Progressive Direct Policies
Progressive policies are those which are supportive of the rights of workers, women and minorities, which emphasize the centrality of government in enforcing regulation of capital and labor markets, and which encourage equality, fairness and sustainability as guiding principles.
Other People Are Reading
-
Rights for Workers, Women and Minorities
-
Improvements in conditions for workers (such as child labor laws), the establishment of unions (such as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters) and women's suffrage characterized the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These reforms were continued under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal policies of the 1930s (for instance, through the establishment of a federal minimum wage). During the Civil Rights Era of the 1950s and '60s, progressives championed the enfranchisement of blacks and other minorities and the cause of equal rights for women.
Social Safety Net
-
Progressives are also defined by their advocacy of a "social safety net" for the poor, elderly, disabled, children and other vulnerable populations. During the Great Depression, FDR's progressive coalition passed legislation creating Social Security, which provided a guaranteed pension for retirees and insurance for workers in case of unemployment.
Social welfare programs were expanded in the 1960s under President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, most notably through the establishment of Medicare and Medicaid, federal health insurance programs for the poor, disabled and elderly.
-
Government Regulation of Corporations
-
President Theodore Roosevelt gave the progressive movement its characteristic emphasis on government regulation, establishing the Department of Commerce and Labor and deploying his attorney general to aggressively pursue cases against market-monopolizing trusts. FDR took action to regulate and stabilize the banking and finance industries by creating the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. During the 1960s, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was established with the power to regulate hiring standards and prevent discrimination in the workplace.
Environmental Protections and Sustainability
-
Conservation of natural resources was one of the hallmarks of the Progressive Era, with President Theodore Roosevelt setting aside more than 170 million acres of national parks, wildlife preserves and natural monuments. During the late '60s and early '70s, when the modern environmental movement was born, many important reforms were passed by progressives under Republican President Richard Nixon, who signed the law creating the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as the Clean Air and Clean Water acts.
Education and Public Infrastructure
-
The twin causes of public education and a central role for the government in building and maintaining public infrastructure are also important policies for progressives. One of the greatest achievements of progressives with respect to public education was the GI Bill signed by FDR in 1944, which provided funding for returning veterans to attend college.
The New Deal era was also a period of rapid growth of public infrastructure, due in large part to federal employment programs such as the Works Progress Administration (WPA). During this period, famous landmarks were designed and built such as the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles and Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood.
-
References
Resources
- Photo Credit FDR Memorial, Washington DC - USA image by p_gangler from Fotolia.com
