Why didn't the New Deal end the depression?

The "first" New Deal dealt with mostly immediate measures of getting the unemployed back to work and providing welfare and recovery. As the Depression continued, FDR began to feel the heat of his critics, both left (Huey Long, Share the Wealth, Charles Townsend, socialists) and right (conservative businessmen, laissez-faire supporters, anti NIRA regulations). To combat these critics, FDR proposed a new set of economic and social measures to fight unemployment and poverty, and to provide real jobs to decrease the unemployment rate. Examples of the Second New Deal included the WPA, which was the major relief agency of the New Deal. It was to provide work, not welfare. The major new piece of legislation during the Second New Deal was the Social Security Act of 1935. It provided insurance for the aged, unemployed, and disabled and it was based on contributions by both employers and employees.

The recession of 1937 was proof that the New Dealers had not unlocked the secrets of maintaining economic prosperity during peacetime. Only when the nation began to prepare for World War II, along with massive purchases of American goods from abroad (and American rearmament), did the Great Depression come to an end. By 1939 the economy was on an upswing and by 1940, after war had begun in Europe, the Great Depression was history.