# data[].attributes.body
Interested in earning a paycheck? Providing electricity to rural areas? Having the dignity of daily work? This act could benefit you! Workers...
- put up power poles
- set up power lines
- build substations
- repair lines during outages
- cut trees and brush around lines

# data[].attributes.body
Many electric companies that formed due to the REA are still around today. Vernon Electric Cooperative is one of these.  After the first loan application was approved by the REA, construction of lines began on July 6, 1937. The first farms in Vernon County were energized on January 21, 1938.

# data[].attributes.body
The government is starting to put thousands of people to work all over the country to stabilize the economy and lower unemployment. Our government is no longer taking a passive approach to the struggle. The U. S. government is trying to "elevate the condition of men-to lift artificial weights from all shoulders-to give everyone a fair chance in the race of life." This is a quote from Abraham Lincoln about the Homestead Act also characterizes the REA. The government's goal was to increase the quality of life for citizens of rural areas by providing them with available electricity.

# data[].attributes.body
The Rural Electrification Act is considered one of the most important pieces of legislation resulting from President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal.
Areas that have been considered "dark" are being given power and light.

# data[].attributes.body
Farmers and groups of people looking for work.

People in rural and low-population areas.

POWER benefits anyone!

# data[].attributes.body
The Rural Electrification Act is funded by state and local governments. The REA allows loans to be given new electric cooperatives.

# data[].attributes.body
The Rural Electrification Act was created to give rural areas power.
Big electric companies would not expand into these rural areas because they could not profit.
With this act, smaller electric cooperatives are being funded to spread electricity into low-population areas.

# data[].attributes.body
The Rural Electrification Act provides federal loans for the installation of electrical systems to serve isolated rural areas in the United States.
Low-cost loans are given to farmers who have banded together to create non-profit cooperatives for the purpose of bringing electricity to rural America.
The REA is overcoming the unwillingness of private utilities to bring power to households, farms, and businesses in sparsely populated regions where profits are low.

# data[].attributes.body
The Rural Electrification Act was enacted on May 20, 1936 by the 74th U.S. Congress.