icity. The TVA also produced cheap fertilizers. As a result, the standard of living of the people in its area steadily improved. The TVA was seen as a direct threat to the countrys private-power companies, and it was not imitated elsewhere, although the Roosevelt administration did build dams and power plants in the West.The most far-reaching of the New Deal reform measures was the Social Security Act of 1935. During the first two years of Roosevelts presidency a commission studied the problems caused by unemployment, old age, and physical disability and sought to determine the part that should be played by the federal government in alleviating these problems. Unemployment insurance, financed by a federal payroll tax paid in equal parts by employers and employees, was established as a joint federal-state program. An old-age pension system was set up to be administered by the federal government and financed by taxes on both employers and employees. Other provisions of the Social Security Act provided federal money to encourage the states to care for dependent children and the blind. The Social Security Act did not include health insurance because the commission and the president considered that its inclusion would jeopardize the passage of the act After the National Industrial Recovery Act was declared unconstitutional, Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act, which guaranteed to workers the right to organize and bargain collectively, free from interference by employers. The act set up the National Labor Relations Board as an independent agency. The board was a major force assisting the rapid growth of trade unions in the New Deal era. By statute it was required to be in favor of labor, and it played its role with enthusiasm. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was the last important act of the New Deal. This measure set a minimum wage and a limit to the hours worked. It was moderate in its provisions, gradual in its applicatio...
