WPA (Works Progress Administration)

• What does WPA stand for?

  Works Progress Administration
• Which act set up the WPA?

  The Emergency Relief Appropriation Act
• When was the WPA set up?

  April 1935
• How much was the WPA given to spend on public works?

  $45.5 billion ($500 billion today)
• What was the monthly wage in the WPA?

  $52 monthly wage
• How did the WPA help infrastructure?

  It built 8000 schools and hospitals and 12000 playgrounds
• Who headed the WPA?

  Harry Hopkins, an advisor to the President and insistent on equality
• How many black Americans did the WPA employ each year?

  350,000
• When was the WPA active?

  1936-40
• What did some employers complain about?

  That the WPA was so high that black Americans were no longer willing to pick cotton at the normal rate
• How did WPA education programmes benefit black Americans?

  They employed over 5000 black teachers and taught over a quarter of a million black Americans how to read and write
• How much did the WPA's percentage of black workers increase by 1937?


  Increased from 8% to 15%
• What did the WPA impose on contractors?

  Contractors it employed had racial quotas
• What percentage of black workers had supervisory roles in the North? (WPA)

  5%
• How many WPA supervisors in the South were black?

  11 of the 10,344
• How much were work hours regulated to by the WPA?

  Eight hours a day and forty hours a week
• How much did earnings range from under the WPA?

  From $10 to $25 per week, often going to the worker's family