14 million Americans are unemployed and unable to provide for their families or themselves. Hungry children crowded the streets, while men desperately searched for a means of payment. The Great Depression hit America hard in 1929. The president at the time was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and many say he was the perfect man to help America get out of the financial mess it was buried in. Roosevelt created the Works Progress Administration. (WPA) in 1935 to create jobs for millions of unemployed Americans. As head of the WPA, Roosevelt chose his close and trusted friend, Harry J. Hopkins, to lead the program. Although the WPA had its fair share of critics, it helped provide jobs to millions of poor and low-class families during the Great Depression, which not only made it a successful program that benefited society as a whole, but truly united America. the WPA was heavily criticized by government officials. They argued that the money was being spent to finance projects that had no real benefit to the economy. Some examples of this included tap dancing lessons and murals painted in post offices. These government officials created a new word “boondoggling,” which was used to describe the agency's make-work projects as a waste of money. Roosevelt then quickly responded to this complaint that “the high morale of the workers was well worth the cost.” Others in the West, such as Governor Charles H. Martin of Oregon, wrote to Mr. Roosevelt complaining that it was unfair to expect Americans to work from dawn to dusk for so little money, while workers in the WPA program worked for less money and time. . Despite Roosevelt's efforts to end the criticism, federal funding for the WPA has declined over the years... mid-paper... day. The WPA was a promise that everyone involved would be hired and paid. The overall idea of ​​the Works Progress Administration was to give Americans a sense of security and confidence in what would happen tomorrow for their country. While critics may argue that federal money was wasted on unnecessary projects, it is clear that the work of the Works Progress Administration and the WPA allowed the American economy to recover from the Great Depression. He gave the people of the United States something to believe in and succeeded in uniting the country under a common goal: reviving the economy. In 1945 there were few starving children on the streets and no man desperate for pay. The United States had recovered from a supposed sinking, all thanks to the millions of workers employed by the Works Progress Administration and the determination of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.