The Impact of New Deal Relief Spending on Local Labor Markets

政府的成长是美国经济在20世纪世纪发生的最引人注目的变化。 联邦政府在和平时期最大的扩张发生在20世纪30年代，当时新政计划大大增加了国家的基础设施，同时雇用了数百万失业工人。 今天，面对基础设施破败和公众要求福利改革的双重问题，决策者们经常引用新政式的救济项目作为有效解决问题的潜在模式。 这些建议中有许多是基于对新政成功的看法，但这些主张很少得到定量检验。 考虑到现代社会关于福利改革的争论的重要性，尽管对新政政治的研究很多，但令人惊讶的是，很少有人从微观层面分析新政支出在20世纪30年代对地方经济的影响。 为了帮助填补这一空白，本研究探讨了新政期间的救济支出如何影响美国各地城市劳动力市场的私人工资和就业。 这个项目既涉及收集关于工资、就业和救济开支的数据，也涉及对这些变量和其他变量之间的相互作用进行定量分析。 这项研究将探讨新政在工作救济方面的支出如何影响20世纪30年代当地劳动力市场的私人就业和工资。 各种各样的数据集将从州报告，联邦报告和档案来源的组合，将允许检查工作救济对私人劳动力市场的影响，在大萧条期间经济衰退和复苏的时间的地理和行业差异，以及有助于美国各地的工作救济项目的分布的因素。 最广泛的数据收集工作将是构建一个面板数据集，该数据集将包含20世纪30年代至少131个城市的私人就业和平均月收入的月度信息，以及救济计划和其他形式的社会保险支出。 这些数据将与劳动力需求和供应决定因素的月度和年度数据以及描绘每个城市政治气候的变量相结合。 第二个数据集将包含1932年至1935年7月期间62个城市建筑业就业和收入的月度信息。 这一样本将使我们能够更密切地考察工作救济和公共建筑项目对建筑业就业的影响，而建筑业大概是受新政建筑项目影响最密切的行业。 对建筑行业的进一步研究将使用第三个数据集进行，该数据集包含年度合同工资率和工作时间，美国劳工统计局在20世纪30年代发布了约100个城市的数据

The growth of government is the most dramatic change in the American economy during twentieth century. The greatest peace-time expansion of the federal government occurred during the 1930s, when New Deal programs added significantly to the nation's infrastructure while employing millions of unemployed workers. Policy makers today, faced with the simultaneous problems of crumbling infrastructure and the public's demand for welfare reform, often cite New Deal-type relief projects as a potential model for an effective solution. Many of these proposals are based on views of the New Deal's successes, but these claims have rarely been tested quantitatively. Given the importance of the modern debate over welfare reform, and despite numerous studies of the politics of the New Deal, there are surprisingly few micro-level analyses of how New Deal expenditures affected local economies in the 1930s. To help fill this gap, this research examines how relief spending during the New Deal affected private wages and employment in urban labor markets throughout the United States. This project involves both the collection of data on wages, employment, and relief spending and the quantitative analysis of the interaction between these and other variables. The research will explore how New Deal spending on work relief influenced private employment and wages in local labor markets during the 1930s. A wide variety of data sets will be constructed from a combination of state reports, federal reports, and archival sources that will allow an examination of the effect of work relief on private labor markets, the geographic and industrial variations in the timing of downturns and recoveries during the Depression, as well as the factors that contributed to the distribution of work relief projects across the United States. The most extensive data collection effort will be the construction of a panel data set that will contain monthly information on private employment and average monthly earnings, and spending on relief programs and other forms of social insurance for at least 131 cities during the 1930s. The data will be combined with a combination of monthly and annual data on labor demand and supply determinants, as well as variables that portray the political climate in each of the cities. A second data set will be constructed that will contain monthly information on employment and earnings in the building construction industry in 62 cities between 1932 and July 1935. This sample will allow much closer inspection of the impact of work relief and public building projects on employment in the building industry, the industry that was presumably most closely affected by the New Deal building projects. Further study of the building trades will be performed using a third data set containing annual contractual wage rates and hours worked, which the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics published for about 100 cities throughout the 1930s