National Industrial Recovery Act

The National Industrial Recovery Act was part of the New Deal pushed through President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression.

Enacted on June 16, 1933, supposedly to alleviate unemployment, the law authorized the federal government to impose "codes of fair competition" as sought by big business and trade groups. More than 700 such codes were promulgated to regulate so-called fair delaing with customers and to set limits on hours, wages and collective bargaining.

The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously struck down one of these codes, the Live Poultry Code, in A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States. In response, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposed his unsuccessful court packing scheme.