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| Long title | An Act to encourage national industrial recovery, to foster fair competition, and to provide for the construction of certain useful public works and for other purposes. |
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| Acronyms (colloquial) | NIRA |
| Enacted by | the 73rd United States Congress |
| Effective | June 16, 1933 |
| Citations | |
| Public law | Pub. L. 73–67 |
| Statutes at Large | 48 Stat. 195 |
| Legislative history | |
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| United States Supreme Court cases | |
The National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA) was a US labor law and consumer law passed by the 73rd US Congress to authorize the president to regulate industry for fair wages and prices that would stimulate economic recovery. It also established a national public works program known as the Public Works Administration (PWA). The National Recovery Administration (NRA) portion was widely hailed in 1933, but by 1934 business opinion of the act had soured.
The legislation was enacted in June 1933 during the Great Depression as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal legislative program. Section 7(a) of the bill, which protected collective bargaining rights for unions, proved contentious (especially in the Senate). Congress eventually enacted the legislation and President Roosevelt signed the bill into law on June 16, 1933. The Act had two main titles (sections). Title I was devoted to industrial recovery, authorizing the promulgation of industrial codes of fair competition, guaranteed trade union rights, permitted the regulation of working standards, and regulated the price of certain refined petroleum products and their transportation. Title II established the Public Works Administration, outlined the projects and funding opportunities it could engage in. Title II also provided funding for the Act.
The act was implemented by the NRA and the PWA. Large numbers of regulations were generated under the authority granted to the NRA by the Act, which led to a significant loss of business support for the legislation. NIRA was set to expire in June 1935, but in a major constitutional ruling the Supreme Court held Title I of the Act unconstitutional on May 27, 1935, in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States.
The National Industrial Recovery Act is widely considered a policy failure, both in the 1930s and by historians today. Disputes over the reasons for this failure continue. Among the suggested causes are that the act promoted economically harmful monopolies, lacked critical support from the business community, and that it was poorly administered. The NIRA had no mechanisms for handling these problems, which led Congress to pass the National Labor Relations Act in 1935. The act was also a major force behind a major modification of the law criminalizing making false statements.