"[The COVID-19 crisis] wouldn't be the first time America has resorted to large-scale fiscal stimulus in a peacetime emergency. The New Deal of the 1930s, a response to the Great Depression, is probably the most far-reaching example." (Katia Dmitrieva, "The Times America Went Big and Flooded Economy…
It's been 11 weeks since Congress passed the CARES Act, which, among its many other provisions, established the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Nearly three-quarters of U.S. small businesses have so far availed themselves of this program. But it turns out that fewer small businesses got a PPP…
"Under the New Deal, the US economy grew at rapid rates, even for an economy in recovery." (Eric Rauchway, The Money Makers, p. 100.) Before I start telling you what "the New Deal" did and didn't do, I had better make clear what I mean by the…
(The response to a recent Twitter string of mine, concerning a column on the New Deal by Noah Smith, mentioned below, suggests that many people would like to learn more about critical assessments of the New Deal by economists and economic historians. With their interest in mind,…
This question has gained new urgency as the federal government scrambles to bring emergency funding to millions of small businesses across the country under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The PPP consists of forgivable loans that borrowers may use to cover employee payroll, rent, and utilities for…