How Farm Aid Became a Fixture (Wall Street Journal)

The Wall Street Journal discussed the history of farm aid in the United States in light of the Trump administration’s announcement to extend up to $12 billion in emergency aid to farmers hurt by trade tariffs this week. Programs to assist farmers have been in place since the Great Depression and have become a fixture of domestic economic policy. In the article, senior research fellow Joseph Glauber explained, “most of these programs were put in place in the 1930s originally as temporary programs. Here we are, however many years later, and they’re still ingrained.

Photo credit: John Vachon/Library of Congress