Work Projects Administration

Work Projects Administration (WPA), United States government agency created to put unemployed people to work on public projects during the depression of the 1930s. Before 1939, it was called the Works Progress Administration. The WPA replaced the earlier Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) but remained under the same director, Harry Hopkins, and was staffed by many of the same personnel. The FERA distributed federal relief funds to each state; it used most funds for subsistence grants to needy families. Because many people considered outright money grants demeaning to the recipients, Hopkins and President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided in 1935 to shift all federal relief funds to a new works programme that would uphold the pride and self-respect of workers and still do something to relieve their distress. The funds came from the huge Emergency Relief Appropriation of 1935 ($4.88 billion) and from subsequent congressional appropriations.

The WPA provided jobs, at slightly below prevailing rates, to as many unemployed workers as funds permitted. At its peak in early 1936, the administration employed 3.2 million, or about one-third of those unemployed. By its termination in 1943, it had employed almost 9 million workers and had provided part-time work for more than 4 million students or youth in an affiliated programme (the National Youth Administration). WPA workers were largely unskilled; thus, WPA work was inefficient in comparison with that of private contractors, and most workers had to remain in construction or road maintenance. The United States is still dotted with WPA buildings (schools, dormitories, and hospitals) and facilities (roads, airports, docks, and parks). Hopkins, however, also wanted to use the skills of highly talented people. This involved not only work for professionals such as teachers and dentists but three special and imaginative projects (the Federal Writers, Theater, and Arts Projects) that amounted to the largest federal subsidy yet provided for the arts. The WPA succeeded in its limited goals—to shift the relief effort towards useful work and to force increased demand in the economy—but it was not able to eliminate unemployment or to stimulate full economic recovery.