Which U.S. president completely took the U.S. dollar off the gold standard?

The government held the $35 per ounce of gold price until August 15, 1971, when President Richard Nixon announced that the United States would no longer convert dollars to gold at a fixed value, thus completely abandoning the gold standard.

To help combat the Great Depression, mounting unemployment, and spiraling deflation in the early 1930s, the U.S. government found it could do little to stimulate the economy. To deter people from cashing in deposits and depleting the gold supply, the U.S. and other governments had to keep interest rates high, but that made it too expensive for people and businesses to borrow money. So in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt cut the dollar’s ties with gold, allowing the U.S. government to pump money into the economy and lower interest rates.

Until 1971, the U.S. continued to allow foreign governments to exchange dollars for gold. Then, President Nixon ended this practice to stop dollar flush foreigners from sapping U.S. gold reserves.