The New Deal was doubtless more than just unemployment alleviation measures. As Romasco has pointed out, Roosevelt's administration strove to end the crippling process of deflation, lighten the burden of debt, and preserve institutions essential to the functioning of a free-enterprise economy. The activities directed at solving the unemployment problem were only a part of that larger endeavor. But because they sought to bring immediate help to human beings who needed it urgently, they seem to have been watched and applauded – or decried – more intensely than those undertakings that aimed at remedying the situation in indirect ways. They were in any case significant steps on the road of the American nation toward the modern welfare state, and have for this reason justly received scholarly attention from the time of their implementation.

The most important of the New Deal's measures in this regard were the relief programs, the establishment of a functioning employment service, the public works activities, and the implementation of unemployment insurance. The bulk of the relief measures in the proper sense of the word was administered by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), established by the Federal Emergency Relief Act of 12 May 1933. Through this act and subsequent legislation the FERA received approximately $3 billion from the federal treasury for dispensation under its terms of reference, which allowed the execution of federal work relief projects, the granting of funds to states, and other disbursements for relief purposes.