PWA



Created by the Industrial Recovery Act, on the 16th of June in 1933, the Public Works Administration (PWA) was formed. The agency was set up by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, under the administration of his Secretary of the Interior, Harold L. Ickes. US secretary of labor, Frances Perkins first suggested the plan and was supported by US secretaries, Henry A. Wallace and Ickes, and Postmaster General, James Farley. The plan was accepted when the original budget was reduced.



The PWA was designed to reduce unemployment and increase purchasing power through the construction of highways and public buildings. Also worked to construct large-scale public works such as bridges and dams.



Congress gave permission to spend $3,300,000,000 for these various public projects. During its existence it constructed more than 70% of the nations' new educational buildings; 65% of its courthouses, city halls, and sewage-disposal plants; 35% of its new public-health facilities; and 10% of all of new roads, bridges, and subways. By 1934 the agency had distributed its entire fund to 13,266 federal project and 2,407 non-federal projects.



In 1939 the country's economy started to move into a war economy and the Public Works Administration (PWA) was liquidated.The PWA spent over $6 billion, but did not succeed in returning the level of industrial activity to pre-depression levels. Nor did it significantly reduce the unemployment level or help jump-start a widespread creation of small businesses. However, it did give the government experience in public policy planning. The works of the PWA were shifted to the Federal Works Agency in 1943.