Fair Deal - The 21 Points

The 21 Points

In September 1945, Truman addressed Congress and presented a 21 point program of domestic legislation outlining a series of proposed actions in the fields of economic development and social welfare. The measures that Truman proposed to Congress included:

1. Major improvements in the coverage and adequacy of the unemployment compensation system.
2. Substantial increases in the minimum wage, together with broader coverage.
3. The maintenance and extension of price controls to keep down the cost of living in the transition to a peacetime economy.
4. A pragmatic approach towards drafting legislation eliminating wartime agencies and wartime controls, taking legal difficulties into account.
5. Legislation to ensure full employment.
6. Legislation to make the Fair Employment Practice Committee permanent.
7. The maintenance of sound industrial relations.
8. The extension of the United States Employment Service to provide jobs for demobilized military personnel.
9. Increased aid to farmers.
10. The removal of the restrictions on eligibility for voluntary enlistment and allowing the armed forces to enlist a greater number of volunteers.
11. The enactment of broad and comprehensive housing legislation.
12. The establishment of a single Federal research agency.
13. A major revision of the taxation system.
14. The encouragement of surplus-property disposal.
15. Greater levels of assistance to small businesses.
16. Improvements in federal aid to war veterans.
17. A major expansion of public works, conserving and building up natural resources.
18. The encouragement of post-war reconstruction and settling the obligations of the Lend-Lease Act.
19. The introduction of a decent pay scale for all Federal Government employees--executive, legislative, and judicial.
20. The promotion of the sale of ships to remove the uncertainty regarding the disposal of America’s large surplus tonnage following the end of hostilities.
21. Legislation to bring about the acquisition and retention of stock piles of materials necessary for meeting the defense needs of the nation.

Truman did not send proposed legislation to Congress; he expected Congress to draft the bills. Many of these proposed reforms, however, were never realized due the opposition of the conservative majority in Congress. Despite these setbacks, Truman's proposals to Congress became more and more abundant over the course of his presidency, and by 1948 a legislative program that was more comprehensive came to be known as the "Fair Deal". In his 1949 State of the Union address to Congress on January 5, 1949, Truman stated that "Every segment of our population, and every individual, has a right to expect from his government a fair deal." Amongst the proposed measures included federal aid to education, a large tax cut for low-income earners, the abolition of poll taxes, an anti-lynching law, a permanent FEPC, a farm aid program, increased public housing, an immigration bill, new TVA-style public works projects, the establishment of a new Department of Welfare, the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, an increase in the minimum wage from 40 to 75 cents an hour, national health insurance, expanded Social Security coverage, and a $4 billion tax increase to reduce the national debt and finance these programs.

Despite a mixed record of legislative success, the Fair Deal remains significant in establishing the call for universal health care as a rallying cry for the Democratic Party. Lyndon B. Johnson credited Truman's unfulfilled program as influencing Great Society measures such as Medicare that Johnson successfully enacted during the 1960s. The Fair Deal faced much opposition from the many conservative politicians who wanted a reduced role of the federal government. The series of domestic reforms was a major push to transform the United States from a wartime economy to a peacetime economy. In a context of postwar reconstruction and entering the era of the Cold war, the Fair Deal sought to preserve and extend the liberal tradition of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. During this post-WWII time, people were growing more conservative as they were ready to enjoy the prosperity not seen since before The Great Depression. The Fair Deal faced opposition by a coalition of conservative Republicans and predominantly southern conservative Democrats. However, despite strong opposition, there were elements of Truman’s agenda that did win congressional approval, such as the public housing subsidies cosponsored by Republican Robert A. Taft under the 1949 National Housing Act, which funded slum clearance and the construction of 810,000 units of low-income housing over a period of six years.

Although Truman was unable to implement his Fair Deal program, a great deal of social and economic progress took place in the late Forties and early Fifties. A Census report confirmed that gains in housing, education, living standards, and income under the Truman administration were unparalleled in American history. By 1953, 62 million Americans had jobs, a gain of 11 million in seven years, while unemployment had all but vanished. Farm income, dividends, and corporate income were at all-time highs, and there had not been a failure of an insured bank in nearly nine years. The minimum wage had also been increased while Social Security benefits had been doubled, and 8 million veterans had attended college by the end of the Truman administration as a result of the G.I. Bill, which subsidized the businesses, training, education, and housing of millions of returning veterans.

Millions of homes had been financed through previous government programs, and a start was made in slum clearance. Poverty was also significantly reduced, with one estimate suggesting that the percentage of Americans living in poverty had fallen from 33% of the population in 1949 to 28% by 1952. Incomes had risen faster than prices, which meant that real living standards were considerably higher than seven years earlier. Progress had also been made in civil rights, with the desegregation of both the federal civil Service and the armed forces and the creation of the Commission on Civil Rights. In fact, according to one historian, Truman had “done more than any President since Lincoln to awaken American conscience to the issues of civil rights".