U.S. Middle Class nearly gone

[BoFox]

-snip-

Yeah, should've said the highways - as many of them were turned into interstate freeways.  

The CWA created construction jobs, mainly improving or constructing buildings and bridges. It ended on March 31, 1934, after spending $200 million a month and giving jobs to four million people.
The CWA's workers laid 12 million feet of sewer pipe and built or improved 255,000 miles of roads, 40,000 schools, 3,700 playgrounds, and nearly 1,000 airports (not to mention building 250,000 outhouses still badly needed in rural America).

That was just 1 year.  Then there was the WPA for 8 years.  It prepared the US for rapid mobilization during the WW2 which would have been nigh-impossible if the gov't didn't actively lay out the groundwork during the depression. 

BTW, interesting historical tidbit during Eisenhower's times (about the area where I live in and drive on I-270)

During the Cold War, it was considered safer to remain in Rockville than to evacuate during a hypothetical nuclear attack on Washington, D.C. Bomb shelters were built, including the largest one at Glenview Mansion and 15 other locations. The I-270 highway was designated as an emergency aircraft landing strip. Two Nike missile launcher sites were located on Muddy Branch and Snouffer School Roads until the mid-1970s.

(quotes from wiki)  

I didn't say that the gov't pulled us out of the depression, mind you.  Not that, dude.  That is - the US wouldn't have risen to the top after WW2.  The gov't kept us from becoming a permanent 2nd-world nation like say, Mexico.