"Every segment of our population, and every individual, has a right to expect from his government a fair deal," Truman announced in his annual message to Congress in January 1949. Buoyed by the election victory in November 1948, Truman, now president in his own right, and the liberal Democrats in Congress were determined to pass progressive policies that had been stalled by Republicans.
Extension of the New Deal
In many ways, the Fair Deal was an enhancement of the New Deal. Social Security was amended to include domestic and household employees, non-profit workers, and the self-employed, adding 10 million new beneficiaries and increasing benefits by an average of 77.5%. The Fair Labor Standards Act was also amended, increasing the minimum wage from $.40 to $.75 an hour. However, Truman failed to repeal the Taft-Hartley Act, which curtailed labor union power.
Another New Deal program, the Tennessee Valley Authority, received a higher appropriation, along with the Rural Electrification Administration. In addition, Truman won more funding for the Reclamation Bureau's hydroelectric, water control, and irrigation projects in the west. But Truman failed to pass like-minded projects for the Saint Lawrence Seaway and a Missouri Valley Authority.
Housing Act of 1949
Truman spelled out the dire situation in housing, "Five million families are still living in slums and firetraps. Three million families share their homes with others." Enacted to rectify this, the Housing Act of 1949 provided for slum clearance programs associated with urban renewal, allowed the Federal Housing Administration to insure mortgages, appropriated federal funds to construct more than 800,000 low-income housing units, and provided FHA financing to rural homeowners.
The act had some success. Home ownership rose and large public housing projects became fixtures in many cities. However, it fell short of its goal of 810,000 housing units by 1955. In fact, the urban renewal programs destroyed more housing units than it built. At New Yorks Lincoln Center project, 4,400 apartments were built, but 7,000 were eliminated. Social equity was a concern as minority slums were demolished in favor of more expensive units.
National Health Insurance
But many of the groundbreaking proposals of the Fair deal were rejected. Since 1945, Truman had advocated univeral health insurance. The 1949 plan, the Murray-Dingell Omnibus Health bill, called for a small premium based on 1.5 % of an employed person's first $4,800 of income, and it would not be directed by a federal agency or individual. However, the American Medical Association's lobbying campaign played on Americans' fear of communism and it sapped support for the legislation.
Lobbying efforts also scuttled Truman's plan of federal subsidies for education. The Roman Catholic Church complained that the subsidies did not include parochial schools. Additionally, the Brannan Plan, a new system of crop subsidies that guaranteed a farm income standard through price supports, loans, and storage of nonperishable commodities, was opposed by large farmers suspicious of socialism or regimentation. Truman had to settle for passage of the Agricultural Act (1949) which reaffirmed New Deal farm policy.
The Fair Deal was a bridge from the New Deal to Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. It succeeded at extending the New Deal, but its rejected groundbreaking proposals found life in the Great Society. When Johnson signed the Medicare bill, he acknowledged Truman's efforts at national health insurance as the bill's starting point.
Sources
Bailyn, Bernard, et al eds, The Great Republic, Heath: Lexington, MA, 1985.
Link, William A., and Arthur S., American Epoch: A History of the United States since 1900, Volume 2, 7th Edition, McGraw-Hill: New York, 1993.
Robin, Frederick E., "The Case for National Health Insurance," American Journal of Nursing, 1950.
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