structural:scholar_edition, structural:expansion
Reform

The economic reforms were mainly intended to rescue the capitalist system by providing a more rational framework in which it could operate. The banking system was made less vulnerable. The regulation of the stock market and the prevention of some corporate abuses relating to the sale of securities and corporate reporting addressed the worst excesses. Roosevelt allowed trade unions to take their place in labor relations and created the triangular partnership between employers, employees and government.

David M. Kennedy wrote, "the achievements of the New Deal years surely played a role in determining the degree and the duration of the postwar prosperity."

Paul Krugman stated that the institutions built by the New Deal remain the bedrock of the United States economic stability. Against the background of the 2007–2008 financial crisis, he explained that conditions would have been much worse if the New Deals Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation had not insured most bank deposits and older Americans would have felt much more insecure without Social Security. Economist Milton Friedman after 1960 attacked Social Security from a free market view stating that it had created welfare dependency.

The New Deal banking reform has weakened since the 1980s. The repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 allowed the shadow banking system to grow rapidly. Since it was neither regulated nor covered by a financial safety net, the shadow banking system was central to the 2007–2008 financial crisis and the subsequent Great Recession.