I once read an article written by a guy that worked on the Golden Gate Bridge in 1935. This was one of many WPA projects the Fed govt had started to create jobs. He was quick to point out that there was a big camp of workers waiting for someone on the GG Bridge project to die so that one from the camp could take his place.
His point was that WPA was at best a band-aid and that there were still tons of people unemployed. Then he points out that by 1940 unemployment was almost zero due to war related industry for feeding the European theater. Then the US entered and that was that for the Depression.
