As David Sirota points out the latest right wing revisionist history lie is that the New Deal was a failure and that FDR prolonged the Great Depression.
While some of FDR's policies did not work and some even backfired (especially the policy that caused banks to raise their fractional reserves) the statistics in fact show continual improvement between 1933 and 1937.
These are the numbers:
From the wonderful financial website measuringworth.org:
GDP
U.S real GDP per capita per annum (in 2000 dollars)
1929 $7,099
1930 $6,418
1931 $5,960
1932 $5,152
1933 $5,056
1934 $5,567
1935 $6,021
1936 $6,761
1937 $7,065
1938 $6,769
1939 $7,256
Note that these are 'constant dollars'. As we clearly see, the depression bottomed out in 1933 and there was very large growth up to 1937. Even the recession year of 1938 was 'corrected' in 1939 and the economy per person was slightly larger in 1939 than it was in 1929. Of course, most people still likely felt poorer as in 1929 prior to the crash stocks were worth much more than they were in 1939.
Unemployment
Year Unemployment (% labor force)
1933 24.9
1934 21.7
1935 20.1
1936 16.9
1937 14.3
1938 19.0
1939 17.2
Source: Wiki which quoted from the U.S department of Labor
Amity Shlaes, who I have some respect for, is quoted on the Wall Street Journal website as saying that as late as 1938 "unemployment was as high as 20%", while this is true, it is a bit deceptive. It makes it sound as though unemployment had stayed at 20% since 1933 and hadn't dropped to as low as 13.5% as it had.
While the unemployment rates are still distressingly high in 1937, they had clearly been coming down steadily from the peak in 1933.
The problem is the ones liberals identify: FDR reversed the New Deal too quickly in 1937 in a futile attempt to balance the budget.
Amity Shlaes also makes the point that private sector investment dropped during the Great Depression due to the New Deal. (Private sector investment is the 'I' in the GDP calculation of C+G+I+X-M, C is Consumer spending, G is government investment, not government spending in general, X-M is exports minus imports). I don't know if that is true or not, I've never seen the numbers.
However, it seems based on common sense and a little understanding of economics that it would be true and that it doesn't really prove anything.
During the build up of the Great Depression, naturally much of the productive capacity of the United States was shut down, just as some car plants are idle today. It makes sense that as the economy started to turn around from 1933 on, this already built stock of productive capacity was reopened rather than new capacity built. Reopening old plants, except where improvements are made, does not count as part of the 'I'.
A little knowledge is needed to understand what counts in GDP. If one firm buys another firm's plant, as likely happened a great deal in the Great Depression as wealthy firms gobbled up firms going under, that counts in mergers and acquisition stats but it does not count in GDP stats. Only new business investment counts for GDP stats.
The way to determine whether the New Deal merely replaced private sector spending with government spending as Amity Shlaes and other opponents of the New Deal allege is to see whether consumer spending declined after the New Deal was begun and was replaced by government spending. Again, I have never seen those numbers so I don't know.
That said, even if true, all Amity Shlaes makes is an ideological point, that horror! government spending increased! This is bad if you are a conservative economically and think that all government spending is bad, if you like roads and bridges and sewers and sanitation systems, you would probably disagree with that assessment.