<P> The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) was the new name given by the Roosevelt Administration to the Emergency Relief Administration (ERA) which President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had created in 1933 . FERA was established as a result of the Federal Emergency Relief Act and was replaced in 1935 by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). </P> <P> Prior to 1933, the federal government gave loans to the states to operate relief programs . One of these, the New York state program TERA (Temporary Emergency Relief Administration), was set up in 1931 and headed by Harry Hopkins, a close adviser to Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt . Roosevelt asked Congress to set up FERA--which gave grants to the states for the same purpose--in May 1933, and appointed Hopkins to head it . Along with the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) it was the first relief operation under the New Deal . Basically, it gave grants and loans to states . </P> <P> FERA's main goal was to alleviate household unemployment by creating new unskilled jobs in local and state government . Jobs were more expensive than direct cash payments (called "the dole"), but were psychologically more beneficial to the unemployed, who wanted any sort of job, for self - esteem, to play the role of male breadwinner . From May 1933 until it closed in December, 1935, FERA gave states and localities $3.1 billion (5.54 billion in 2017). FERA provided work for over 20 million people and developed facilities on public lands across the country . </P> <P> Faced with continued high unemployment and concerns for public welfare during the coming winter of 1933 - 34, FERA instituted the Civil Works Administration (CWA) as a $400 million short - term measure to get people to work . The Federal Emergency Relief Administration was shut down in 1935 and its work taken over by two completely new federal agencies, the Works Progress Administration and the Social Security Administration . </P>

In the 1930s federal relief programs in the south