Coronavirus Relief Strikingly Similar to Great Depression Program

WEST LAFAYETTE, IN – Despite a roaring general economy in the first two months of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and the global coronavirus outbreak has plunged the United States into a situation last seen 80 years ago. With the rollout of the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, USDA will provide $16 billion in direct payments to farmers and $3 billion in purchases of fresh produce, dairy, and meat. Purdue University Historian, Dr. Douglas Hurt suggests this is strikingly similar to the Agricultural Adjustment Act in 1933 that aimed at getting money to farm families quickly after prices collapsed just one year earlier. During the Great Depression, the government attempted to reduce the surplus production of seven major commodities while paying farmers to make production cutbacks. The Trump Administration recently announced the assistance program after stories broke about farmers having to dump milk and kill livestock following a consumer-led, fear-based run on grocery stores in anticipation of massive shortages.