How did some wealthy landowners hinder the government's efforts to come to the aid of poor families during the depression?

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The wealthy landlords significantly hampered the government’s efforts to help needy families during the Great Depression through economic lobbying and other political strategies that upheld the landlords’ interests instead of those of the struggling families. Economic Control A substantial portion of the supply of land and natural resources remained in the hands of the big men, who, in turn, determined the fate of agriculture and labor relations. For instance, significant planters in Georgia fixed high rent and wages for their tenants limiting their access to any monetary relief from their landlords. During the Great Depression, most landlords refused to reduce rent or pay higher wages, thus worsening the suffering of low-income families. This act prevented so many families from being able to afford the necessities of life as their situations became defined by poverty and debt. Political Influence Farmers specifically had a significant amount of political influence, to the extent that they would actively campaign against whichever relief apparatus proposed by the government would try to aid the indigent. In most states, they dictated that the local and state governments favor them with policies that included tax exemptions and incentives. For example, the New Deal policy, the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), implemented in the 1930s, aimed to enhance prices and ensure higher protection for farmers. However, large farmers exploited the loopholes to their benefit at the expense of poor farmers. These political policies successfully inhibited the planning processes, which would otherwise have solved the problems of struggling families. Resistance to Federal Aid However, when the national government initiated such programs as AAA, many wealthy landowners challenged these attempts. Between dole sponging and the exploitation of labor, they starved resources away from those who needed them most. In the South, landowners evicted sharecroppers and tenant farmers who could not pay their rent, making a bad situation worse. This tactic was used not only to hinder the impact of federal disaster relief but also to continue their war on economic inequality. Social Dynamics The social dynamics of the era were certainly a contributing factor as well. Low-income families, of course, were often seen as a potential adversary to the status or wealth of those landowners. They also tried to maintain preposterous land and resource control in order to fend off any future possible unrest or requests for equal treatment. It helped to create a toxic culture that has systematically marginalized people experiencing poverty. Combined with a poor economy where nearly half the population lived in abject poverty, this often meant that the owner of land made his fortunes at any price, even if it was ruinous for those whom he exploited. On some Dust Bowl farms, perhaps laborer families were pushed out to leave regions they had farmed for generations. In conclusion, rich people with lots of land made it hard for the government to help poverty-stricken families during the Great Depression by controlling industrial opportunities and having a say in politics that ensured a lack of aid provided by federal programs while benefiting from social dynamics that were serving their interests. Their actions in taking advantage of relief programs and evicting tenant farms added to the misery that prolonged countless families. Well, it appears now that such complicated entanglement of wealth and power through the prism of social responsibility was inherent in both categories at this difficult period of history—llandowners themselves and that part of starving people with whom they were connected.