Work Relief in Great Britain and Germany

Abstract

WITH the creation of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration in the spring of 1933, the launching of such large-scale work-relief undertakings as the C.W.A. and the W.P.A., and the appropriation of millions of dollars for the purpose of aiding the unemployed by providing work, work relief has become familiar to every American. The subject has gained a prominence unbelievable only a few years ago. It is realized by few, however, that work relief is not a creation of the recent depression but has been utilized for at least a century in different industrial countries, whenever unemployment became widespread. There can be no doubt that, by knowing what has taken place before, we shall be able to understand more fully and to evaluate our recent experiments. So it is, therefore, that we shall try to trace, in the following pages, the developments in England and Germany — two of the nations in which, even before the depression in 1929, efforts were made to find means by which work relief might be used most effectively in combating the sufferings which accompany mass unemployment.