It depends on which numbers you use, the statistics you use don't count relief workers which I think is very disingenuous to the topic, and if you use figures that count relief workers it slots in right below 10%. Even using only private nonfarm unemployment it went lower than 14.3%, actually.
Yes halting the banking collapse was due to his PR skills, why doesn't he deserve due credit for something that was 100% on him such as his PR skills? PR skills are vital to a good presidency in time of crisis and if his were such that he stopped one of the worst threats to our banking system than I'd say he's put them to a very good use.
The RFC helped briefly with Banks as well, but that was Hoovers beast as you know.
There were other examples of strikes and labor-management conflict you declined to cite. San Fransisco in 1934, for example, was one rather nasty one that was poorly handled by Roosevelt & Co. He has blemishes on his record for sure. Also the NRA was pretty much fascist and by far the most anti-labor pro-management alphabet agency of the New Deal, so don't discount that in your argument.
The problem with using something that happened in 1934 to say he had a poor record on that, was that it ignores the Wagner Act (1935) which radically altered the balance of power from management to labor, and at least temporarily brought a form of mediation to the constant bickering. It wasn't a perfect system (strikes were rampant and a bit too much power was given to big labor), but it ended the even more unbalanced status quo that had previously existed for 50 years, yes.
Robert Moses isn't the sum of all New Deal beautification and construction projects.
The WPA was not really a continuation of the ERA, but rather the Roosevelt era Civil Works Administration. The PWA (Public Works Administration) was continued a good deal of the Public Works spending that was in the ERA.
The FERA emergency dole was a continuation of the relief given by the ERA, but greater in size and administrative prowess (thanks to Hopkins). This is pretty much consistent with my belief that FDR's brand of relief was mostly a continuation of Hoover's policies, but implemented on a larger scale as well as more effective scale (also its important to note most of Hoovers emergency spending didn't really begin until 1932), and that Hoover was simply the wrong man at the wrong time.
It well known he was merely a very strong advocate of a national level conservation corps (based on the success of the examples you mentioned) rather than its originator. I think I'm missing your point in this here somewhere?
This postulates that US involvement in WWII was inevitable and a complete accident. Thats not a view I can reconcile with. Certainly the buildup and mobilization could have been ordered much later than it was IRL.
I'd say the circumstances and the fact that the country is still here today automatically make him above average, but flawed. I don't think the New Deal got us out of the Depression (sane), but certain aspects of it definitely did something to alleviate the worst of it while the Fed got its house in order and WWII loomed.
