Editing Works Progress Administration (section)

==Termination==
Unemployment ended with war production for [[United States home front during World War II|World War II]], as millions of men joined the services, and [[cost-plus contract]]s made it attractive for companies to hire unemployed men and train them.<ref name="Taylor"/>{{Page needed|date=February 2016}}<ref name="Adams 1995"/>

Concluding that a national relief program was no longer needed, Roosevelt directed the Federal Works Administrator to end the WPA in a letter December 4, 1942. "Seven years ago I was convinced that providing useful work is superior to any and every kind of dole. Experience had amply justified this policy," FDR wrote:

<blockquote>By building airports, schools, highways, and parks; by making huge quantities of clothing for the unfortunate; by serving millions of lunches to school children; by almost immeasurable kinds and quantities of service the Work Projects Administration has reached a creative hand into every county in this Nation. It has added to the national wealth, has repaired the wastage of depression, and has strengthened the country to bear the burden of war. By employing eight&nbsp;millions of Americans, with thirty&nbsp;millions of dependents, it has brought to these people renewed hope and courage. It has maintained and increased their working skills; and it has enabled them once more to take their rightful places in public or in private employment.<ref name="FDR Letter Terminating WPA">{{cite web |url=https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/letter-the-federal-works-administrator-discontinuing-the-wpa |title=Letter to the Federal Works Administrator Discontinuing the W.P.A. |last=Roosevelt |first=Franklin D. |author-link=Franklin D. Roosevelt|date=December 4, 1942 |website=The American Presidency Project |publisher=Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley |access-date=2021-04-10}}</ref></blockquote>

Roosevelt ordered a prompt end to WPA activities to conserve funds that had been appropriated. Operations in most states ended February 1, 1943. With no funds budgeted for the next fiscal year, the WPA ceased to exist after June 30, 1943.<ref name="FDR Letter Terminating WPA"/>