1941: Work Projects Administration

The Work Projects Administration (established 1935 and made a part of the Federal Works Agency in 1939), provides useful public work for the unemployed. It cooperates with state and local governments in construction work of practically all kinds, and in providing public services of many kinds. The state and local governments sponsor such WPA projects and pay a share of the project costs; in general they pay for materials and equipment, while the WPA pays the wages of the project workers.

Other WPA projects are sponsored by Federal agencies. The WPA has done much work for the Army and Navy at forts, camps, arsenals and shipyards. This work was increased when the national defense program started and intensified after war began. At the end of 1941, nearly a third of WPA employment was on defense projects. Projects certified by the War and Navy Departments as important for military or naval purposes take precedence over other projects.

During the six years of operation ending with June 1941, WPA workers constructed or improved more than 600,000 miles of roads. These include chiefly farm-to-market roads, also include city streets, strategic highways, and access roads to military and defense centers. About 73,000 new bridges were built by WPA workers, and 44,000 others reconditioned. WPA workers constructed nearly 500 miles of new airport runways, and many hangars and other airport facilities.

WPA workers have in six years constructed or improved 110,000 public buildings; these include school buildings, hospitals, libraries, gymnasiums and other structures for community use, and also armories, mess-halls, warehouses and other buildings at military and naval establishments. Some of the 22,000 miles of new storm and sanitary sewers installed by WPA workers were for military and naval centers. Parks, playgrounds, swimming pools and other recreational facilities, and storage dams, reservoirs and other conservation works are among WPA accomplishments.

Outside the construction field, the WPA gives assistance in many kinds of community service. It conducts literacy, naturalization and other adult education classes; conducts nursery schools for pre-school children from low-income families; serves school lunches; helps to provide medical and health services for persons who could not otherwise afford them; and assists in clerical and research projects carried on by local and Federal agencies, including those doing defense work.

The WPA also carries on a national defense vocational training project. In June 1941, about 35,000 WPA workers were in training for occupations required in defense industries, and nearly 120,000 in all had been in training during the preceding twelve months.

At various times the WPA program has given employment to some 8,000,000 different persons. During the 1941 fiscal year, the average employment was about 1,700,000. This represents a reduction of about 17 per cent from the 1940 average, and of nearly 44 per cent from the 1939 average. During this year a large number of workers left the WPA for jobs in defense and other private industries; but defense employment did not exist in many places, and there were still 1,000,000 unemployed workers on the WPA waiting lists when the calendar year ended.

WPA expenditures during the fiscal year 1941 were $1,326,000. Sponsors spent nearly $347,900,000 as their contribution to the cost of WPA projects. The appropriations for the fiscal year 1942 (ending with June 1943) were $875,000,000, which provides for an average employment of 1,000,000 needy unemployed workers.