The name given for the economic recovery program initiated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt following his election in 1932. He came to power at a time of serious economic depression in the United States and the rest of the world. The program consisted of applying Keynesian economics of investment in infrastructure, training and public works in order to generate economic activity. Some economists believe an equivalent is needed in the 2000s to counter the current world depression now reaching into the OECD countries.

The New Deal concept is opposed by the Free Market school of economists who have dominated politics since the 1980s. Do the Milton Friedman school's ideas lead to slumps and mass poverty because they opposes the kind of government controls instituted by the Keynesians? If the economy is seen as a kind of thermodynamic system, perhaps the Friedmanite school tries to run it without damping devices to iron out oscillations. Moreover, the New Deal sees the economy as something people do, rather than something people must be subjected to. It has much in common with Social Democracy.

Given the gravity of the current (2008) economic problems of the United States and Britain perhaps a new willingness to think new thoughts is needed.