-term economic growth.

What schemes would you design to create jobs today?

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