Births, Deaths, and New Deal Relief during the Great Depression

Abstract

OW well do social welfare programs mitigate the effect of economic disasters on demographic outcomes? To answer this question, this article examines the effect of New Deal relief programs on fertility, infant deaths, non-infant deaths, suicides, homicides, and other causes of death during the Great Depression. During the 1930s Americans experienced an economic disaster that lasted an entire decade, as unemployment rates peaked at well over 20% of the labor force and remained over 10% throughout. Sharp reductions in income and consequent inadequate access to nutrition, housing, and medical care put people of all ages at greater risk of death and disease. Economic problems potentially fueled social and psychological stresses that contributed to more suicides and homicides. Meanwhile, the greater uncertainty about the future led many couples to delay starting or adding to their families. To combat the Depression, the federal government expanded its social welfare spending in a dramatic and unprecedented fashion. In the early 1930s the burden of providing relief rested on state and local governments and private charitable organizations. The extraordinary unemployment eventually overwhelmed their resources, despite loans offered by President Hoover in late 1932. President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal revolutionized welfare spending both in the immediate and longer terms. The federal government poured resources into direct relief from 1933 to 1935 and emergency work relief from 1933 through 1942, leading to an immediate doubling and ultimately a