Since the late 1930s, conventional wisdom has held that President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” helped bring about the end of the Great Depression. The series of social and government spending programs did get millions of Americans back to work on hundreds of public projects across the country.
But in the 80 years since the Great Depression was formally declared over in June of 1938, historians and economists have continued to debate the true merits of the New Deal and whether, in fact, the radical government spending programs brought about the end of the biggest economic downturn in history.
