Available From UC Press

The Middle-Class New Deal

Restoring Upward Mobility and the American Dream

A. Mechele Dickerson

An expansive policy blueprint for meaningfully expanding the middle class for the first time in a century

The US middle class was a product of state and federal policies, enacted in the wake of the Great Depression. But since the 1980s, lawmakers have undermined what they once built, shredding the social safety net and instituting laws that virtually guarantee downward mobility for all but the most privileged. How can we restore what has been lost?

Rigorous and highly readable, The Middle-Class New Deal breaks down the policies that have decimated working families and proposes reforms to reverse this trend. As Mechele Dickerson shows, part of the problem is that politicians disingenuously conflate the middle class with the “White lower rich.” Such propaganda hides how state and federal lawmakers consistently favor education, labor, housing, and consumer-credit laws that erode the bank accounts of lower- and middle-income people—especially those who are not White and don’t have college degrees. Weaving together the latest research with the personal stories of Americans struggling to make ends meet, Dickerson provides a clarion call for political leaders to enact a bold agenda like the one that created the middle class almost a century ago.

A. Mechele Dickerson is Arthur L. Moller Chair in Bankruptcy Law and Practice at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law and author of Homeownership and America’s Financial Underclass.

“We are at a moment of reckoning as a country, and this bold and ambitious book should be at the center of the conversation on what can be done to make the American Dream more realistic for the many—not just the few. The Middle-Class New Deal will build an army of converts and allies for the policy revolution Dickerson bravely champions.”—Dorothy Brown, author of The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans—and How We Can Fix It

"Mechele Dickerson’s book sounds the clarion call for the beleaguered middle class. In unblinking terms, she exposes how working families who once had adequate incomes increasingly must pay for their basic expenses with credit. The stability of those households—and our country—depends on heeding her call."—Patricia A. McCoy, author of Sharing Risk: The Path to Economic Well-Being for All

“Powerfully argues that initiatives as bold and comprehensive as the New Deal are the only way to salvage a precarious middle class—and to ensure access for marginalized households historically excluded from gains. A must-read.”—Chrystin Ondersma, author of Dignity not Debt: An Abolitionist Approach to Economic Justice

308 pp.6 x 9Illus: 8 b/w figures

9780520423398$24.95|£21.00Paper

Jan 2026