The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) was a United States federal agency established on 12 May 1933 under the Federal Emergency Relief Act, during the first “Hundred Days” of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration. FERA was created by the Federal Emergency Relief Act of 1933, with Roosevelt selecting Harry Hopkins as administrator. It built on the Hoover administration's Emergency Relief and Construction Act, which had provided federal loans to states for relief programs. FERA's primary function was to distribute federal grants-rather than loans-to state governments, which in turn funded relief for the unemployed during the Great Depression. Along with the Civilian Conservation Corps, it was the first relief operation of the New Deal, and its main goal was alleviating household unemployment by creating unskilled jobs in local and state government. The agency operated until 1935, when its functions were absorbed by the Works Progress Administration and the Social Security Board. For background on the economic and political circumstances that led to its creation, see FERA - History.

Historians and economists broadly agree on FERA's basic operational facts: its funding levels, administrative structure, and termination date are well documented in archival and government records. FERA provided $3.1 billion in federal grants to states and localities between May 1933 and December 1935. By the end of December 1935, FERA had distributed over $3.1 billion and employed more than 20 million people. FERA funds helped construct 40,000 miles of new roads, 200,000 miles of repaired roads, and 5,000 public buildings.

Within FERA's tenure, administrative debates emerged over the proper balance between “work relief” (paid employment on public projects) and “direct relief” (cash or in-kind assistance, sometimes called “the dole”). FERA initially offered short-term subsistence support rather than job creation, distinguishing it from work relief agencies like the National Recovery Administration and the Public Works Administration. Roosevelt and Hopkins came to view direct cash payments as cheaper than jobs programs but psychologically less beneficial to recipients, who preferred employment for reasons of morale. This tension led to creation of the Civil Works Administration in November 1933 as a work-relief supplement, and later shaped the design of the WPA. By 1935, FERA officials strongly favored work relief for able-bodied recipients, but during the first half of that year less than half of relief cases actually received work relief wages, with the remainder receiving direct relief.

Active areas of historical debate include FERA's effectiveness at the state level, the degree of political interference in fund distribution, and its treatment of specific populations. State-level administration varied considerably; in North Carolina, for instance, FERA's design and low per-capita grants are described as having failed to meaningfully ease the effects of the Depression in that state. In Oklahoma, federal administrators removed Governor William Murray from his oversight role over allegations of corruption and quota failures, reflecting broader friction between federal relief priorities and state political control. See fera-effectiveness-debate and fera-state-administration-debate.

• New Deal liberal / institutionalist viewpoint - Holds that FERA was a necessary and largely successful innovation, establishing the principle that the federal government bears responsibility for citizens' economic welfare during crises, and laying groundwork for later programs like the WPA and Social Security. See fera-new-deal-liberal-viewpoint.
• Limited-government / fiscal conservative viewpoint - Holds that FERA represented an unprecedented and constitutionally questionable expansion of federal authority into a domain previously reserved to states, localities, and private charity, and that its work-relief wage floors and bureaucratic overhead distorted local labor markets. See fera-limited-government-viewpoint.
• Administrative-efficiency critical viewpoint - Holds that FERA's design was structurally flawed regardless of its goals: grant formulas were inconsistent, state capacity varied widely, and the program was politically vulnerable to capture by state officials, as illustrated by the Oklahoma and North Carolina cases. See fera-administrative-critique-viewpoint.
• Social-work/professionalization viewpoint - Holds that FERA's lasting significance lies in its role in professionalizing American social work, establishing casework standards, and training a generation of administrators (including via figures like Hopkins) who shaped subsequent federal welfare policy. See fera-social-work-professionalization-viewpoint.
• Self-reliance / dependency-skeptical viewpoint - Holds that direct relief, even when well-intentioned, risked undermining individual initiative and self-sufficiency, a concern reportedly shared at the time by some recipients themselves and by Roosevelt, who is recorded as wanting to “quit this business” of direct relief. See fera-dependency-skeptical-viewpoint.

• Dispute over Oklahoma Governor William H. Murray's control of FERA fund distribution, which led to federal administrators removing him from oversight amid charges of corruption and failure to meet employment quotas. See fera-oklahoma-murray-controversy.

• History: FERA - History
• Debate: fera-effectiveness-debate
• Debate: fera-state-administration-debate
• Viewpoint: fera-new-deal-liberal-viewpoint
• Viewpoint: fera-limited-government-viewpoint
• Viewpoint: fera-administrative-critique-viewpoint
• Viewpoint: fera-social-work-professionalization-viewpoint
• Viewpoint: fera-dependency-skeptical-viewpoint
• Controversy: fera-oklahoma-murray-controversy
• Related Main Topic: New Deal
• Related Main Topic: works-progress-administration
• Related Main Topic: civil-works-administration
• Related Main Topic: Great Depression

1. Frances T. Bourne, *Administrative History of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the Civil Works Administration, and the Works Progress Administration* (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior Archives, n.d.), cited in “Federal Emergency Relief Act (1933),” Living New Deal, accessed June 26, 2026, https://livingnewdeal.org/glossary/federal-emergency-relief-administration-fera-1933-1935/.
2. John P. Deeben, “The Correspondence Files of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, 1933-1936,” *Prologue* 44, no. 2 (Fall 2012), National Archives, https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2012/fall/fera.html.
3. “Federal Emergency Relief Administration,” North Carolina History Project, accessed June 26, 2026, https://northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/federal-emergency-relief-administration/.
4. “Federal Emergency Relief Administration,” Encyclopedia.com, accessed June 26, 2026, https://www.encyclopedia.com/economics/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/federal-emergency-relief-administration-fera.
5. “Federal Emergency Relief Administration,” Research Starters, EBSCO, accessed June 26, 2026, https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/politics-and-government/federal-emergency-relief-administration.
6. “Federal Emergency Relief Administration,” Wikipedia, last modified 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Emergency_Relief_Administration.