The Works Progress Administration (WPA) is one of the many programs President Franklin Roosevelt funded to put people back to work and pull the U.S. out of the Great Depression. The WPA was funded by the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act signed in 1935, two years after Roosevelt was sworn in as president. It put to work over 8.5 million people on 1.4 million public projects like “creating parks, and building roads, bridges, schools and other public structures”.
Nearly a century after the Great Depression and despite pushback from close to half of our elected officials, our government continues its investment in our collective futures. Since President Biden took office in January 2021, he has signed four major pieces of legislation, all in the last (117th) Congress:
* The American Rescue Plan Act (ARP) passed in the spring of 2021
* The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) passed in the fall of 2021
* The Chips and Science Act passed in August of 2022
* The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed in August of 2022...
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