The New Deal: Relief, Institutions & Constitutional Debate — Practice · Grade 11 Social Studies

Chapter: The 1920s, Depression & New Deal

What this practice covers

By the end of The New Deal: Relief, Institutions & Constitutional Debate you should be able to:

6 questions, written answer, each with a worked explanation.

Vocabulary used: context, evidence, interpretation, relief, recovery.

Problem 1

Why can one public project have relief, recovery, and longer-term functions?
Answer and explanation

The same project can supply short-term employment, increase spending, and build durable infrastructure. Classifying a project as relief or recovery is a way to identify a mechanism rather than a rule that each measure fits only one box. Explain which evidence would assess each function separately.

Problem 2

Why must original Social Security occupational exclusions be described precisely?
Answer and explanation

The original retirement system, unemployment arrangements, and public assistance provisions did not have identical coverage. Agricultural and domestic-work exclusions from covered employment had unequal effects. Do not describe them as a statute explicitly excluding all Black people or all women, or assume later coverage was unchanged.

Problem 3

Why does invalidation of one measure not describe the whole New Deal?
Answer and explanation

Supreme Court challenges concerned particular programs and sources of federal authority. Roosevelt’s 1937 court-expansion proposal was not adopted as proposed; disagreement about institutional independence accompanied policy debate. A decision invalidating one measure did not invalidate the whole New Deal.

Problem 4

How can a lasting institution matter without ending the Depression alone?
Answer and explanation

Employment, output, security, rights, and administrative capacity can change at different rates. Compare gains and limits using the same criteria. A lasting institution can be important even if it did not end the downturn by itself, while partial recovery does not prove every program worked equally well.

Problem 5

Illustrative policy comparison: plan A provides temporary cash to eligible households; plan B hires some unemployed adults to build public facilities. Both have limited budgets, and eligibility rules are unspecified. Explain a benefit and a limitation of each, then identify information required to compare access fairly.
Answer and explanation

Neither label establishes universal superiority. The designs address different needs and constraints. A justified comparison needs access rules, costs, timing, and evidence of household outcomes; accept different priorities when the reasoning is explicit.

Cash can meet varied immediate needs but depends on eligibility and benefit size.

Jobs provide earnings and infrastructure but may exclude people unable to take the work.

Compare budgets, coverage, administration, and local need.

Response criteria

  • Describe the historical context and institutions accurately.
  • Connect relevant evidence to an explained conclusion.
  • Represent particular perspectives without stereotypes or invented testimony.
  • Identify an evidentiary limitation or a distinction that qualifies the claim.

Problem 6

Why should occupational exclusion and racial exclusion be distinguished even when their effects were unequal?
Answer and explanation

The statutory category describes a specific mechanism, while occupational segregation explains its unequal distribution. Both matter. Describe the initial covered work and the workers disproportionately affected, then examine administration and later changes rather than substituting an inaccurate blanket rule.

Response criteria

  • Describe the historical context and institutions accurately.
  • Connect relevant evidence to an explained conclusion.
  • Represent particular perspectives without stereotypes or invented testimony.
  • Identify an evidentiary limitation or a distinction that qualifies the claim.

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