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Podcast: New Books in Public Policy
Episode: A. Mechele Dickerson, "The Middle-Class New Deal: Restoring Upward Mobility and the American Dream" (U California Press, 2026)
Description: 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: Restoring Upward Mobility and the American Dream (U California Press, 2026) breaks down the policies that have dec...