TRUMAN DOMESTIC POLICY After WWII the Truman administration
- Slides: 7
TRUMAN DOMESTIC POLICY After WWII, the Truman administration set out to help the nation adjust to peacetime.
RETURN TO A PEACETIME ECONOMY • The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, also called the GI Bill, helped the economy by providing loans to veterans to attend college, set up businesses, and buy homes. • Inflation (high prices) strikes (for higher wages) Truman ends strikes Republican Congress elected & passes Taft-Hartley Act to limit power of organized labor despite Truman veto
Baby Boom • BACKGROUND: When WWII ended in 1945, millions of veterans returned home. To help the soldiers settle into America again, Congress passed a series of bills that aided and encouraged home ownership and higher education. As a result, returning soldiers were getting married, starting families, pursuing higher education and buying their first homes. Marriage rate rose sharply in the 1940 s and reached all-time highs. • The “Baby Boom” period refers to the post-WWII dramatic increase in birth rates from 1945– 1961. There an estimated 78. 3 million Americans who were born during this period. – WWII over couples reunited – GI benefits – TV & magazines promoting large families
Taft-Hartley Act • Outlawed the closed shop, or the practice of forcing business owners to hire only union members. • States could pass right-to-work laws outlawing union shops, or shops where new workers were required to join the union. • Prohibited featherbedding, the limiting of work output in order to create more jobs. • Although Truman vetoed the Taft-Hartley Act, Congress passed it in 1947. (Congress Republican).
ELECTION 1948 • Truman’s many proposals to Congress included the expansion of Social Security benefits, raising the minimum wage from 40 to 75 cents/hour, & a broad civil rights bill protecting African Americans. – His proposals met with little success with Republicans and conservative Southern Democrats. • 1948 election: Truman made speeches that criticized a “Do-Nothing Congress, ” because it had not enacted any of his legislative proposals Truman wins & Congress democratic • Truman’s domestic agenda was coined the Fair Deal.
TRUMAN’S FAIR DEAL • = Truman’s Fair Deal: “Every segment of our population and every individual has a right to expect from…government a fair deal. ” • Sought to further Roosevelt’s New Deal • Congress did not support all of Truman’s ideas. While the minimum wage was increased & the Social Security system expanded, Congress refused to pass national health insurance or to enact civil rights legislation.