What was the most serious economic problem Truman faced?

When Harry Truman became President following the death of Franklin Roosevelt in April of 1945, he inherited a two front war that was rapidly drawing to a close. Truman was very pleased to issue the proclamation of V-E (Victory in Europe) Day on May 8, 1945, his 61st birthday. Three months later, in August of 1945, the dropping of two atomic bombs o Hiroshima and Nagasaki would bring about a prompt end to the war with Japan. One set of problems quickly transitioned into another as Truman had to address the return of American soldiers to their civilian lives and the conversion of a wartime economy into a peacetime economy.

The costs of the war effort had been enormous, and Truman planned to decreased government military spending as quickly as possible. Nobody really knew what the effect of demobilization of the military would have on the economy was unknown, and fears existed that the nation would slide back into a depression. Truman asked his advisers to plan how best to transition to peacetime production of goods while avoiding mass unemployment for the returning veterans. Unfortunately, there was no consensus on how best to achieve this. With the war over, the mood for cooperation in Congress was also dissipating.

Truman was faced with the reawakening of labor-management conflicts that called a truce during the war years. There were also severe shortages in housing and consumer products. Inflation became a problem, rising 6% in a single month. All of this led to a wave of labor strikes in major industries. Truman's initial responses to these problems were generally seen as ineffective. A rapid increase in costs was fueled by the release of price controls on most items, and labor sought wage increases.

Truman faced a strike in January 1946 involving 800,000 steel workers, the largest in the nation's history. This was followed by a coal strike in April and a rail strike in May. The public was angry with all of this labor unrest. According to polls taken at the time, a majority of the public favored a ban on strikes by public service workers and a year's moratorium on labor actions. Truman proposed legislation to draft striking workers into the Armed Forces. This threat apparently had some effect because the rail strike reached a settlement.Truman's proposal passed the House of Representatives, but failed in the Senate.

All of this labor unrest caused Truman's approval rating to drop from 82% in January 1946 to 52% by June. The Democrats suffered significant losses in the 1946 midterm elections, and the Republicans took control of Congress for the first time since 1930. When Truman dropped to 32% in the polls, Democratic Arkansas Senator William Fulbright suggested that Truman resign. Truman humorously replied that he did not care what Senator "Halfbright" said.

Truman was able to work with the Republican Congress on foreign policy, but he fought them bitterly on domestic issues. The Taft-Hartley Act reduced the power of the labor unions, which was enacted over Truman's veto. Truman also vetoed two bills to lower income tax rates in 1947. Although the initial vetoes were sustained, Congress overrode his veto of a tax cut bill in 1948.

Another economic issue that Truman faced concerned commodities where price controls remained. Many producers were unwilling to sell at artificially low prices and farmers refused to sell grain for months in 1945 and 1946 until prices were significantly increased, even though grain was desperately needed, not only for domestic use, but to stave off starvation in Europe.

Because of all of this economic woes, many did not give Truman much of a chance in the 1948 election. Truman adopted a strategy of presenting himself as as a Democrat in the New Deal tradition of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He campaigned for a program of national health insurance, for the repeal of the Taft–Hartley Act, and an aggressive civil rights program. Collectively, he called this platform the "Fair Deal." In an upset that surprised many of the pundits, Truman defeated Republican Thomas Dewey in the 1948 election for President. But in his next term, his proposals were not well received by Congress, even with renewed Democratic majorities in Congress after 1948. Only one of the major Fair Deal bills, the Housing Act of 1949, was ever enacted.

On Friday, February 21, 1947, the British Embassy informed the U.S. State Department officials that Great Britain could no longer provide financial aid to the governments of Greece and Turkey. American policymakers had been monitoring Greece's crumbling economic and political conditions, especially the rise of the Communist-led insurgency known as the National Liberation Front, or the EAM/ELAS. The United States had also been following events in Turkey, where a weak government faced Soviet pressure to share control of the strategic Dardanelle Straits. When Britain announced that it would withdraw aid to Greece and Turkey, the responsibility was passed on to the United States.

In a meeting between Congressmen and State Department officials, Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson articulated what would later become known as the "domino theory." He stated that more was at stake than Greece and Turkey, for if those two key states should fall, communism would likely spread south to Iran and as far east as India. Acheson concluded that not since the days of Rome and Carthage had such a polarization of power existed. The stunned legislators agreed to endorse the program on the condition that President Truman stress the severity of the crisis in an address to Congress and in a radio broadcast to the American people.

Addressing a joint session of Congress on March 12, 1947, President Harry S. Truman asked for $400 million in military and economic assistance for Greece and Turkey and established a policy, aptly characterized as the Truman Doctrine. This doctrine and the related "domino theory" would guide U.S. foreign policy around the world for the next 40 years. President Truman declared, "It must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." The sanction of aid to Greece and Turkey by a Republican Congress indicated the beginning of a long and enduring bipartisan Cold War foreign policy. Future presidential administrations would use similar reasoning to justify actions in Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam, among others.

What challenges did Truman face during his time?

What was Truman's failures?

What were the major issues of Truman's second term as president?

Which of the following was a major economic problem that President Truman faced immediately after the war?