The changing roles of national government in economic and social issues by

GI Bill. 1944

carolineestep16 — 2024-04-26 18:47:37 UTC

Well before the end of the war, Congress had passed one of the most significant and far-reaching pieces of legislation to ease veterans’ transition into civilian life: the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, also known as the GI Bill. The economy had sharply contracted after World War I and American politicians and interest groups sought to avoid another economic depression this time by gradually easing returning veterans back into the civilian economy. The G.I. Bill offered a bevy of inducements to slow their influx into the civilian workforce as well as reward their service with public benefits. Every honorably discharged veteran who had seen active duty, but not necessarily combat, was eligible to receive a year’s worth of unemployment compensation. Another way that the GI Bill averted a glut in the labor market was by giving returning veterans the opportunity to pursue an education; it paid for tuition at a college or vocational school, and gave them a stipend to live on while they completed their studies.

Advancing Technology. 1950

carolineestep16 — 2024-04-26 19:33:38 UTC

Government and industry allocated enormous amounts of money to the research and development of more powerful weapons. This investment generated rapid strides in missile technology as well as increasingly sensitive radar. Computers that could react more quickly than humans and thereby shoot down speeding missiles were also investigated.

Post-War Economic Boom. 1945

carolineestep16 — 2024-04-26 19:41:19 UTC

As the government poured money into the defense industry and into universities that conducted research for the government, the economy boomed. The construction and automobile industries employed thousands, as did the industries they relied upon: steel, oil and gasoline refining, rubber, and lumber. As people moved into new homes, their purchases of appliances, carpeting, furniture, and home decorations spurred growth in other industries. The building of miles of roads also employed thousands. Unemployment was low, and wages for members of both the working and middle classes were high.

Brown Vs. Board of Education. 1954

carolineestep16 — 2024-04-26 19:47:35 UTC

On May 17, 1954, after two years of argument, re-argument, and deliberation, Chief Justice Earl Warren announced the Supreme Court’s decision on segregated schooling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). The court found by a unanimous 9–0 vote that racial segregation violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court’s decision declared, “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” “Separate but equal” was made unconstitutional.

Obergefell v. Hodges 2015

carolineestep16 — 2024-04-26 20:07:35 UTC

While those in support of broadening civil rights to include same-sex marriage were optimistic, those opposed employed new tactics. In 2008, opponents of same-sex marriage in California tried a ballot initiative to define marriage strictly as a union between a man and a woman. Despite strong support for broadening marriage rights, the proposition was successful. This change was just one of dozens that states had been putting in place since the late 1990s to make same-sex marriage unconstitutional at the state level. Like the California proposition, however, many new state constitutional amendments faced challenges in court. This all changed in June 2015 when the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex marriage was a constitutional right, making gay marriage legal in all fifty states.