I didn’t realize this occurred at this scale. Honest question: why aren’t the USA and Canada continuing to do this? If we are still enjoying the fruits of that

I didn’t realize this occurred at this scale. Honest question: why aren’t the USA and Canada continuing to do this? If we are still enjoying the fruits of that effort today, was it not well worth the investment? Would it not serve the economy in the short term as well? Or perhaps this does still happen, more or less, and I just don’t understand government programs well enough. It seems we have countless environmental initiatives worth throwing people at for living wages. Is the problem maybe that these initiatives require labour that’s too sophisticated today?