Jacob Hacker

Jacob Hacker
Born	1971 (age 52–53)
Spouse	Oona A. Hathaway
Academic background
Alma mater	Harvard University, Yale University
Academic work
Discipline	Political Science
Sub-discipline	Health care policy
Institutions	New America, Yale University

Jacob Stewart Hacker(born 1971) is an American professor and political scientist. He is the director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies and a professor ofpolitical scienceatYale University.Hacker has written works on social policy, health care reform, and economic insecurity in the United States.

Early life and education

Hacker was born and raised inEugene, Oregon.He graduated summa cum laude in 1994 fromHarvard Universitywith aB.A.insocial studies,and he received hisPh.D.fromYaleinpolitical sciencein 2000.His first book,The Road to Nowhere: The Genesis of President Clinton's Plan for Health Security,was published in 1996, while he was a graduate student at Yale.

Career

Hacker is a media contributor and has testified before theUnited States Congress.He was widely recognized as a contributor to the health care plans for three of the leading Democratic candidates —Barack Obama,Hillary Clinton,andJohn Edwards— in thepresidential election of 2008.Hacker's plan,Health Care for America,is outlined in a report for theEconomic Policy Institute.It proposes providing health care for uninsured or under-insured Americans by requiring employers to either provide insurance to their workers or enroll them in a new, publicly overseen insurance pool. People in this pool could choose either a public plan modeled afterMedicareor from regulated private plans.

Hacker's work with the international think tankPolicy Networkhas had a major influence on the policies of many European political partiesand his concept ofpre-distributionhas become a cornerstone of the UK Labour Party's economic policy and his name has even been mentioned by Prime MinisterDavid CameronduringPrime Minister's Questionsin the House of Commons.

Hacker was a fellow atNew Americain 1999 and 2002. In 2007 he co-chaired the National Academy of Social Insurance's conference, "For the Common Good," and oversees a Social Science Research Council project on the "privatization of risk."

Hacker's 2010 book, theNew York TimesbestsellerWinner-Take-All Politics:How Washington Made the Richer Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class(Simon & Schuster), written withPaul PiersonofUC Berkeley,argues that since the late 1970s the American middle and working classes have fallen further and further behind economically because policy changes in government favor the rich and super-rich.

Their 2016 bookAmerican Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosperargues for the restoration and reinvigoration of the United Statesmixed economy.

In 2017, he was elected a Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The Economic Security Index (ESI)

In July 2010 theEconomic Security Indexwas launched. Developed by Hacker and a multi-disciplinary research team with support from theRockefeller Foundation,the ESI measures the share of Americans who experience at least a 25 percent decline in their income from one year to the next and who lack an adequate financial safety net to replace this lost income.

Personal life

Hacker is married toOona A. Hathaway,a Professor of Law at Yale University and formerSupreme Courtclerk toSandra Day O'Connor.

Works

• Let them eat Tweets: how the right rules in an age of extreme inequality, withPaul Pierson,New York, NY: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2020.ISBN9781631496844
• American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper.withPaul Pierson.Simon & Schuster.2016.ISBN978-1-4516-6782-0.{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: others (link)
• Winner-Take-All Politics:How Washington Made the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class.withPaul Pierson.Simon & Schuster.2010.ISBN978-1-4165-8869-6.{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: others (link)
• Health at Risk: America's Ailing Health System--and How to Heal It.Columbia University Press.2008.ISBN978-0-231-14602-9.
• The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream.Oxford University Press.2008.ISBN978-0-19-533534-7.
• The Great Risk Shift: The Assault on American Jobs, Families, Health Care, and Retirement--And How You Can Fight Back.Oxford University Press. 2006.ISBN978-0-19-517950-7.
• Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy.with Paul Pierson.Yale University Press.2005.ISBN978-0-300-10870-5.{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: others (link)
• The Divided Welfare State: The Battle over Public and Private Social Benefits in the United States.Cambridge University Press.2002.ISBN978-0-521-01328-4.
• The Road to Nowhere: The Genesis of President's Clinton's Plan for Health Security.Princeton University Press.1996.ISBN978-0-691-04423-1.

See also

• Pre-distribution
• Policy Network

External links

• Jacob Hacker on his new bookWinner-Take-All Politics- video interview byDemocracy Now!