A Secure Foundation
People need a reliable base from which to work, participate, care for others, and plan. Security should expand practical freedom rather than prescribe one way of life.
Explore this promiseA modern American compact
A fair chance. A secure life. A future we share.
Freedom means more than being left alone. It means having the practical power to build a life, care for the people you love, and stand up to institutions larger than you.
The Next Square Deal turns an unfinished American promise into ten proposed public guarantees—and shows the evidence, tradeoffs, and policy choices behind each one.
The organizing framework
Three promises for practical freedom
A secure foundation makes agency possible. Accountable power keeps freedom real. Stewardship protects what future generations will inherit.
Freedom from Concentrated Power
Freedom requires protection from monopoly, exploitation, fraud, arbitrary surveillance, discrimination, and institutions too powerful to answer to the public.
Explore this promiseStewardship of Our Future
Every generation inherits institutions, infrastructure, resources, and an environment—and owes the next generation a system capable of enduring.
Explore this promiseThe proposed framework
Ten public guarantees
Each guarantee names an outcome, shows its legal and editorial status, compares policy routes, and makes room for tradeoffs and revision.
Good Work and Fair Pay
Everyone should have a fair opportunity to obtain useful work, earn enough to build a decent life, work under safe conditions, and act collectively with coworkers.
Read the guarantee: Good Work and Fair PayHealth Security
Everyone should be able to obtain timely, effective health care without financial ruin or arbitrary exclusion.
Read the guarantee: Health SecurityA Decent and Affordable Home
Everyone should have a practical path to safe, stable, accessible housing in a healthy community.
Read the guarantee: A Decent and Affordable HomeEducation and Lifelong Opportunity
Everyone should have access to excellent public education, useful training, civic knowledge, and affordable opportunities to continue learning throughout life.
Read the guarantee: Education and Lifelong OpportunityTime and Care for Family
People should have meaningful time and support to care for children, relatives, themselves, and their communities without automatically losing economic security.
Read the guarantee: Time and Care for FamilySecurity Through Life’s Risks
Illness, disability, unemployment, caregiving, disaster, and old age should not automatically lead to destitution.
Read the guarantee: Security Through Life’s RisksFair Markets and Small-Business Freedom
Workers, consumers, entrepreneurs, farmers, creators, and communities should be protected from coercive monopoly power and unfair competition.
Read the guarantee: Fair Markets and Small-Business FreedomConsumer and Digital Rights
People should be protected from fraud, unsafe products, abusive data practices, manipulative interfaces, discriminatory automated systems, and unreasonable digital surveillance.
Read the guarantee: Consumer and Digital RightsA Livable Environment and Shared Infrastructure
Every generation should inherit clean air and water, a stable climate, resilient infrastructure, healthy ecosystems, and accessible public resources.
Read the guarantee: A Livable Environment and Shared InfrastructureEqual Citizenship and Democratic Power
Every person should have an equal voice in public life, meaningful civil protections, and practical opportunities to participate in democratic institutions.
Read the guarantee: Equal Citizenship and Democratic PowerWhat makes this different
From a civic principle to an observable result
The project does not ask readers to accept a value and skip the hard institutional questions in between.
- 01 Principle
The value we want institutions to respect
- 02 Goal
A condition that can be defined and examined
- 03 Policy
One or more mechanisms—not a single inevitable bill
- 04 Institution
Who acts, administers, funds, and enforces
- 05 Outcome
What happened, for whom, and at what cost
Values meet tools
Each guarantee connects a public purpose to concrete mechanisms and responsible institutions.
Law stays legible
Proposals, existing statutes, regulations, services, and international norms carry different labels.
Criticism belongs inside
Serious objections, tradeoffs, supply limits, administration, cost, and federalism are part of the framework.
Sources show their weight
Primary documents, official data, research, advocacy, and criticism are never presented as interchangeable.
History without a shrine
Earlier reforms brought gains and exclusions. Inspiration is not blanket endorsement.
