The New Freedom was Woodrow Wilson's platform in the 1912 presidential election, and also refers to the progressive programs enacted by Wilson during his time as president. First expressed in his campaign speeches and promises, Wilson later wrote a 1913 book of the same name. After the 1918 midterm elections, Republicans took control of Congress and were mostly hostile to the New Freedom.^{[citation needed]} As president, Wilson focused on various types of reform, such as the following:

Wilson's position in 1912 stood in opposition to Progressive party candidate Theodore Roosevelt's ideas of New Nationalism, particularly on the issue of antitrust modification. According to Wilson, "If America is not to have free enterprise, he can have freedom of no sort whatever." Wilson was strongly influenced by his chief economic advisor Louis D. Brandeis, an enemy of big business and monopoly.

Although Wilson and Roosevelt agreed that economic power was being abused by trusts, Wilson and Roosevelt were split on how the government should handle the restraint of private power as in dismantling corporations that had too much economic power in a large society. Wilson wrote extensively on the meaning of "government" shortly after his election.

Once elected, Wilson rolled out a program of social and economic reform. Wilson appointed Brandeis to the US Supreme Court in 1916. He worked with Congress to give federal employees worker's compensation, outlawed child labor with the Keating–Owen Act (the act was ruled unconstitutional in 1918) and passed the Adamson Act, which secured a maximum eight-hour workday for railroad employees. Most important was the Clayton Act of 1914, which largely put the trust issue to rest by spelling out the specific unfair practices that business were not allowed to engage in. The legislative environment was favourable to Wilson, with progressive Democratic majorities in Congress during his first term in office.

By the end of the Wilson Administration, a significant amount of progressive legislation had been passed, affecting not only economic and constitutional affairs, but farmers, labor, veterans, the environment, and conservation as well. The reform agenda actually put into legislation by Wilson, however, did not extend as far as what Roosevelt had called for but had never actually passed, such as a standard 40-hour work week, minimum wage laws, and a federal system of social insurance.

This was possibly a reflection of Wilson's own ideological convictions, who according to Elizabeth Warren and Herbert Hoover, was an adherent of Jeffersonian Democracy (although Wilson did champion reforms such as agricultural credits during his presidency, and championed the right of Americans to earn a living wage and to live and work "in sanitary surroundings" in his 1919 State of the Union Address). However, despite this characterization, Wilson identified himself with progressive liberal politics throughout much of his life, in addition to his time as president. During his time as governor of New Jersey, a number of reform laws were passed by the New Jersey legislature and signed by Wilson. This included laws providing “for at least one-half hour meal time after six continuous hours of labor” and the appointment of commissioners on old age pensions and old age insurance, together with laws concerning working hours and health and safety. Wilson also spoke out in support of legislation benefiting labor, stating in one of his annual messages:

We have done much toward securing justice and safety for the workingmen of the State in our factory laws, our tenement-house legislation, and our Employers' Liability act, but we have not done enough. Our workmen very justly demand further legislation with regard to the inspection and regulation of factories and workshops, and I recommend legislation of this kind to your very careful and earnest consideration. I recommend, moreover, the passage at an early date of an act requiring the railways operating within this State to provide their trains with adequate crews. Our sister State of Pennsylvania has adopted legislation of this kind, and the railways whose lines cross from Pennsylvania into New Jersey actually carry full crews to the border of this State, and then send their trains on through New Jersey with diminished crews, to the jeopardy, as I believe, of life and property; requiring more of the small crew than it can safely and thoroughly do.

In his acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination, Wilson argued in favor of labor legislation, stating that