After graduating college, he went to work at a government-run social house in the Lower East Side ghetto, and from there as an administrator on several more welfare programs to the poor.
His Works Progress Administration, the government-run agency commissioning public works projects, became the largest employer in the country during the Depression.
He was married twice, and had three children.
During WW II he helped FDR identify future political leaders, pointing him to Dwight Eisenhower.