Mechanisms remain plural
Agreement on a guarantee does not require agreement on every program, provider, or level of government.
Historical lineage
Related traditions—not identical programs
The framework follows an argument about freedom and security across eras while keeping each source in its own context.
Square Deal
Fair dealing, public restraint of industrial power, consumer protection, conservation—and profound exclusions of the era.
Economic rights
Franklin Roosevelt’s proposal joined work, health, housing, education, and security to an expanded account of freedom.
Postwar rights
International language combined civil, political, economic, social, and cultural commitments without making them automatically enforceable in U.S. courts.
Civil-rights movements
Movements connected equal citizenship to voting, work, housing, education, public access, and accountable institutions.
The modern framework
Ten editable public guarantees, multiple policy routes, visible evidence limits, and a recorded revision process.
How rights work
The word “right” has more than one legal life.
A constitutional protection, a statutory entitlement, an agency rule, a funded public service, an international norm, and an aspirational guarantee differ in origin, enforcement, remedy, and durability.
Understand the distinctions- 01 Constitutional rights
- 02 Statutory rights and entitlements
- 03 Regulatory protections
- 04 Public services
- 05 International norms
- 06 Aspirational public guarantees
Featured evidence
Start with the record
Featured items are verified for title, publisher, and URL. Every card also shows its role and limitations.
Civil Rights Act (1964)
National Archives and Records Administration
- Published
- July 2, 1964
- Accessed
- August 11, 2026
- Role
- Historical, Contextual, Supporting
The National Archives presentation and transcript of the 1964 statute addressing discrimination in public accommodations, education, federally assisted programs, employment, and other areas.
Limits: The statute has been amended and interpreted through later law and litigation; the historical transcript is not a complete current compliance guide.
National Health Expenditure Fact Sheet
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
- Published
- Historical 2024 data and 2025–2034 projections
- Accessed
- August 11, 2026
- Role
- Supporting, Contextual, Methodological
Official national health-expenditure accounting and projections organized by payer, service category, sponsor, and other dimensions.
Limits: Aggregate expenditure accounts do not by themselves measure access, quality, affordability for particular households, or causal effects of a policy model.
Condition of Education 2025
National Center for Education Statistics. National Center for Education Statistics
- Published
- May 2026, NCES 2026-019
- Accessed
- August 11, 2026
- Role
- Supporting, Contextual, Methodological
The congressionally mandated annual statistical compendium covering education from prekindergarten through postsecondary study, labor-force outcomes, and international comparisons.
Limits: The compendium is descriptive and combines measures collected on different schedules; it does not establish that a single policy caused an observed trend.
Climate Change Indicators in the United States, Fifth Edition
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
- Published
- July 2, 2024
- Accessed
- August 11, 2026
- Role
- Supporting, Contextual, Methodological
A federal synthesis of observed indicators related to the causes and effects of climate change in the United States, with methods and supporting data.
Limits: An indicator report describes observed patterns and supporting science; it does not rank every mitigation or adaptation policy or settle local implementation choices.
Build your Square Deal
Which guarantees would you put first?
Choose up to five priorities, order them, and share only when you intend to. Selections stay in your browser and are never attached to analytics or an email address.
Build your prioritiesUpdates
Research, revisions, and methods
Follow what changed, why it changed, and what the project is still working to understand.
August 11, 2026
Why build a Next Square Deal?
An introduction to the project's three promises, ten proposed guarantees, historical inheritance, and commitment to practical freedom without party branding.
projectframeworkhistory
7 minute read
August 10, 2026
What counts as a right?
Why constitutional rights, statutes, regulatory protections, public services, international norms, and proposed guarantees must be labeled rather than blurred together.
rightslawframework
7 minute read
August 9, 2026
How this project will handle evidence and disagreement
The publication standard for source roles, uncertainty, criticism, legal status, tradeoffs, corrections, and claims that remain working research questions.
evidenceeditorial standardsdisagreement
7 minute read