I have a question for the posters in here who are steeped in economic history...

[Peacetrain]

First let me prep by saying I think we can all generally agree, we have been in and are recovering from and are still in the worst downturn since the Depression.

There has been stagnant or almost zero new job growth in the last 10 years.

We have lost real wages since the 2000, and the money we make now is even less in spending power than it was then.. and our personal debt to try and keep us afloat is immense.

I am fairly sure those are all concepts we can agree on.

Now here is the question.

How long under FDR was it before we had "robust" or "excellent" job growth?

[CTyankee]

1. Isn't that problematic because of the intervening WW2?

That changed a lot of the equation...

[Peacetrain]

3. Wasn't he in office more than 8 or 9 years before WW2 ?

He was elected in 32.. started in 33.. we entered ww2 in 41..

Don't hold me to the bar on those dates.. :)

[treestar]

9. From that graph below, things looked almost recovered before the war

And it never got as bad as the worst year of 1933.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

11. Relative. Right before WWII we were worse off than today.

It was still somewhere between 10-15%. But it seemed a lot better since people could remember 25%

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

16. Pearl Harbor was 1941.

FDR was already in office the better part of two terms by the time the war started.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

2. Absent jobs created by WPA, et al.

my guess would be that job growth was pretty anemic throughout the 1930's. And you could argue that World War II replaced the need for federal jobs programs, but that even those jobs were paid for by the federal government.

[treestar]

7. Then what about Iraq/Afghanistan

Though in WWII the whole country was on a war footing, with bush's war's it does not seem that way - that's why it always seemed stupid to hear we were "at war." It seemed only a few were while the rest watched.

Another different factor is 911 - we did a lot to shoot ourselves in the foot economically in the name of national security.

[sandnsea]

4. here

factor this in. got a baby on my lap.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0423891020100104?type=marketsNews

[Peacetrain]

6. Read it twice, but saw nothing about FDR in there?

Don't drop the baby... :hi:

[sandnsea]

12. No, sorry

Regarding the NPR story and the supposed 8,000 projected job loss for December. That was a median projection according to that article. The actual numbers projected were from -80,000 to +59,000, a completely different picture than comparing the 8,000 to the 88,000.

As to FDR, he would have been thrilled to get to a 10% unemployment rate. I think it hovered around 12-15% throughout the 30s. And the WPA program probably made a 1% difference, and got as much criticism as the stimulus gets today.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

5. a chart

These particular numbers may be high in the mid-1930s, but the shape is right.

[Peacetrain]

8. Thank you! that was what I was looking for

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

10. I cannot vouch for it. Here's the same chart using different definitions:

[ChairmanAgnostic]

13. It was not like he wielded a magic wheelchair, and everything became rosy.

To the contrary, his GOP opponents were as entrenched, reactionary, bitter, lying, and devious as the current GOP.

Every time he managed to get some new program into place, the GOP's buddies on the HI! court put it to sleep. There were few successes that made it into law without a challenge. Even his Lend Lease program was fraught with danger, faced huge opposition (A goodly percentage of America wanted nothing to do with any euro-war 2.0. A slightly smaller segment supported Hitler and hated the English and French) One thing that FDR did that has been missing from the current administration, FDR never shrank from a challenge. While he made few public appearances, he used every tool at his disposal to get America on track. Once there was even a sign that a particular program would be popular, he pulled out all stops to ram it through.

His radio fireside chats did several things. First, it gathered people together, with the best, newest technology that was relatively widespread. Next, he educated people as to his view of the issues. lastly, he used that opportunity to bludgeon his political opponents, until they had to eventually cave in.

After he threatened the Supremes, and eventually got the chance to enact a few of his economic ideas, many proved to be duds. A few were good successes, and a few had promise. Unfortunately, the real pump that primed the economy was war spending.

[uponit7771]

14. almost instantly, but shit was already hitting the fan hard when he came in and up was

...one of the directions things had to go.

When Obama came in things had just got started and I think they missed the opportunity to tell Americans that conservative horse and sparrow (old name for trickle down) economics doesn't work for a country that needs a strong middle class.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

15. Here are the numbers

Average rate of unemployment
in 1929: 3.2%
in 1930: 8.9%
in 1931: 16.3%
in 1932: 24.1% <---- FDR elected
in 1933: 24.9% <---- FDR takes office in March
in 1934: 21.7%
in 1935: 20.1%
in 1936: 16.9%
in 1937: 14.3%
in 1938: 19.0%
in 1939: 17.2%

Basically, for an analog to Obama, we're at the start of 1934. To match the same proportional reduction that FDR achieved, we'll need to get to around 8.7%

[inthebrain]

17. We are not "recovering" from anything

FDRs New Deal didn't aid in the recovery either. It may have alleviated some of the suffering but it didn't lead to anything that moved working people forward. THe post war boom was a fluke given that we had detroyed all of our major competitors in Europs and SE Asia. The US was the only country with a manufacturing base still left in tact.

What you have been witnessing since the late sixties (real wages have been dropping since then) is the end of the post war boom and a constant attack in workers.