No more depressions: Full employment and the Employment Act of 1946.

Abstract

The American people in the mid-1940's were haunted by the Great Depression and thought they were vulnerable to a resumption of unemployment following the war. Both the executive and the legislative branches felt the need for some type of structure for economic planning, though they differed over what branch should control it. No one, not workers, consumers, farmers, businessmen nor bureaucrats, wanted another economic depression. Keynesian economics, and its formula for full employment in a free economy, was a seminal idea that came forth at an optimal time for its acceptance. The full employment bill, as the models of its legislative support suggest, was a natural product of its day. There was a pattern of congressional support that had its foundation in the economic features and constituency traits of the people that the members of Congress represented. These same district traits correlate with the ideological perspectives of the members of the U.S. House of Representatives. These common roots imply what the qualitative sources also disclose--full employment was one clear expression of the liberal ideology that had limited successes in redefining the federal role and responsibility in assuring the quality of American life.